Deuteronomy 28:68 And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you.
Do you actually want everything you think you want? That is kind of a silly question. Of course I want what I want. Yet, if you were to look back over the last ten years and consider what you have and what you don’t have, would you truly be happier if you had everything you thought you wanted ten years ago? In some cases you may say yes, but doubtless, if you have learned anything from life at all, there are a number of things that you wanted ten years ago that you are glad you never got. There may even be things you wanted, got, then regretted.
When you come to Deuteronomy 28, God is giving blessings and cursings. What strikes you when you read this is just how often the blessings and cursings are little more than the fulfillment of our own desires.
For instance, Deuteronomy 28:36 says, “The LORD shall bring thee, and the king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known; and there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone.” Was this something they actually wanted, to serve a god that is not a god? Did they want to serve a god that has a mouth that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, and hands that cannot handle? Yet, that is exactly what eventually happened to these people. Because they would not serve God, they ended up serving other gods, gods of wood and stone.
Verses 47-48 say,” Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore thou shalt serve thine enemies.” Here are these people who wouldn’t serve God with joy, gladness, and gratitude. They would be serving someone; it just wouldn’t be God Jehovah. Instead they would serve their enemies. Everybody serves somebody, and when I won’t gratefully serve the God Who gives us richly all things to enjoy, I will end up serving the very enemy who wishes to destroy me.
Verse 64 says, “And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.” Verse 68 says, “And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee.” The Israelites had come out of Egypt crossing the sea on dry ground, but they would be going back on boats because there would be no supernatural provision going before them. This actually happened by Rome under Caius.
In Acts 7 Stephen is preaching and basically says, “Your fathers turned back to Egypt in their hearts.” In other words, they voluntarily went back to Egypt, not physically initially, but in their hearts. So many times we forget all that God has done for us and provided for us. We become so ungrateful that the very blessings we want become a curse to us and the very things we dread are the things that would bless us.
Serving God is not a drudgery; it is a blessing. Serving idols of wood, stone, silver, or gold do not provide happiness. That is so transparent as we look back over history.
As you look back at Deuteronomy 28, you come to the conclusion that God’s heart for us is good, and if we don’t trust His heart, we can’t expect anything good. Why? It is because blessings and cursings are oftentimes little more than the fulfillment of our own desire. Trust God with what you want and trust Him to do the right thing.