When God calls us to obedience, He offers both the blessings of our obedience and the consequences of our disobedience. The determining factor is our willingness to obey His voice.

Moses detailed for Israel the blessings that would visit the nation if they remained faithful to Him. ”The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you” (Deuteronomy 28:8). Obedience opens the door for the blessings of God if the people of God remain faithful to Him. 

There is a repositioning that happens with our obedience. “If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom” (vs. 13). Becoming the head and not the tail will put us in a place where the fulfilled promises of God in our lives will become a witness to the world of His faithfulness.

But there is an opposite outcome regarding our disobedience to the Lord when we are “doing evil and abandoning me” (vs. 20). We will be repositioned by our disobedience. What opposes the will of God will become “the head, and you will be the tail!” (vs. 44). 

In the United States, we can become overly confident in our national defense and financial security. We can begin to think the walls of security erected around us will protect us if we continue to live in disobedience.  As a result of that naive self-confidence, we will be led to a place of great jeopardy. That jeopardy is happening now.

As a result, the enemy of our soul will “attack your cities until all the fortified walls in your land—the walls you trusted to protect you—are knocked down” (vs. 52). What should have been placed in submission to us will begin to lead us. When this happens, a sad epitaph will be written on the line of our national history defining the reason for our demise “because you would not listen to the Lord your God” (vs. 62).