God's Love for His People (Walk Thru the Bible Week 7)

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Welcome to Walk Through the Bible, Susan Michael's 12-month journey through the most exciting

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book on the planet.

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It will transform your life one page at a time.

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Be sure to subscribe for future episodes that will ignite your faith and bring your Bible

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to life.

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Now, let's join our host, Susan Michael.

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Well, hey there and welcome back.

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This is week 7 of the Walk Through the Bible series and this week we're going to be covering

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what's in the Daily Bible pages 191 to 218 or the Daily Bible dates of February the

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12th through the 18th.

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We're going to be talking this week about God's love for His people.

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We have a very, very important segment this week.

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So I'm so glad that you've chosen to join me and listen in.

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We're going to deal with two major aspects of God's love for His people.

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And so first, let's do a brief review where we are in our readings.

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So our wilderness wanderings are coming to an end now.

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The Bible doesn't tell us a whole lot about the 40 years of wandering.

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So we kind of jump now to where the time is coming to an end.

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And so God is beginning to prepare His people to enter the land.

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He's leading them into that area east of the Jordan and preparing them to enter.

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And He's also preparing Moses to say goodbye to the people because Moses will not be entering

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the Holy Land with them.

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Now I just want to remind you that next week we're going to begin reading the portions

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of the Scriptures from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy that deal with the

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various laws that God gave the people of Israel.

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By saving them up and dealing with them all at one time, we get to deal with them sort

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of by subject and taking out any repetition.

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But it's going to be so much easier to follow and to understand.

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So we're looking forward to studying more about the law, but in the meantime we're going

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to continue our story up until they're ready to enter the land.

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So now last week we had the story of how that they have defeated the Amorites, and this is

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east of the Jordan River, so they're not yet inside the land.

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And then the king of Moab was very worried about them, and so he hired the prophet Balaam

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to curse the people of Israel.

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So then the king of Moab would be able to defeat them.

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And of course that didn't work at all.

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Balaam instead pronounced beautiful prophecies and blessings over the people of Israel as

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directed by the God of Israel.

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So now this week we pick up our story where now it's very, very interesting that Balaam,

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because he's understood that these people can't be defeated in the normal way.

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They are an unusual people.

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They are a people alone.

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They're a people apart from the peoples around them.

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And their God is with them, so he saw it.

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And he devised a way to defeat them.

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And that was by luring them into the pagan idolatrous worship of the people of Moab and

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of Midian.

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And so we have here in the story that first the Israelite men are seduced by the women

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of Moab.

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And this means that they are seduced into not just a sexual relationship, but actually

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idolatrous sex to the God of fertility.

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And this is of course very, very displeasing to the Lord.

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And so all of the men that participated in this were to be killed.

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And so maybe this is what gave Balaam the idea, because then an Israelite man brings

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into the camp a Midianite woman, and it causes such an uproar.

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And later we find out, a few chapters later, we find out that the plan was devised by Balaam.

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And the plan was to destroy the people by bringing them into what, when you're reading

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this in English, it's a little hard to understand some of the words here, but it did imply,

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and the reaction to it implied that there was some kind of ritual prostitution here that

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was being introduced into the camp.

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And so the Midianites have to be destroyed.

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And the only survivors were allowed were virgin women, not because the Israelite men

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wanted the virgin women for their wives and for sex.

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What it meant was that the virgin women had not participated in the temple idolatry, which

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included some kind of ritual intercourse as a part of the worship of these pagan gods.

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And so because they had never, they were probably young and hadn't entered into that.

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And so they were kept alive.

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Nowhere does it say they were brought to be wives or anything more than likely they were

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made slaves and servants, but they were allowed to live.

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And so this introduces a very, very serious topic that we have to take a few minutes to

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discuss.

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And that is that how can the loving God of the New Testament direct killing, and not

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just killing, but actually the whole destruction of a group of people here in the Old Testament.

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And this is a very, very serious conversation that we must have, because there are in right

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now today in the United States, there are evangelical pastors telling their people that they should

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disregard the Old Testament because of passages like this, that the Old Testament is the

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depicting a God that is different than the God of the New Testament.

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And so they should not be reading it, that it is not the Bible.

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It is not God's word.

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It is not true.

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And this is not some little fringe group.

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Just this week I read a headline of a large church in the Bible Belt of America that had

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come out and said the Bible is not the word of God, and it's for this very reason.

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So this is why it's so important that we understand how to read the Old Testament and how to teach

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the Old Testament, and to understand what was happening here.

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And while it may make us uncomfortable, there is an explanation.

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This is a very, very hot topic.

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First of all, it was God himself who had just told Moses in the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt

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not murder.

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And he had given them the law that they were not to murder.

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We're going to cover the law next week.

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But he had told them this.

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So the same God that says, Thou shalt not murder, is now telling them to wipe out whole

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people groups.

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How do we fit all this together?

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What does this mean?

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Well, you know, we cannot read these scriptures within the context of 21st century American

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society and culture, because we have evolved a lot over 3,500 years.

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Now we might think that we've evolved a whole lot farther than we actually have.

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Let me tell you.

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When I watch some movies on Netflix or I read about things going on in the United States,

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I can tell you we haven't evolved that far.

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But for 3,500 years, our society and Western society has built an ethos that says, Thou

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shalt not murder.

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Because why?

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Because it's the Ten Commandments.

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But our society is geared to think it's not right to murder.

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Now we see murder all around us.

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And we see more and more societies that are not built upon that ethos.

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And they're full of murder.

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But in the United States and in the West, we've been built upon the Ten Commandments,

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which is Thou shalt not murder.

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So how do we reconcile this?

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Well, in our story, first of all, God did not tell them to wipe out the Edomites or

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the Ammonites.

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They didn't bother either one of those two groups.

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But it was when the king of the Amorites came out to fight them that then they defeated

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the Amorites.

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And now here we have this defeat of the Midianites.

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So it's not like God was just telling them, go kill everybody.

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It was kind of selective.

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So who is he selecting?

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What's behind this?

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First of all, I want you to know that in these stories, and this is just the beginning.

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Once we get into the land of Canaan, there's more of this.

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They're told in this week's reading, actually, they were told in Deuteronomy that when they

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entered the land that they were to wipe out the peoples, so why is this?

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Well, number one, God is teaching them that there is a consequence to sin.

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We know that later on in the Scriptures, it says that the wages of sin is death.

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And we approached these, and we're thinking, all these innocent women and children and

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men.

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And that's the wrong assumption is to assume that they were innocent because actually they

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were pagans that sacrificed human beings that were involved in all of this temple prostitution

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to the fertility gods, and they were very rampantly sick societies based on their pagan

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beliefs and their pagan religion.

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And so, very clearly here, the consequences of sin is death.

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Now, we think that that death is when we die to go to heaven, but here God is showing

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His people there are consequences to this rejection of me as God and going after these

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pagan gods, and this is what it's going to cost you.

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So it was a lesson for His people going in.

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But also, I want to back up, because back in Genesis 15, when God was making the covenant

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with Abraham, He told him something so interesting.

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So in Genesis 15, God has just cut the covenant with Abraham where they laid the animals out

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in two areas and says that the fire came down through there.

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And so God cut this covenant with Abraham where He made these certain promises.

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And then the Lord tells Abraham, He says, Know for certain that your offspring will

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be sojourners in a land that is not theirs.

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So they weren't going to possess the land.

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They weren't going to take it over.

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They lived in the land as foreigners.

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And it says, And there will be servants there, and they'll be afflicted for 400 years.

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And then He says, But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve.

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And afterward, they will come out with great possessions.

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So here He's obviously referring to Egypt and their slavery in Egypt, and that He would

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judge the nation, then enslave them, and they would come out with great possessions.

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And He says, As for you, you'll go to be with your fathers in peace, and you'll be buried

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at a good old age.

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And they will come back in the fourth generation for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet

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complete.

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What is God saying?

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That the iniquity, the sin of the local peoples there in Canaan had not been brought to fruition

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yet.

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It wasn't time for judgment.

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And He said, For 400 years, your people, your offspring, are not going to possess the land.

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But then there's going to come a time.

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Well, I'm going to bring them out.

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But not now, because the sin of the Amorites has not been complete.

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So God actually was very merciful to the pagan Amorites, which lived in Canaan for 400 years.

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He gave them the opportunity, you could say, to get it right.

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But finally the time was up.

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The sin had filled the land, and it was time to judge.

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And the wages of sin is death.

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Now God's mercy did spare people along the way, and especially if they repented.

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So we have the story we're going to hear in a few weeks of Rahab in Jericho.

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She asked to be a part of Israel.

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She asked to help them and to be spared.

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And God spared her.

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So He had mercy.

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But when a king is going to bring his army out to destroy the Israelites, there's no

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mercy.

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God was also protecting His people from destruction in two ways.

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First, the destruction of idolatry.

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God knew that if His people fell to idolatry, it was all over.

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It was all over for them.

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They would no longer be the people of the God of Israel.

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They would be in idolatry following other gods.

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They would be kicked out of the land, and it would be all over for them.

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So He was sparing them from that destruction.

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And He says this in Deuteronomy 20, verse 18, that He says that they were to be wiped

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out, lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations, which they have done

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for their gods, and you sin against the Lord your God.

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So He was trying to protect His people from falling into sin and losing their identity.

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Once they began intermarrying with the pagans and living the pagan lifestyle, they would

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no longer be Israelites.

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They would lose their identity.

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They would be swallowed up in these other people groups.

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And that's the second thing God was saving them from, was another form of destruction.

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So idolatry would destroy them as a people.

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But also, these other peoples would come after them and destroy them militarily, because

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in that world, in that culture, at that time, it was kill or be killed.

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And so God knew the intent of these other kings that they were going to come and wipe

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out the Israelites.

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So by telling the Israelites who to go in and wipe out, He was protecting them.

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We don't like the sound of it.

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We don't like the sound of war, of people being killed.

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We hate it, and I'm sure God hated it.

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But our problem is when we assume that these people were all just innocent people, and

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we don't understand how God gave them time, 400 years, to get it together, and that He

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did show mercy to anyone that was looking for mercy.

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And so it's just important that we're able to grapple with this and not to interpret

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the Bible and interpret these stories in the Old Testament and in the conquest of the land

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in our 21st century Christian little mindset and realize it was a completely different

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time, a completely different culture, society, religious context, everything.

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And lastly, God did this because He was paying the price.

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He knew this was a terrible price to pay, but He had to pay the price to keep His people

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from destruction and to establish them as a nation so that 1500 years later, Messiah

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could be born and die on the cross for the sins of the world.

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He knew what was necessary, and He was willing to pay the price to establish this people

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and what He was going to do through them.

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The world rested on the shoulders of the survival and the establishment of the Israelite nation,

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and this was the price that had to be paid.

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Now, let's move on to the other part of the story.

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Our story moves on.

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We read this week that Joshua was chosen to succeed Moses.

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We knew Moses could not enter the Holy Land, and so Joshua is chosen to be a successor

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because it said the spirit of leadership was upon Joshua, and that's why he was chosen.

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And so Moses lays his hand on Joshua and confers upon him the leadership.

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And then we have the story of how the two and a half tribes, the tribe of Gad and the

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tribe of Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh, asked Moses for permission to settle on the

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east side of the Jordan River in the area where they were encamped because it was great

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land for pasturing livestock, and that's what they owned a lot of.

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And at first Moses is concerned because he thinks maybe it's a show of a lack of courage

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and a lack of faith in going into the Promised Land, but then they assure him, no, no, no,

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we're going to go in with the other tribes and we're going to help them take their land

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and then we'll come back.

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But we want to leave our women and our children here.

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We want to build walled cities and have our livestock here.

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This is where we want to come back to.

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So Moses felt that their heart was in the right place and he says, okay.

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And then we enter Deuteronomy.

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And Deuteronomy is such a beautiful book.

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I want to take a few minutes to talk about what happens here in Deuteronomy.

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Deuteronomy is where Moses knows that his time is coming to an end.

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And so he reviews the story of what God has done with his people and what he's taught

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them and he reviews the laws that God has given his people.

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But Deuteronomy is not just a repetition of the story.

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And this is why I want you to read it and really soak it in.

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It's almost like a renewal of the contract with the people.

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Now keep in mind that the people that saw the fire and the smoke on Mount Sinai and

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received the Ten Commandments and began receiving the law from Moses, a lot of them have died

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by now.

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This is a new generation of Israelites.

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And so in a way, this is a renewal of the contract.

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It's a renewal of the marriage vows.

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And the way Moses words it here in Deuteronomy is so beautiful and it's so full of God's

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love for his people and the chosenness of this people and the very high calling that

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is upon this people.

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And I was really moved and touched as I studied it this week.

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Now the book of Deuteronomy in Hebrew is called Devarim because Devarim means words and it

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opens with these are the words of Moses.

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So the book is called Words that these are the words of Moses.

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And you know, for everything, I keep telling you what the skeptics say, not because I believe

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them, but because I think it's important that we know what they say.

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And I do attempt to give you some answers or some other thoughts.

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So the skeptics like to say that Moses didn't really write the Pentateuch, the first five

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books of the Bible.

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And they give you different reasons why they think there may be different writing styles

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or there's repetition or there's this or there that.

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But what I want to just say is that Jesus did think that Moses wrote the first five

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books of the Bible.

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So if it's good enough for Jesus, believe me, it's good enough for me because you know,

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Jesus lived a lot closer to the time of Moses.

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And so secondly is that Jesus quoted.

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Now which book, which book in the Old Testament, do you think Jesus quoted the most?

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Well, it was Deuteronomy.

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That is the book that the New Testament altogether quotes more than any other book.

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And it's what Jesus quoted more than any other book.

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I want to call your attention to Deuteronomy chapters four through eight.

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Actually, there's just some absolutely gorgeous scriptures in here.

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But I want to show you in chapter four, he begins to hammer away at them against idolatry.

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And he mentioned several different things like making images, which is magic.

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And he mentions the astral religions of, you know, the moon and the sun and the stars.

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And it's like, don't project on them things.

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He's the God that created all of that.

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And so he's warning them against these other religious beliefs that are all around them,

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and particularly in the land of Canaan.

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He also gives them in here the principle of exile from the land that I want to draw your

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attention to in chapter four, verses 25 through 31.

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He lets them know that if they turn against him and they go after other gods, they will

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be exiled from the land and they will be taken into every other country on earth.

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And so that's an important principle that we'll see how that played itself out in the

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history of the Jewish people as we proceed on through our biblical story.

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He also mentions here in a beautiful scripture in chapter four, verse 26, where he swears

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by the heaven and the earth are the witnesses to his covenant with his people.

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And what that means is that heaven and earth are more, they're longer lasting than the

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human life.

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So it's, it's an eternal, it's an everlasting covenant.

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And in chapter four, verses seven through eight, and again, 32 through 40, he talks

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about that they are a chosen nation.

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And he says, you were shown all these things so that you might know that the Lord is God

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and beside him there is no other.

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So this wilderness wandering, these, these very stark lessons that God gave them in real

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life, he didn't just tell them, you know, well, if you need healing, come to me and

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I'm the God that healeth all your diseases.

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He gave them very visible ways of knowing that and of seeing that and, and of providing

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them with water and with food and, and stories where we saw his judgment upon his own people,

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if they rebelled against him and his leadership, they were judged and killed.

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These are very stark lessons for them to learn, but it was so important that they learn these

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lessons before they went into the land.

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And so here it's saying, you were shown all these things so that you would understand

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who the Lord God is and that beside him there is no other.

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And he told them to keep his decrees and his commandments, which I give you today so that

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it will go well for you in the land.

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This is not a God that's saying, keep all my commandments because otherwise I'm going

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to beat you up or otherwise I'm going to wipe you out.

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Otherwise I'm going to destroy you.

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No, he says, keep my laws and my commandments so that it'll go well for you in the land.

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And in chapter eight of Deuteronomy, it says that the wilderness teachings were to humble

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and to test them so that in the end it might go well with them.

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So these humbling testings, I don't know if you ever gone through a period where you just

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felt like you were tested and it was test after test and some of it was humbling.

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But when you come through it all, it's also that God's will will be done in your life,

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that you will be made a stronger person and a better person, that your relationship with

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him will be stronger, that things will go well for you.

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But God is willing to take the chance and the risk of testings and of hardship for you

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to learn those lessons.

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In Deuteronomy six verses four through five, we have a very, very famous verse.

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It's called, the daily Bible called it the premier commandment in all of Judaism.

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It's the highest command, it's called the Shema because the word Shema means here and

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it begins with here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

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When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, what did he do?

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Did he refer back to this, to the Shema?

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And he said, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your

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soul and with all your mind.

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This is the first and great commandment.

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And the second is like it, that you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments,

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hang all the law and the prophets.

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You know, I have read some Christian leaders that try to say that what Jesus taught was

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just so different, so new, so earth-shattering different that we don't need the Old Testament

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because all we need is to read Jesus.

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But right here it shows you everything Jesus taught came from the scriptural foundation

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he had which was in the Old Testament.

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And so when he said, when they asked him what's the greatest commandment, he didn't come up

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with something new.

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He went back to Deuteronomy 6 and he quotes from the Shema.

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And you know, when Jesus was tempted by the devil out in the wilderness, all three times

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he quoted from the book of Deuteronomy.

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And we read those scriptures this week that Jesus quoted when the devil showed him all

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the kingdoms of the earth and tried to tempt him with that.

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He quoted Deuteronomy 6.13.

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He says, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him.

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And when the devil told him, throw yourself down and you know, the Lord will save you.

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And he says, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

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That's from Deuteronomy 6.16.

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And then when he tells him, command these stones to be made into bread and they will.

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And Jesus quotes to him chapter 8 verse 3 that says, thou shalt not live by bread alone

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but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

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So Jesus used Deuteronomy.

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And this is what bothers me when a Christian leader is telling people not to read the old

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Testament, they're robbing them of the very spiritual foundation of everything that Jesus

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did and taught.

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And these are very powerful scriptures that Jesus used in spiritual warfare against the

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powers of evil.

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And so we can too.

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Another interesting verse in our reading this week came out of chapter 10 and it referred

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to the circumcision of their hearts.

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And you know, the apostle Paul referred to that in Romans 2 and the importance of our

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hearts being circumcised.

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And I'll tell you for the longest time, I didn't realize that he was quoting Deuteronomy.

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I thought it was a New Testament concept about spiritual circumcision.

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And yet here it was all along God was after hearts and spirits.

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So that leaves us with our final verse for today from chapter 11 verse 26 where Moses

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tells the people, he said, I've set before you today a blessing and a curse.

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The blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord and the curse if you disobey.

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This is the basic lesson of all of life and we found it this week in our reading and we

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find it here in Deuteronomy that we have been given a free will.

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God did not produce us or create us as robots.

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He doesn't dictate to us what to do.

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God wants a people that love him out of their hearts, not because they have to.

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And so here in Deuteronomy, God is laying out all of this life before his people and

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he's saying it's up to you.

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Do you want to live in blessing or do you want to live in sin and under a curse?

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It's your choice and you and I have the same choice today.

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And I don't know about you, but I choose the Lord.

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I choose to do all that I can to live according to his statutes and to all of the principles

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that he's laid out in the Bible because I want his blessings in my life and I want to

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walk in blessing.

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And so I choose it and that's what God wants from all of us.

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What do you choose?

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And if you choose to also walk in blessing and in fellowship with the Lord, then raise

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your hand today and say, Lord, I choose.

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I choose blessing.

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I choose you.

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And that is the relationship that God has proposed to his people in the wilderness.

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It was a marriage proposal and here in Deuteronomy, he renews it with a new generation of Israelites

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before they go in to take the land and they say, we will do all that the Lord has said.

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So that ends our reading for this week.

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Now next week, we're going to be in the law.

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Yes, the fun law that God gave his people.

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We're going to learn so many new things.

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So I can't wait to see you back here then.

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And until then, God bless.