Okay, why don't we go ahead and get started? We've got a few chapters to go through here. I'm not going to like read every one of the chapters. If we cover everything that I have in the outline, we'll cover six chapters, six and a half. But we're looking thematically at certain things that go together and remember I'm following the outline of the book where this whole big middle section is the law and Moses giving the law again in a context of a covenant of grace and in a sermonic dialogue here, Moses is as it were preaching to the people and the whole book is that genre as we've been looking at it and noticing it from the beginning. So let me just open this in prayer. Father again, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we can study it now how we pray that we would do so not just as an academic exercise, but as a labor of love for you and that you would be working in us to change us and make us more like Christ by the power of your spirit through the truth and beauty of your word. And so we thank you and we ask for your blessing in Jesus' name, amen. Well, last time we looked at God's electing love of Israel, that He chose them, that He said is love upon them, not for anything in them, not for anything done by them, not for seeing anything in them or doing by them, but merely because of His free choice. And we saw also God testing them and God tests us the same way with hardship on the one hand and with abundance on the other and He talked about that, that when they get all this abundance, all the things they didn't work for, they didn't earn houses and vineyards and everything else, possessions not to forget God. And that was the importance of not forgetting Him. They were to continue to obey Him, keep His commandments, get that word in them, teach their children that word. This is how they would avoid falling into gross sin and bringing upon themselves God's judgment. And so they were called to on the one hand not forget God, but on the other hand to remember God. And in particular, remember His deliverances. Remember the supernatural miracles God said to them, remember the signs and wonders in each, remember how your clothes didn't wear out. These are supernatural things that they had experienced. So that was a powerful incentive to remind them that God was with them, that God had sustained them in the wilderness, that He gave them mana from heaven, not only as a miracle, but also to humble them, because that was a humbling thing as we looked at it, it would have been difficult to pick it up every day to eat it. And they got tired of it as we know, but God preserved them. He fed them and they were to remember Him by getting His word in their hearts and minds, writing it on their house, their clothing and all that stuff, teaching it to their kids. And in all these ways God would bless them. So God's given them the means, God's given them the promises, they just needed to walk in it. They weren't going to earn anything. They were already unworthy and sinful, but they were to look to God and God would give them the abilities that they needed to follow Him and to grow in Him. So that takes us to chapter 9, and I want to begin just sort of walking through chapter 9, this first section to notice the stubbornness of Israel, okay? So if we saw last time Israel's tendency to forget, even in spite of all the good that God had done to them, here we're going to see their stubbornness, the first three verses, God reminds the people again of the giants, we've already looked at that, the Anakin, they're two mighty. We can't defeat them in the natural, so this is a good thing to be reminded of, you have to look to God. God will do it, and that's what he says, God is going to destroy them, but a quick reminder in verses 4 through 6, don't think God's going to do it because you're better. Don't think God's giving you their land because you're better than them. That's very clear, right? Don't think in your hearts, okay? Don't really believe it or think this, in other words, that after the Lord has cast them out saying because of my righteousness, there it is in verse 4, because of my righteousness, that's why we're getting the land, don't think that, but it's because of their wickedness that God's throwing them out. The nations have gotten so bad, remember God gave them all mercy and grace, mercy and grace. Everyone is sinful, everyone's totally depraved, but when a people become so sinful that God's judgment falls upon them, and that's what has happened in this case, they're being thrown out because they've gotten to the point where there is no more fear of God, there's no more common grace in them, they're just completely given over to their sins, and that's why God is giving you the land he's telling them. And at the same time, he warns them, don't you become like that, or you'll be thrown out too, the same kind of thing. All right, so don't think God's doing it because you're better, and it's really crucial for us to remember this in our salvation. You remember, Israel is a type of the church, a church under age, and they're going into the promised land just as we as believers, we have these great promises that we're going to go into when we go into heaven and have life, Israel is going to go into the land and have this great life, and so all of that a picture of heaven, but we need to remember the whole time, right, that it's not because we're better, that God chose us, it's not because we're more righteous, it's not because we're more likely to obey, and those God judges, he judges for their sins as he could judge us for our sins, but this is why we should never think this is why God's going to deliver us from our enemies, Satan and the world and our own flesh, because somehow we deserve it, no. We are not more prone to righteousness than those that God doesn't choose, and we need to remember that. The stubbornness of Israel comes out, notice verse 6 and verse 13, therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, this is repeated, right? For you are a stiff neck people, stubborn, stiff neck, you know, you won't put the yolk on you, you stiffen your neck and you won't serve God, and that's verse 13 as well. Furthermore, the Lord spoke to me saying, I have indeed seen this people and they are a stiff neck people, so stiff neck, stiff neck, and we know that's a phrase that comes up a lot in the Old Testament, Israel's stubbornness, and in that attribute what God is referring to is their refusal to obey Him, that they always resist His grace, they resist Him in the wilderness, they always want to turn back to their sins, and so God is pointing this out, again, not to make them feel bad, but to remind them, don't get puffed up and fried, don't think somehow you're better than the other peoples, you're not. I chose you, and my grace is what your hope has to be and not in yourself, and so verses 7 through 24, we get all of this, you know, God reminds them, this is how stubborn you are, and so this is good too. We need to remember our sins and our sinfulness in order that we are constantly seeking God for grace, right, that it's only by His grace that we can hope, to have, that we have hope in God, it's by His grace, His grace alone, His unmerited favor, we don't do anything to get it. All right, so that's the purpose of this, verses 7 through 21, just a litany, a reminder of Israel's great sins, and remember this is one year after they left the promised land, I'm sorry, after they left Egypt, one year out there at Sinai, about a year out there at Sinai, and they stay at Sinai for a while, and this great act of rebellion occurs with the golden calves, and so verses 7 through 12, remember, do not forget how you provoke the Lord, your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day you depart in Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord, again. So this is reminding them of their sins, it's a good thing for us to do, Jesus taught us when we pray, say, forgive us our debts, that should always be a part of our prayer. Remember our sins, we have sins, God's grace is what we seek, we ask for forgiveness because we always need forgiveness, and we're not to be in despair, but that's the truth for Israel here too, but they needed to be reminded of this, how corruptly they acted, they made the golden calves, and we see that here in verse 12, the Lord said to me, arise good on quickly, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt, God always speaks that way when the people are really bad, your people whom you brought out, and then when Moses prays, they'll say, Lord, don't forget your people who you brought out, and everybody's trying to pass off this people, nobody wants to take responsibility for them as it were, I mean, that's a picture of just how bad they are, but obviously that's not the case with the Lord, but your people whom you brought out, have acted triply, have quickly turned aside from the way, and they've made for themselves a molded image, I mean, that's such a gross and brazen sin, here they are at Mount Sinai, and they make a golden calf, and they provoke God to wrath, but let her be should be provoked God to wrath, not proved God to wrath, although there's a sense in which they did that too, but it's provoked. Verse 7, verse 8, verse 18, it just keeps saying, you provoked the Lord to wrath, verse 8, you provoked him to wrath, and again, in verse 18, your sin and wickedness in the sight of the Lord provoking him, so this sin provokes God because God hates sin, and so to do it brazenly in a space like this, to make something as crude as a statue and say, this is our God, when God had already shown him, shown them who he was and all of those mighty deeds, and all the things that he did, as they were in Egypt and then coming out of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea and all of that stuff, they saw all of this, and yet they turned aside wickedly, and so God was angry enough to destroy them, you see that in verses 8, 14, 19, and 20. Notice, verse 20, it's how angry he was with Aaron because Aaron is the one who actually made the calf, and Aaron is the high priest. Again, the contrast here of God did so much for Israel in the name, right away sinned, God's giving Aaron the high priesthood, and he's the one who makes the calf, if there's anything that should be humbling damage, should be remembering these things, wow, we really don't deserve the land. And so this is the way they acted, and what was going on while they're acting this way? Moses is on the mountain receiving the covenant, receiving God's promise of grace to the people. Yes, the Ten Commandments themselves are what's written on the tablets, but those Ten Commandments were emblematic of the whole covenant, that phase of the covenant, which was a covenant of grace. Those laws were not keep these laws, and if you're good enough, you'll be saved. It was not the case, all right? It was keep these laws because I have saved you. I brought you out of each of them. I'm giving you the land. I'm already your God. And so Moses is up there getting these commandments, and Israel's engaged in the sin. The Westminster Divines would call this aggravation to sin, right? When we make sin worse, you know, it's one thing to go and, I don't know, getting a fight with a stranger, right? And you see somebody who does something you don't like and you start punching them. That's a really bad thing, but that's your mother. That's way worse. Aggravation's to sin. The more we receive from God, and then we sin against it, we can have these aggravation. So God has done all these things, you know, and Israel is building calves. This is much worse than Egypt building calves. God didn't do all these things for Egypt. So this is Israel's aggravation to sin. And when they've received, when they've experienced God's goodness and His grace, and that's what the Book of Deuteronomy is telling us. And then we see their stubbornness. So that's at Sinai, 721, 7 to 21, verses 721, and then God reminds them, oh, wasn't just at Sinai, verse 22, at Tabara, at Massa, at Kibirah, at Ta'avah, and at Kadesh, Borneo, verse 23. So they were stubborn all over the place. They were resisting all over the place. They didn't always build calves, but God again is reminding them of their sins. You've been rebellious against the Lord. Look at verse 24, you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you. From the first day till now, you are a sinner. And again, God's not trying to make them feel bad. He's trying to make them humble themselves and not get proud and look to God's grace. That should be their hope. God will forgive us. Yes, we are this sinful, but God will forgive us. We just need to seek Him. We just need to walk in His ways. And yes, we're going to stumble and fall, but as long as we seek Him, as long as we seek mercy and grace, He'll be our God. And that's what they had to remember. This is what we have to remember. That's why I think Deuteronomy such a good book, because again, we're kind of like ready to inherit the world, like Israel's ready to inherit the land. And we just have to walk in God's grace, even when we suffer, even when things are bad, even when things are good as Israel does. So Israel is rebellious. Moses then we see becomes the mediator. He goes between God and man. We saw this a little bit last time. And we see it here in verse 25, Moses acting as the mediator, thus I prostrated myself 40 days and 40 nights. And I kept prostrating myself, prostrating me, falling on my face, humbling myself. So Moses is interceding for the people for 40 days and 40 nights after. And so he comes down from the mountain. He sees them. He breaks the tablets. He goes back up. And what's he say? I'm praying for you because of what you did. And so he's reminding them that he is interceding for them because the Lord had said that he would destroy you and you shall surely die. And so Moses, please with God not to destroy them and to give them grace. And God raised Moses for that purpose, right? We've got to remember that. It's not, wow, Moses is gracious and God wants to fly off the handle. God is the one who gave them Moses. So that they would number one see how much God hates him in his wrath ready to destroy them. But number two see he's provided salvation to them through the prayers of Moses. God is the one who who inspires the prayers of Moses to ask God not to destroy them. So don't ever forget that. And in Moses is Christ, right? In Moses is the view to Jesus. Why does God hear the prayers of Moses because Jesus is going to come? And he's going to earn salvation and righteousness. And he's praying already. Remember Jesus in his divine nature already exists here in the Old Testament. And so it's because of, with the view to his salvation that Moses can walk in this role of mediator, we're going to see a little bit of that in the sermon again where God tells a Bimala who actually is a pretty good guy in the text in Genesis that we'll be looking at. Go to Abraham and get Abraham to pray for you so that you'll be forgiven. And Abraham is a pretty scoundrel in the text and we'll see that. But Abraham is walking in that placeholder for Christ position. He is that, you know, Messiah as it were at that time Christ is in him. And so it's through his prayers that anyone has to go through forgiveness. And that's the case here with Moses. Moses is showing that type of Christ. It's not like Moses deserves it in his prayer. But God has a mediator for his people until Jesus comes the real mediator. So these placeholders as it were. And notice how Moses prays. Look at verse 26. Moses turns it around when God said, your people whom you brought up Moses said, oh Lord God do not destroy your people and your inheritance whom you redeemed through your greatness whom you brought out. Keep saying, God, they're yours, they're yours. And what's that? That's Moses pleading the covenant because God has made a covenant. And that's why he immediately says verse 27, remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Why is God saving Israel because he promised Abraham? I'm going to save your seed. And so remember your promise. Remember your word. Remember your covenant. That's what Moses is praying. He's praying the covenant back to God. You committed yourself to us. Remember Lord. Yes, we don't deserve it. But remember your word. Remember your promises. Remember your commitment. All right. Then verse 27, even as Moses once got to remember some things. Remember the covenant. Remember Abraham. He wants God to forget other things, right? Do not remember the stubbornness of this people. Do not remember their wickedness. Do not remember their sin. All right. Nothing God can forget. But don't treat us the way we deserve. Treat us according to your grace. All right. So no, but notice this. No, excuse me. Right. No minimizing. No, you know, blaming or blameshifting. Full admission of sin. You built a calf. You bowed down to. I should have destroyed you. God's not telling us to minimize our sins. Maximize them. And then we've rightly told the truth. We've rightly responded as sinners seeking grace. Not sinners seeking, you know, to get something because I've, you know, I'm getting a little better. No, this is how bad you are. It's worse than you think. Admit it and God will save you. And that's really the beauty of the gospel, right? It's because where sinners God saves us, not trying to hide it and, you know, maybe we can get God to save us. So verse 28 again,
less the land which you brought us should say because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land. So here's one more incentive, right, for God, the incentives being God's mercy, God's grace, God's promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God's covenant. Yes, don't look, we are that sinful, but don't treat us that way. And then one more incentive. Consider what the people will say. Consider what the others will say. If you don't keep your promises, consider your great name, Lord. If you don't keep your promises, what will Egypt say? Oh, it's because God wasn't able. And so that's a wonderful way to pray too. Notice it in verse 28, less the land should say which he brought us out of because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land. He promised them. And because he hated them, he brought them out into wilderness to kill them. And yet some Moses reminds them, yet they're your people, Lord, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your mighty power and by your express stomach and that faith in God as he prays. That's what we should be seeking. And this is a great model for that. Always pleading God's mercy and grace, his promises in Christ when you're praying. And that should be your hope and your confidence. So, so that's section three. There is real stubbornness at these other places. But then Moses is interceding for them. Let's look at section four. We'll get into chapter 10. And from chapter 10, all the way through chapter 11, I'm calling it the section, God's restoration and recommissioning of his sinful people. So, so this has happened at Sinai. Moses has recounted it for them. Now we get the second giving of the law versus one and two. At that time the Lord said to me, you for yourselves two tablets of stone, like the first ones that you broke and come back up to me on the mountain. And I will write on the tablets again the words that were on the first tablets which you broke and you shall put them in the arch. So, now we get the arch of the covenant, too. All right, so there's going to be an arch that they're going to put these tablets in and God's going to re-give them because because why he heard Moses intercession. He heard Moses. He received it. The mediator had success with God as it were. Moses prayers caused God to re-give the covenant. And this is again, we should see Jesus in this ultimately. Jesus prayers causes the church to be saved. All right, those she sins and shows herself unworthy. That's the first seven verses. Then in verses eight and nine, we get this new thing where Levi is set apart. Levi is going to be the tribe now again to stand before the Lord. So, as he has chosen Moses, now he chooses a whole tribe to be priests. Remember, we are the priests in the New Testament. There isn't that. We have that closeness to God. We go before the throne of grace. You don't need to come to me to pray. You can pray. But Israel did need that. Israel did need the priesthood. You had to go to Aaron to sacrifice the animal. You couldn't just sacrifice it in your backyard. You had to have the priest do it. And again, that's a picture of Christ to come. So, the choice of Levi for Israel's good, the ministry, given to them, and then verses 10-11, God hears Moses and spares Israel and receives his intercession. Again, being reminded of that, at that time, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights also, and the Lord also heard me and the Lord chose not to destroy you. Notice, he had the right to. He chose not to because he heard me again hoping in God's provided mediator. They're being taught this, anticipating the work of the Christ. So, what does the Lord require of you? Well, here we get the love of God. Again, spelled out in verses 12-14. What does the Lord require of you? Sounds like mica, right? But to fear the Lord, to walk in his ways, to love him, to serve him, with all your heart, with all your soul. Not on one hand, that's perfection, right? But on the other hand, this is just having a converted heart. If you have a converted heart, you do fear God's sum. If you have a converted heart, you do want to walk in his ways, right? You want to. You want to be righteous. If you do have a converted heart, you have to love him. Remember R. C. Sproul one time was talking about, you know, what does it mean to to be a Christian? And he summed it up with that you love Jesus. If you're a Christian, you love Jesus. You have to have some love for Jesus. You have a changed heart. You love him. And that's what I'm seeing here in this text. God is saying that they have to have to love him, to serve him. If you love him, you want to serve him, Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. With all your heart, with all your soul, that should always be the goal, right? It shouldn't be well, I love God enough, you know. No, and this is why I keep going back to my sins. The Lord, forgive me, and I don't love you enough, but I thank you that I love you at all. I thank you that I believe in you at all. You know, have mercy on me. Remember your promises. Remember Jesus. I'll pray that way. Remember your blood, Lord Jesus. Remember what you've done. Don't forsake me. I should be, but you've committed yourself to me. You've saved me. Remember what you've done for me. And don't cast off that work as it were, all right? All right, so this is how we've respond and just sincere heart to who believe in, who love God. And then it's again because of God's election, notice verse 15 and 16, the Lord delighted only in your fathers to love them and he chose their descendants. Nobody deserved it. This is what God did above all peoples as it is this day. Therefore what? Therefore respond. Circumcise your hearts. So circumcision here is shown in its spiritual significance, right? Circumcision is a minor surgery done on the male member, but here God's talking about something in it, right? Circumcise your hearts. Cut off the foreskin of your hearts. Cut off your sin. Get rid of your sinfulness. Seek me. Humble yourself. Don't be stiff necked any longer. Don't be stubborn. Don't resist. Humble yourself. And that's the purpose again for recounting the rebellions. They have a lot of reasons to be humble. They don't have any reasons to be proud. All right. But this is again, we should see ourselves in this. And it doesn't take from our glory to do that. This is our glory when we admit our sin and what God has done for us because God gets all the glory.
Then chapter 10 verse 20 through chapter 11 verse 1, I'm calling here, look what God has done for you. Love and serve him. He is your praise. And so verse 20, you shall fear the Lord again with all your hearts. Serve him. Hold fast to him. Take oaths in his name. He is your praise. When we give God the glory, we're in a sense giving it to ourselves because he has saved us and we're giving him the glory and we get to bask in that. He is your God. He's done these great things for you which rise of senior fathers went down 70 persons and God has made you a nation. That's what God promised Abraham. So God in a certain sense has kept his promises. And that's an incentive, right, to go in and obey. All right. So therefore you shall love the Lord because he has done all this. All right. So let's get into chapter 11. Verses 2 through 7 here is again more miracles. You saw with your eyes the miracles God did. All right. No today I do not speak with your children who have not known who have not seen the chastening of the Lord your God. His greatness, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm here at his verse 3, his signs, his works, his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh King of Egypt, to all his people, what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses, to their chariots. How he made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you and how the Lord destroyed them to this day. So here is, again, remember the miracles. Remember what God did. Remember you saw it. What he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place. And of course all the things he provided quail and mana and everything else. What he did to Nathan and Abraham, the sons of Eliab and the son of Rubrum, remember that rebellion. There were Jews and the earth that swallows them out. Remember God says they're going to be destroyed in a new way so that you'll know that it's me and not some accidental thing that Moses again is the choice because they were challenging Moses for the leadership. And so God opened up the earth as it were and swallowed them. And the earth must have, you know, some kind of a local earthquake, whatever God used in the natural, the ground opened up and they went down. But that is said to be, again, remember, remember what God has done. That was a great act of judgment. And so that would have been something to fear. So therefore keep the commandments first eight verse nine. The incentive of long life comes in that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord's war to give your fathers to them and their descendants the land flowing with milk and honey so that the, and then the goodness of the land, verse 10, verse 11 and verse 12, this is a land God loves. He cares for his eyes or on it from the beginning to the end of the year. So God's giving you this land, this vegetable garden, he calls it in verse 10. So this good land is yours. And if you love and serve the Lord verse 13, it shall be if you earnestly obey my commandments, which I command you to love and serve. Then I will what? Then I'm going to give you these blessings verses 14. You know, and again, we understand this isn't earning anything, right? Because their obedience is never perfect. It never deserves it. But God's saying that if you would walk and really pursue me and sincerely seek to follow me, continue to humble yourself, then I'm going to bless you in all these temporal ways. And that's germane to Israel. Israel, remember, has to have a land. They have to have a nation because they're a type of the kingdom that God is going to bring more fully in Christ. But there's a lot of physical things that they need that we can't bring one to one into the New Testament, right? God hasn't promised us a land somewhere and a nation and an inheritance. And you can't sell it. And if your wife doesn't have children and you die, then your brother has to go into her because your name can't be erased. All those things don't apply to us. But the inheritance in heaven and the new heavens and the new earth does. And God has promised us spiritual blessings, his presence, faith, repentance, a changing heart. All these things, God's promised us and nothing can stop that. No enemy can stop that. The world can't stop that. The, you know, our anakeem as it is. Satan can't stop that. They've already been defeated just as God's promising Israel. I've already defeated Egypt and I'm going to defeat your other enemies. They just needed to trust in him and they would experience the victory. So that's what we're seeing as well. So God's going to abundantly what fruitfulness, rain, feed, grain, wine, oil, livestock, all this stuff. God doesn't actually promise that to us in the New Testament. We're not promised livestock. Okay. God, we were promised, so never leave us or forsake us, right? But we are also promised persecution. We are also promised trouble, you know, all who desire to live Godly and Christ Jesus will be persecuted. The scriptures promised that. So we're promised some difficulties, but Israel is is getting these promises in a physical sense. Remember, they're God's people under age and this is the proper thing for that stage of God dealing with his people. This is what had to happen. But so we have God's warning of idolatry versus 16, 17 continually coming in. And then in versus 18 to 21, remember God's words, teach them their children, you know, over and over again, the same kind of thing. Therefore, versus 18, you shall lay up these words of mind in your heart and soul. In other words, this is going to be what changes you. Get my word into you. You know, think God's thoughts after him. How do you do that? You speak and you get God's word into you that you believe it, that you're teaching into your children, that you're living by it. Notice all these things that I think again, we're supposed to be emblematic of the of the reality of getting in your in your heart. Israel made it physical. And unfortunately rested in that. So verse 18, what am I talking about? Verse 18, you shall lay up these words of mind in your heart and your soul. You shall bind them as a sign on your head. You shall be, they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. They had them. They had those tassels and little prayers and they wrote them and they literally carried it on their heads and they had them on their robes and everything else. And that's not what God made. He didn't mean physically literally write my word on your foot and put them in. I mean, literally they didn't put them as the eyelids. That's frontlets for your eyes. No one never did that. But they did have the little box is hanging there and somehow they were confident in that. But clearly God saying your word should always be in my word, rather, should always be in your heart. You should always be seeking to walk in it. That's what these images are saying. It should be like your eyelids, right? You're constantly having my word before you. That's what's going to help you. That's what's going to teach you and bless you. And by the way, don't forget about your children. Teach it to your children. When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you get up, God's words should saturate your life. This is how you will resist falling back into your sins. Verse 20, write them on your doorpost, write them on your gates. I mean, I'm sure you see this whenever I visit folks in the church. You know, you go to someone's house. I love seeing the little like, you know, Lord bless this house. People, you know, the little things that people Christians put regularly in their homes. We have a bunch of them in our home. And it's, we have downstairs. We have a upstairs, a little scripture versus. And it's a great way, again, to remind yourself of God's word. But that's not the point, right? To just do that. You do that, hopefully, because it is in your heart and you want to remind yourself. And so you are making God's word all over the place in your house. And so there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's an actual good thing, as long as you're not saying, oh, look, I just wrote God's word on this room. Nothing that can happen in this room now. That's crazy. Okay, that's not the purpose of it. And that's making these spiritual promises kind of a physical idol. And you don't want to do that. So, but Israel does do that even in spite of the fact that God's giving them this, but it's interesting because God doesn't change. There's no plan B. That's why he keeps repeating himself, right? Don't fall into sins. Humble yourself before me. Remember my word. Speak it. Teach it. He keeps doing it because there's no plan B. There's not, well, if you guys screw this one up, I've got a different version, you know, different way to relate to you. There is no other way. You have to come to me through my mediator, through the sacrifices, trusting in my grace. And that's the way it's got to be. There's no recasting of the relationship. You're saved by grace. Respond therefore in love. Use the means that I've given to you. Make sure my word is in your family and your heart, life, mind, soul, in your children. And you'll avoid the judgment that these other nations experience because they were so contrary to me. So, God's going to give them the land. He's going to give them victory over the heathen peoples. You can see that in verses 22 through 32. Notice how it starts again for if you carefully keep all these commands, which I command you to love the Lord, your God to walk in his ways to hold fast in him again. It's never to be perfect. What's he giving them with this law? The sacrificial law. Why do they have the sacrificial law? Because they're sinners. You know, offer this animal for your sin every day, for your sin every morning, every evening, all of that's happening. So, they should never understand it that way. Oh, if we're good enough, we'll get the land. But they should earnestly sincerely be trying to keep the law. That shows the converted heart, right? If I really want to follow God, I'm going to make that know. So, God's going to give them the land. He's going to give them the victory. They are to keep the covenant. Believe in him. O seek to obey him. Seek the turn from their sins. Continually humble themselves. Remember their sins and sinfulness, but go to God for grace. God will give you the means. Walk in it. So, God has set before them blessing and cursing at this point. Verse 26. Behold, I said before you blessing and cursing. Right? Walk according to what I've said to you and the blessing will happen. But the curse, if you don't obey my commandments, if you turn aside from the way, you can see that image. You literally get out of the way of salvation. You're going a different route. You go after other gods, then it, you know, it shall be. When you get into the land, you're going to actually do this ceremony. Mount Gerasim and Mount Ebald. It hasn't happened yet, but God's telling them. And we remember that in the book of Joshua, where half of the people get on one mountain and half on the other. And one half cite all the blessings of the covenant. Obey God. And the other half cite all the cursings of the covenant, if you don't obey God. So, God's already anticipating. He's saying, I'm going to do this again. Why? Just again to remind them. Continue to remind them. Remind them. Remind them of their grace from God, and yet not to fall away. All right. So, you get the covenant. Blessings. And then at the end of the chapter, in the first verse of chapter one, it's interesting to me. This is kind of really the way that you would speak to a child, right? This is the way you speak to a child, if you look at it. Obey me. You know, turn away from those idols. Real simple kind of things, but this is the church underage. That's Israel. Israel is described in Galatians 4 as an heir who's under servants because he's just a child. And so, this is the stage of the church where we are taught, you know, this is what you do with little children. Don't do this. Do this. Don't do this. Do this. And that's what God is doing with this people in this childhood stage as it were. All right. So verse, sorry, the next chapter, chapter 12, is God's choice of Jerusalem. All right. The city is going to be chosen. The place where God puts His name, and again, why one place to show them that there's one God, to show them that they are one people, and to keep them from idolatry, right, that the priesthood would be there, that there would be constant observation that, you know, this is God's doing this for their good. All right. So the second two tablets have been given. And then verses one through five, these are the statues and judgments, which you shall be careful to observe. In the language of the Lord, your God, your fathers is giving you to possess for all the days that you live on the earth, no plan B. You shall utterly destroy the places where the nations of war, their high mountains, you know, all the places where they committed idolatry, noticed, destroyed their altars, their sacred pillars, burned their images with fire, cut down their carved images, destroyed the names from that place. You shall not worship the Lord with these things, but you shall seek the place. Here it is, where the Lord, your God chooses, out of all the tribes to put His name for His dwelling place, and there you shall go. So it's given in the context of all this idolatry, on all these hills and everywhere, you're not going to be that way. You're going to go one place. That's where I'm going to make myself known. That's where I can, you know, you can best ensure that you're not going to have all these different idols, because there'll be one place where you go. All right. And then verses six and seven, talking about the worship, the offerings, how there you're to eat and rejoice in God's presence. This is, you know, worship should be a joyful thing. You shall take your burn offerings, your sacrifices, your tides, your heave offerings, your bowed offerings, all these offerings, offerings, offerings. Why, because you're a sinner, and these offerings, or for that, burnt offerings were especially for sins, sacrifices, tides, and there's some of these free will offerings, heave offerings where they would wave the breast and all that kind of stuff of the animal, but all of this blood sacrifice, because Israel is a sinner. So that's constantly reminding them. In the midst of commands, obey, commands, obey, you know, don't disobey. You're, you know, you're not going to be righteous that way. You've got to keep continually come before these offerings. But there you shall eat. I mean, this was to be, you know, part of the offerings, they got to eat, right? There you show eat, you shall rejoice in this land, this good land, which the Lord your God is giving you in your house. God is blessed. So, you know, there's this wonderful situation where Israel is being blessed, and God is wanting them to rejoice. You know, God doesn't save us to be miserable, right? I mean, you know, we don't want to make happiness, our God, but ultimately God does promise that to us. He promises us pure bliss as it were. And so Israel is going, is getting that promise. We're going to be happy in the land. If you would just follow me and not run into sins. But so the evil then of lawlessness, after, you know, the blessing of covenant faithfulness, the evil of lawlessness comes in. You shall not do, Versailles. As you are doing here today, every man doing what is right in his own eyes. Remember, that's what they descend into in the book of judges. But they were, you know, God's saying it that you're doing that even now. And then verses 9 to 11, when you cross the Jordan, when God's going to give you rest, and then the place where he chooses to make his name abide there, you shall bring your offerings, et cetera.
And then verses 17 and 18, you may not eat within your gates the tide of your grain and so forth, but you must eat them before the Lord, your God chooses. So the place for God's going to choose, that's going to be part, in a sense, part of a test because they're going to want to do other things, but you need to do this. And then 18 and 20 include everybody in worship. Verse 12 as well. Don't forget the Levites, right? Notice verse 12, you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God, you and your sons, and your daughters, and your male servants, and your female servants. Everybody gets to worship God, not just the males, not just the rich, not just the noble, not just the tribal leaders, servants. Bring that, everyone is to worship God. God is to be the God of everyone. He's not a respecter of persons, even at the time when he was giving a typical priesthood, everyone participates in the worship. And you see that down in verses 18 to 20, the same thing. Don't forget your Levites, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levites, right? Because the Levites, why weren't they concerned with the Levites? The Levites didn't get lamb, so they weren't able to make their own wealth. And so Israel had, and their duty was to teach the word, and to lead in worship and to handle the holy things and all the rest. And so the Levites were scattered throughout the tribes of Israel, but that meant Israel had to support the Levites. And that's why they're saying this, don't forget your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, and the Levites. Now that should always be the case. There may be other groups that come in, when people are poor or something like that, but that might not be the case in all times and in all places, but it should be this. It should always be your son, your daughter, your servants, and the Levites. You should always take care of them. This is part of my worship to do this, to be concerned about them. Everybody should be doing this. Then we get the eating meat and eating not the blood. Maybe I should spend a little bit of time on this. 15 and 16. 23 to 25. You sit, you may slaughter and eat meat within your gates, however your heart desires. And then he talks about the clean, but not the unplean. Only you shall not eat the blood, verse 16, you shall pour it out on the earth like water. Again, verse 23 to 25. Only be sure you do not eat the blood. The blood is the life. You may not eat the life with the meat. The way I understand that and the way I think the best commentators do is you're not eating like a lion would eat a zebra. You know, which Israel does at one point in stolen and David, they're like famished and they start to eat the meat, raw, and God says, no, sacrifice it here on this one rock. Bring it here. And then you can eat it after it's been properly sacrificed and you can cook it. But we are not to be cruel that way. You know, it's to eat the life with the blood. It's living blood. It's not the fact. I mean, sometimes we might think this that, oh, I have to drain all the blood from the meat. That's not possible. I mean, that's what the meat is, right? There's blood in the meat, but it's talking about living creatures. We don't, and that was happening in a lot of pagan cultures. And to this day, that happens where they'll swallow living things. You ever see there were they like swallow this living octopus and stuff like that and you can actually feel it in your stomach. Human beings are not to be that way. God has given us the animals for food. That's he's done that. But we are to do that in a sober way. Those animals are living creatures. We humanly and painlessly as much as we can kill them. No, we don't torture them. We don't eat them while they're alive. This is part of our humanness is we don't understand that just unless you eat my flesh and drink my butt. I've not thought of it in those terms. I mean, Jesus is the living sacrifice. So probably some kind of a connection there. I see it, it's interesting. In the book of Acts, one of the things that when they send out to all the Gentile churches, you know, we don't want to burden them with the laws of Moses. Let's just, but one of the things was not to eat the blood. Because what's going on in the Roman cult? You know, they would have these cults, you know, idolatrous ceremonies, where you would literally stand under a bull and they would slice it open and the living blood would come down on you. And that was somehow worsen. And so all these kind of blood practices that we don't see today. Praise God. But we do, we are starting to see, you know, again, people eating living animals. And that's somehow a delicacy. I'm, I've even read articles where people are eating human flesh, you know, as a delicacy, even in some restaurants in America here or there, it's happened supposedly, you know, and I mean, I could see that. I could see them pushing it for, you know, environmental reasons. But that's not right. You know, God gave us the animals and we were to properly kill them and before we eat them. And I think that's what this is talking about here. So
God's concern for us people is to not make worship a hardship here. Verse 21, if it's too far, I mean, you see God's mercy. He's not like, well, you have to get the truth from no matter what. You know, if there's circumstances in your house right now, here's what you can do. You know, God recognizes that. And then again, 26 through 32, right versus wrong worship and how wrong worship even leads to child sacrifice at verse 31. He hates what they have done with their gods. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire. So they're eating, you know, living flesh, they're eating blood, drinking the blood of animals, thinking, you know, that somehow that gets the, like in the American Indians that would get the soul and of the creature into you or you eat your flesh of your enemies and now you're more mighty than them or something like that. None of these practices Israel is to do because there are holy people to God. And a lot of this, again, this kind of thing, this is, we just take that for granted almost in a world today that Christianity has saturated, right? In all countries, cannibalism is barbarism and nobody's going around least celebrating the eating of living flesh, even if we see it here and there. But God has much, you know, rid this of the world. All right, so the law of the prophet, I wanted to leth get this for, discerning truth from false prophets, that's chapter 13, all right? So chapter 13, notice if a prophet rises among you or a dreamer, dreams and he gives you a sign or wonder. Oh wow. And the sign or wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying, let us go after other gods which you have not known and let us serve them, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul. What does this tell you? That the word of God trumps any supposed miracle worker. That the first thing is you test it by the word. If God's word says, you know, worship God alone and somebody comes along and does a miracle. It says, no, let's go worship this other God. You know, whatever, whatever, however you want to explain that miracle, we're not following this guy. We test things with the word first and that's the important thing. That, you know, it could be that somebody does something. You know, I would see this as not an actual miracle, but you know, he stumbles and he makes a prediction and it comes to pass. That happens. You know, I've been in circles where that happens a lot where people, you know, claim to have prophetic powers, word from God and you can go up and you can get your prophecy and it's not done in a malicious or, you know, deceptive way. They really believe that. They really believe somehow God is speaking and maybe something that that person says to you really comes to pass. You know, I've seen that too. The bottom line is we don't worship other gods and if they teach any false doctrine, we ought not to be believing them and it doesn't, you know, we don't look to them as a prophet in the Old Testament sense that God is speaking through them. I do believe God convicts us by the spirit and leads us that way. You could even say, you know, I don't want to be crazy with words, you know, that I know people say, well, God spoke to me. I understand that is they're convicted according to the word of God that they should do something. You know, God spoke to me that I should love my wife. That's true in a certain sense. Right. He actually has said that in his word. All right. So, you know, I don't want to get caught up on that. But this is that this is the time when God is raising up prophets, right. There are prophets in the land that he sends that he speaks to. That's what this book is, the words of the prophets. For 2000 years, nobody has claimed to have that level of authority and prophecy because we've not added to this. But how would you know in that time if it's really a prophet? And that's what chapter 13 is about. First, the first thing is you test it by the word, right. And anybody counseling against God's word versus five through 16 must be destroyed. You're going to see the penalty for false prophecy is death. The penalty here for counseling idolatry is death, I should say. And notice even if it's your brother versus six or the son of your mother, your son, your wife. If anybody says, let's worship other gods, they must be cast off. So God has to come first. This is the same thing Jesus said when he said that no one can come to me unless he hates his father and his mother sister. But what does he mean? Do you actually supposed to hate them? I've read stuff like that online. God tells Christians to hate people. No. But next to God, you've got to choose God, right. Rather, you know, are you going to try to make your unbelieving spouse happy and do what they want? Are you going to do what God says? You've got to do what God says, even if that unbelieving spouse thinks you hate them. And that's what Jesus means. You know, that you hate. You must hate in the sense of you can't do what they want you to do. Even when they desperately want you to do it, if it's against the word of God. So no matter how close they are versus six and then versus 12 to 16, no matter how many they are, here if it's a whole city or a whole tribe in Israel, they would have anybody that would say, let's worship other gods. So this is the first law for the prophet. The word of God has to test it. And then the last part of it is chapter 18. And so let's go there. And chapter 18, I'm not going to read, but God promises a prophet like me versus 14 to 15. We know that's Jesus. New Testament applies this to Jesus. Jesus is the prophet like Moses. And then verses 16 and 17, how you asked for a mediator. Jesus is the ultimate mediator. So we see that versus 18 and 19. God's words going to be in the mouth of this prophet. Jesus gives us the whole New Testament, even as Moses gives us the whole foundation for the New, for the Old Testament. But and so disregard Jesus is to disregard God. Notice it shall be whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name. I will require of it. But then then we get the test versus 20 to 22. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him. Or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, how shall we know? The word, which the Lord has not spoken? That's the issue. How do I know? This guy says, the God says, this guy says, God says, and they're contradicting. How do we know? Verse 22, when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken? The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. He shall not be afraid of him. In other words, everything that God would say to a prophet must come true, because God's word never fails. And so what happens today when you watch these guys, you know, these self-proclaimed prophets sometimes on TV and they'll say, and I've seen this, he's got an 85% success rate. 85% of his prophecies have come to pass. I mean, what is the text that he should do with him? You take him out and stone him because he's a false prophet. Now people aren't claiming that in the sense today. I understand that and this idea of ongoing revelation, but really and truly, you know, guys like that can get authority over people and can abuse that because they think God is telling them to do something. God's telling you to give me your car. You know, he told me, but again, it's 100%. And I've had this dialogue, you know, as some of my pastor friends when I go to Cornerstone and pretty much all of them do believe in ongoing revelation. And a couple of the programs we've done recently was, well, you know, how could all these prophets be wrong? All these prophets said, you know, Trump was supposed to win the last election or whatever. That was one of the issues. And they're all having this, but you know, I don't know, how could they be wrong? And, you know, trying to find a way and then it was my turn to speak. And I'm like, it's easy. They're not prophets. That's why they were wrong. If they're wrong once, they're no prophets. You don't have to figure it out. You don't have to try to defend God's word. How did this happen? They're not prophets if they speak one time. And it's not the word of God. So powerful incentive for God's people. Any comments, questions on that? Prophecy or anything else that we took looked at today. Danny Baker. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. And, you know, the symbolism is, you know, we know the symbolism, right? We don't actually believe that the cup is Christ's blood or that the flesh is his body. Jesus uses that image in part to fulfill the Passover, right? Because the Passover was a huge part of Israel's deliverance. That's how they, that's how God prayed them from bondants. Literally the angel passed over them when he saw the blood on the door and it was a real lamb that had to die. And because of that blood, they lived and they ate the flesh of that lamb that night and they had to burn everything that was left over. So you have all of that symbolism coming in, but Christ is the true lamb, right? And our bondage to Satan is the true bondage that he frees us from when he dies on the cross. And so that, you know, we believe, you know, the Westminster standards that we feed on Christ by faith, right? So it's by faith that we feed on his body that we feed on his blood in what sense? Well, in the sense that it's his body and blood that saves us. And we are, we have life because of his body and blood and life is sustained by eating and drinking. And so the Lord's supper is the ongoing sacrament, right? In baptism, it's once because you only, you're only converted once and baptism is a picture of that. You died, you know, the old you dies, the new you was created, a new you was born, right? Born of water, a new creation that happens once. We never get baptized again. I know see people do, but it's not meant to be done that way. And, but with the Lord's supper, it is. It's an ongoing eating and drinking, eating and drinking, but not really, right? I mean, we're not, it's not, we don't believe. I mean, there are, do not, you know, Roman Catholicism looks at a transubstantiation and even Lutheranism to some degree, with consubstantiation, even though they wouldn't say that. But, but we believe in the real presence of Christ, right? And that when that metaphor of feeding is believing. We feed on him by faith, we believe in him and we get this tangible thing that helps us, you know, and the Lord's supper is meant to strengthen your faith, not to sustain your physical life. We do pray for God's to bless our meals, right? Lord, let this food nourish us. But we never say nourish our bodies. We don't do that with the Lord's supper because it's literally not a meal. And when Paul rebukes the Corinthian church and first Corinthians, he says, if a man is hungry, let him eat at home. Then let him come to the Lord's supper, a token, one bite, one sip. He couldn't live on that. It's not meant to. It's meant for your faith. But I will. I'll consider that some more. But, you know, I definitely want to say that there, this is a symbolic in our understanding, his Protestants, a symbolic feeding and eating us. It's not really his blood. It's not really his body. But we really have his presence. And he used those terms. This is my body. And he gave them a piece of bread. He didn't cut off a chunk of his skin, right? They knew it was a symbol. That's some level there. This is my blood. And they knew it was wine in the cup, you know, but participating in those things, taking those things willingly as you're confessing as it were my life is by your death. And I feed in that sense on you because you've given these things to me in remembrance of you, Tommy. Probably. I would, I would assume probably they would. And there were, you know, many false prophets, right? I mean, this will get to the point where like the true prophets, you know, think of a life on Mount Carmel, right? And there's a life and then there's the hundreds of prophets of Baal. Now, this is Samaria and, you know, it's the Northern Kingdom, but in Jerusalem, you have the same thing where, you know, Jeremiah would be prophesying doom and other prophets were saying peace, peace. And who did they want to kill? Jeremiah. So they weren't going by what God's word said, and they were going by what they wanted to hear, unfortunately. And, you know, that's why we have a lot of false teachers today, same reason. People want that, you know, we can blame the Joel, Stings and whatever, all we want. They wouldn't be so popular and famous if so many people didn't love it, you know, and go to them. And, and, you know, we just got to remember that. So well, let's close with prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you again for your word. We thank you that we don't have to wonder what is your word or what isn't. You've given the whole thing to us now. Help us to believe it and to worship you through it. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.