God, speaking through his servant Moses, has been giving the Holy People the laws that God, in His great wisdom and goodness, demanded we observe.

These laws were part of a Brit – a covenant, a contract between God and this one holy and chosen people. This covenant that was mediated by Moses included provisions for drawing near to God by means of the Mishkan and the Priesthood and the Sacrifices that He ordained.

The laws, and the Tabernacle and the Priesthood and the Sacrifices are a package deal between God and Israel. They form the Older Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant. If one part is broken, then the whole covenant is broken.

If we were faithful to God, obedient to His laws, respectful of the Mishkan and the Sacrifices, the Lord promised to bless us with both physical and spiritual blessings.

However, He clearly warned us that if we were unfaithful to the faithful God, and disobeyed His laws, and were not respectful of the Tabernacle and the Sacrifices, we would be severely punished.

You see, Israel was given more knowledge, greater revelation than any other nation, and to whom much is given, much is required, and the punishment is the greater if we fail in our responsibilities.

The Lord lays out for us two potential situations. Verse 3 starts off with “eem” – “if”: if we walk in God’s statutes, which means we practice them in our lives, and if we keep His commandments, which means that we actually do them, then the blessings of God would come in abundance:

• The rains would come at the right time and there would be abundant crops and plenty of food.
• there would be shalom – peace, a state of well-being throughout the Land of Israel. Dangerous animals wouldn’t attack, and our human enemies wouldn’t be able to invade. If they tried, they would be utterly defeated, even by a much smaller force of Israelis.
• The Jewish population would multiply and increase.
• The Lord would keep His this covenant agreement with us, and not withdraw from His obligations to us.
• The Almighty would draw near to us, manifesting His Dwelling Presence with us, really being there for us, walking among us, being a real God to us – alive, real, powerful, helpful, both in this life, and beyond.

That brings us to verse 14, which gives us the second possibility. It also starts with “eem” – “if” but it’s “eem loh” – “if not” – if we would not listen to God, and prove that we were listening to Him by obeying Him and keeping all His commandments; if instead of keeping them, we rejected His laws and ordinances, we would break our part of this Covenant. And the consequences of breaking this very special contract that we had agreed to enter into with our faithful and true and good and righteous and holy God would be most unpleasant and severe.

He would bring upon us:

• plagues and diseases
• defeat before our enemies. They would conquer us, and take our food and wealth.

If these initials signs of His judgment for disobeying Him and breaking His Covenant didn’t cause us to reflect, repent, turn from our godless ways, and turn back to Him, then He would increase the pressure on us:

• He would withhold the rains, so that there would be drought – no crops, no food, and more hunger and starvation.
• He would allow wild animals to kill our children, and destroy our herds.

If these even greater punishments and judgments didn’t cause us to reflect, repent, turn from our godless ways, and turn back to Him, then He would increase the pressure on us even more:

• enemies would invade, and kill many of us.
• plagues would spread throughout our cities.
• hunger and starvation would prevail.

If these even greater punishments and judgments didn’t cause us to reflect, repent, turn from our godless ways, and turn back to Him, and we continued to oppose Him, and be hostile toward this great and good God, then He would increase the pressure on us even more:

• we would become so hungry, that some would resort to cannibalism, and horrifically, eat their own children.
• our cities would be destroyed, our holy places made desolate, the sacrifices that enabled us to draw near to God would cease, and the land itself would be ruined.
• In particular, if we wouldn’t observe the Shemittah, the seventh, sabbatical year, so that the Land could enjoy its God-commanded rest, God would overrule us, and make sure that His Holy Land got its rest. The Land would rest one way or another. It could rest every seven years, if we trusted God and willingly cooperated with Him, or it would rest when disobedient Israel was conquered and exiled from our land. Then the land would have it’s God-ordained rest.

Let me suggest that it is always better to trust God, and willingly cooperate with Him now, in the present, then be forced to do what He rightfully demands.

Listen to me: every knee of every human being who has ever lived, will bow before Messiah Yeshua, and every tongue from the mouth of every person who has ever existed, will confess that Yeshua, is the Messiah, God’s Anointed Ruler, over humanity, and the Lord, the Son of God. You can agree with God now, and bow your knee willingly to Adon Yeshua – the Lord Jesus, and serve Him willingly, now, agreeing with God that Yeshua is Lord, or a day will come when God will force your stiff knees to bow, and compel your mouth to confess that Yeshua is Lord, right before you are sent to the Lake of Fire. Which one will it be?

Sadly, Israel must not have obeyed God, and not kept the Shemittah, the seventh year of rest, because we are told at the end of 2 Chronicles (36:21) that one of the reasons for the Babylonian Captivity was so that the Land could enjoy its sabbaths – 70 of them to be specific, which implies that the Jewish people had ignored this command for 490 years.

• The Lord also warned us that if we still continued to oppose Him, and disobey Him, we would be conquered, removed from our Holy Land, and exiled to other nations. There life would be very unpleasant. We would be weak, vulnerable to our enemies, and terrified of them.

Then, if in the Diaspora we didn’t turn back to the Lord, and begin to obey Him from our hearts and souls, we would rot away and perish like a spoiled piece of meat, or a rotten cabbage, or a spoiled melon. But if the Galut, we woke up, realize that we had been disobedient, unfaithful, treacherous and hostile toward God, changed our minds and began agreeing with God, and confessing our sins, changing our ways, and making amends, then the Faithful One promised that He would preserve us, and not allow us to be destroyed; He would reestablish His broken Covenant with us, continue to be our God, powerful and mighty and strong- so we would be protected; the Eternal One, and the Source of life, so we could live with Him forever.

Le me point us that this chapter ends with a promise and with hope. No matter how bad Israel will become, no matter how disobedient, and no matter how severely we will be punished, and no matter how much, how far, how long we may be exiled, the gracious God will not abandon His Chosen People, not allow us to be destroyed; rather, He will so work to reestablish a good covenant relationship with us, but it will be the New Covenant mediated through King Messiah.

My friends, these words were written by Moses, at the behest of the Lord, 3500 years ago. That’s a long time. Looking back over those 3500, can’t we see with our own eyes, and understand with our own minds, that the Word of God is perfectly true? Hasn’t the history of the Jewish people over the centuries occurred exactly the way the All-knowing God said it would?

Didn’t Israel disobey the Lord, worship false gods, set up a false religious system, sacrifice their children, become greedy and corrupt, and the Northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC, carrying much of Israel away into exile? And didn’t the Southern Kingdom of Judah oppose God, become disobedient, immoral, defile the Temple, persecute the prophets, and the Lord allowed the Babylonians to conquer us in 586 BC, destroying our cities, destroying Jerusalem, destroying the Temple, killing many, and exiling thousands?

The Lord was merciful to us, and remembered us in our exile, and allowed us to return to Israel, rebuild the Temple, bring the sacrifices that enabled us to draw near to Him, rebuild Jerusalem and the cities. But then, 500 years later, the Romans once again destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, killed hundreds of thousands, sold many into a life of slavery, so that we have been without a Temple, without the sacrifices that help us draw near to God, not for 70 years, but for 1933 years, more than 27 times as long as the Babylonian Captivity? Haven’t the Jewish people been scattered to the nations, where for the most part, life has been very difficult, full of anti-Semitism and persecution, and exile from nation to nation?

Think about it: the Babylonian Exile lasted for 70 years – which is a long time. Why has this Second Captivity lasted for 27 times longer? Could we have done something even worse, sinned sins greater than the ones that led to the Babylonian Captivity?

Must not have Israel sinned an even greater sin, when God sent us His Son, the greatest of the prophets, who came bringing good news that the Kingdom of God was at hand, and offering us salvation? Didn’t we turn from our good Rabbi Yeshua. And get involved in a legalistic form of Judaism that cannot save us, and reject the long-awaited Messiah, our Rabbi, King, Lord, and mankind’s only Savior? Didn’t we break our Covenant with God? Hasn’t the past 2,000 years of life in the Diaspora, without the Temple, without the Sacrifices, proven it?

A week before Messiah died, knowing that He would be rejected by Israel’s leaders, and a majority of the people, Yeshua approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! If you only knew who I am – the eternal Son of God, the Savior, the Prince of Peace, the only One who can bring genuine peace and well-being to men and women, Jews and Gentiles, peace between God and men. But now they have been hidden from your eyes. You don’t see Me or know Me. You don’t understand who I am, and the good things I want to do for you.

And sadly, there are terrible consequences for the Chosen People who reject the Prince of Peace and the New Covenant that He brings. Yeshua went on to predict, For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:41-44).

Why would Jerusalem be destroyed? Why would we and our children be killed? The answer is that we didn’t recognize that the long-awaited Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior, the One who is rightly called Immanuel, was with us. And we rejected Him, and broke our Covenant with God.

A short time later, speaking to the Jewish leaders who rejected Him, and were about to kill Him, Yeshua said (see Matthew 23:34-39) to Israel’s corrupt leaders: I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes – Yeshua is talking about His disciples – the apostles and prophets of the New Covenant that followed Him, who witnessed to the Jewish people for 40 years, the number of judgment and testing, until 70 AD. Even though we rejected the Messiah, Messiah would, in His great love and mercy, give us a time of additional opportunities before judgment came.

Would we, during this 40 year period, realize that we had made a mistake, an acknowledge that Yeshua was the Messiah, when we saw His disciples doing signs and wonders and miracles, and preaching the Word of God with power?

Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city – no – most wouldn’t turn to the Lord, and confess their sins, with the result that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on Earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the Temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. The majority’s rejection of Yeshua is in keeping with our rejection of all the prophets, and so judgment would surely fall.

He went on to lament over the coming destruction of the nation: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! Judgment is coming on the nation, and the Jewish people will remain in a state of desolate, which we still are to this day.

But that will change For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ My friends, our house is still desolate. There is no Temple, no sacrifices, no atonement. The Mosaic Covenant is broken, and the New Covenant rejected. Our Jewish people are far from God, and in a state of desolation until we acknowledge Yeshua as God’s Messiah, and say, “Baruch HaBa b’shem Adonai” – which we will say some day, and may it be speedily and soon, and can we say, Amayn?

Speaking to His disciples that same week, Yeshua made this coming judgment crystal clear when He told them that the Temple would be destroyed, and that not one stone would be left standing – the entire Temple of God would be torn down (Matthew 24:2).

Finally, as He was being led to the place where He was about to be crucified (see Luke 23:26-31), following Messiah was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. But Yeshua turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘cover us.’ Terrible, terrible, devastating judgment is coming to the nation, so much so that most people would want to die, and women would be better off never having had children. And I understand that the destruction of Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple, from 66 to 70 AD, was that bad.

Why will God allow Israel to suffer so? Messiah continues: For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” If you treat a righteous and innocent man this terrible way, don’t you think that God will treat you according to the way you are treating Me? For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. And you are not innocent and righteous, but corrupt and evil.

Is Yeshua anti-Semitic? No more so than God, who had Moses write these blessings and curses. No more so than the prophets who said that terrible judgment would come on Israel. No. He understood God’s principles, and the blessing or judgments that come from being obedience or disobedient to God and His Covenant. Prophets understand that obedience brings blessing, and disobedience brings wrath, judgment. It always has, and it always will.

Knowing this, does this mean that Christians should treat Jewish people with contempt? God forbid! They are to love us, show mercy and kindness to us, make us jealous of their relationship with God, and the blessings of the New Covenant. There is no justification for anti-Semitism!

My friends, Israel broke the Older Covenant. Listen to the words of God: Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the Covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My Covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.

We broke the Sinai Covenant – not the Lord. God was like a good and faithful husband, but we were like a bad, unfaithful, adulterous wife. So much of the Mosaic Covenant deals with the Temple and the Sacrifice and the priests and the laws for Temple purity and worship. But the Temple and the sacrifices have vanished, and the priests no longer serve. Adolph Safir, a wonderful Messianic Jew who live several generations ago, raises some perceptive questions: Can you have the Mosaic Covenant without the Temple and the Sacrifices and the Priests? Where is the Older Covenant mediated by Moses? Why have we been in exile since 70 AD? Why has life been so difficult and painful for most of the Jewish people for the past 2000 years?

He answers: “During all these centuries the rabbis have not been able to adequately answer these questions or account for this strange condition that the Jewish are without Temple, Priest and Sacrifices, and that we have been exiled from our Land. It is absolutely impossible for non-Messianic Jews today to keep all the laws and ordinances of Moses, offer sacrifices, find atonement, or draw near to God the way we need to. As a result, we can’t truly understand the dealings of God. And in this spiritual darkness the rabbis have formed for themselves a religion of their own traditions and reasonings, based on man-made and unauthorized rabbinic laws instead of the divinely-appointed ordinances of the Mosaic Covenant.”

But, our breaking of the Sinai Covenant is one reason why God established the New Covenant! In His great grace and mercy God established the New Covenant, based on the life and death of the Messiah, and put His teachings deep within us, on our heart. He promised to completely forgive all of our sins, reconciling us to Himself, so that we would know the Lord personally, intimately. He would truly be our God, and we will be His people.

Believers today are under the New Covenant of the Messiah, and while some principles remain the same (obedience brings blessing, disobedience brings judgment), the particulars are different. No one – Messianic Jews or Messianic Gentiles, Jewish or Gentile Believers, can claim the physical promises of material blessing of the Older Covenant that God specifically promised to Israel. This is a foundational error of the prosperity teachers. They see the blessings that God promises to the Holy People and claim them for themselves.

You can’t do that! You can’t claim the material promises of blessing God specially agreed to as part of His Covenant with the nation of Israel, for yourself. We must understand that there is a difference between the Church and Israel – that the Church is not the same as Israel, and that the Church has not replaced Israel. The promises of physical and material blessing that God made to His Holy Nation, the Jewish people, conditioned on our obedience, can’t be appropriated by the Church, made of up individual Jews and Gentiles from many nations.

Dispensationalism recognizes that God has made different demands of different peoples at different dispensations (periods, times), that there are various covenants with various responsibilities for different groups of people. If we are to avoid misunderstanding, error, false teaching, disappointment and confusion, it is important to understand that God does not promise the same physical and material blessings for faithfulness to us today as He did to the nation of Israel before Yeshua came.

Under the New Covenant of the Messiah, God promises to provide for the needs of His people. He does not promise or guarantee physical and material blessing and prosperity like He did to His Holy Nation. He promises that He will provide for our daily bread, and meet our needs, and we can look to him and trust Him for that. He does promise us every spiritual blessings in Heaven. He tells us that all our sins are fully atoned for. They have been completely forgiven – past, present and future. We are reconciled to God. We have peace with Him. We can boldly approach His throne of grace at any time. We’ve been declared righteous. Sin no longer must control us. With help from God’s indwelling Spirit, we can resist it. We’re given a new nature, remade in the image of God and Messiah. We are God’s beloved sons and daughters, His heirs, joint heirs along with Messiah. We have an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, and is reserved in heaven for us. We are delivered from the powers of darkness, and transferred to the Kingdom of light. We have a new citizenship in the New and Eternal Jerusalem.

We will be blessed with a deep joy, despite our outward circumstances, that is not dependent on those circumstances. We have a peace that passes all understanding. We enjoy extra power and ability to witness. We are blessed with wisdom from above whenever we need it. We have the ability to understand the Word of God. We are protected by the power of God, and will be kept from stumbling, and presented to God faultless and blameless, full of great joy. We will never ever perish, and we will have eternal life. We will be greatly rewarded, even to the point of ruling and reigning with God and Messiah forever and ever.

But also under the New Covenant we are also promised that all who would be faithful to Messiah will suffer persecution and hardship, and trials and that through many troubles we must enter the Kingdom of God . The best of the apostles suffered the most, and bragged about it. To them, it was a mark of faithfulness, a badge of honor, because they knew that if they shared in the sufferings of the Messiah, they would share in the power of His resurrection. You see, we are also blessed with the ability to suffer well.

Rabbinic Judaism is based on a broken covenant. Instead of Rabbinic Judaism, God wanted the Jewish people to enter into New Covenant Judaism, and lead the Gentiles into the New Covenant too. If God found fault with the Jewish people when the Older Covenant mediated by Moses was still in existence, how much more are we at fault when that Older Covenant is no longer in existence, and a Newer and Better Covenant has come, and we refuse to enter it?

For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the Covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “vengeance is mine, I will repay.” And again, “the Lord will judge His people.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!