Deuteronomy 7:12-Deuteronomy 8 (Click scripture reference for audio access)
"The Clear Path To Blessing" •
10.25.12 • Thursday Night Bible Study, Calvary
Christian Fellowship
Intro.
- Our text is a
very straightforward one. We are in the middle of the second of Moses' last
sermons and the point is simple. There is a clear path to blessing for those
that are God's people!
- For the
people of Israel, there were physical entities, which represent for us lasting
principles that we will glean as we go along.
Text
•
Deuteronomy 7:12-14 : “Then it shall come to pass, because
you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God
will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers.
And He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the
fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, your grain and your new wine and
your oil, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flock, in the
land of which He swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above
all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your
livestock." : When they listened to God's word
and kept and did them, there was a reciprocal action.
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Their success and ours would be and will be directly related to our response to
His Word!
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When you listen to God's Word, ie. these judgments, you are to repeatedly
listen with the intent to personally obey. We are to ask the question,
"How does this apply to me?"
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They were to listen with the intent to obey and to keep them. The word is
translated elsewhere to preserve or to treasure up and guard.
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As the world fights against the Word of God and attacks what we have stored up,
we are to guard what God has deposited in us!
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But then comes the actual doing of the Word. We have listened with an intent to
obey, guarding what has been deposited, but spiritual life begins when we act
upon what we have learned.
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The word "do" is right next to the word "labour" or work.
We're to work out the Word in our lives. It is to be produced through our
lives.
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It's not enough to hear or have the Word of God. We are deceiving ourselves and
are practicing the greatest hypocrisy when we take in God's Word, but refuse to
do it!
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That is the whole purpose of Bible study. You should already be thinking,
"How can I apply this?" Let's take last week's Word for example. We
are to love the Lord with all of our being.
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Have you prayed daily that God would increase love for Him and subsequently a
love for others in your life? "Lord make that a reality in my life!"
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What blessing awaited those that took God's Word and applied it to their lives
and what blessing awaits us. He will keep His faithfulness to His people. He
will love and bless them.
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For the Israelites, God would keep His covenant. He would keep His part of the
bargain.
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How would that bear out? He would bless their families. The fruit of their womb
referrred to safe healthy, full term pregnancies! That is part of God's
blessing to the people of God: Their children!
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Our world and indeed the world of the Canaanites thought differently about
children. Instead of seeing them as a blessing, they were viewed as a curse.
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Before the modern holocaust of abortion, the people of Canaan sacrificed their
unwanted babies to Molech on an iron representation of their false god.
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After their families, God blessed their produce. That which was from the field
in terms of the growth and that which was exported from their work.
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God would bless their all that they would do. The women would bear godly offspring.
Their land would grow and their cattle would bring forth abundantly.
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This might not sound like much to our modern ears, but we are talking wonderful
blessings!
•
Deuteronomy 7:15,16 : "And the Lord will take away from
you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of
Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. Also
you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you;
your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that
will be a snare to you." : The obedience of God's
people led them to a life that kept them free from diseases.
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This does not mean that they never got sick with common colds of flu. These
sicknesses and afflictions that Moses speaks of were sovereign in nature, punitive
in purpose.
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Certainly, because of their sexual misconduct, the Canaanites opened themselves
to great illness. Monogamous marriage was a safe measure for Israel.
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Those who idolize their bodily needs open themselves up to great stresses upon
their physiology and psyches.
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The Bible would tell the people that sin is pleasurable for a season, but the
end of it is death!
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The dietary law, much of which we covered in the book of Leviticus, kept the
people from eating animals that carried destructive diseases. The other nations
had no such discernment.
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Following God's laws brought health in an unhealthy world and kept them from
God's wrath.
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All those diseases that they were avoiding were diseases that God would inflict
upon the nations around them. God would do this to those who hated God's
people.
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God has a way of dealing with those who hate God's people. The Canaanites were
not neutral people. They hated God and they hated His people.
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Because of that, they were bent on Israel's destruction, but God would win! They
were to be unmerciful toward the people, aggressively moving against the
Canaanites.
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Remember why: Because their way of life, their idolatry, would be a snare, a
trap, that would ruin the blessed life that they enjoyed!
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God destroying the people of Canaan was a further blessing of obedience. The
people would dwell in safety if they obeyed.
•
Deuteronomy 7:17-19 : "If you should say in your heart,
‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’—you shall not be
afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the Lord your God did to
Pharaoh and to all Egypt: the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and
the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the Lord your
God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom
you are afraid." : God knows His people. They will
see the people and will say in their heart, "How can we do this?"
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Throughout your life, your going to say this same thing as God brings you face
to face with what you are called to conquer!
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The Canaanite people were greater than Israel. How could Israel dispossess
them? The problem here is as it is with us. Progress will always be impeded by
an "i" problem!
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Whenever you see what God wants you to do, if you see it in light of yourself,
your resources, you will be afraid! God tells them they are not to be in awe of
them.
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They were to remember what they had already seen. This is a very repeated motif
in the lives of the Israelis. They saw signs and wonders, miracles and the
mighty hand of God.
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God had not changed. He was going to do the exact same thing to the Canaanites
that He had done to the Egyptians!
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Whatever you fear today, God already has a plan to defeat and He cannot fail.
Often, whatever He wants to conquer in your life, He has already provided a
template for you to trust!
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Perhaps you do not have the experience in your life to draw from yet. This is
where fellowship comes in. Talk about your challenge and you'll find a brother
or sister who has been in your shoes!
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The Israelis had a common set of experiences that they could draw from, a
national story that was given to them to inspire confidence.
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In any event, you will discover what the people of Israel found to be true:
Your God will do to your present enemy what He has done to your previous enemy!
• Deuteronomy
7:20-23 : "Moreover
the Lord your God
will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves
from you, are destroyed. You shall not be terrified of them; for the Lord your God, the great and awesome
God, is
among you. And the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you little by
little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the
field become too
numerous for you. But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat
upon them until they are destroyed." : How
would God do it? As an example, God would employ the hornet to find the
remnants of the nations that were hiding themselves from Israel.
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After a nation was dispersed from their land, many would simply find places to
hide in the countryside. Hornets would smoke them out and they would be
destroyed!
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God is with you and God will do it little by little. God, why not just do it
all at once? Why not just empty the land and leave us there? Because the beasts
of the field would be too great for them!
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God knows their capacity. He knows your capacity! We always think that our
capacity is greater, but it's not!
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God's grace toward them was to allow them to conquer the land a little at a
time. This would accomplish two things. First, it would enhance their capacity
in an organic way.
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They would be ready for more with each experience. Every experience that you
have with God in terms of ministry and usefulness, increases your capacity for
more.
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Second, with God doing things a little at a time, it keeps you and I hungry for
more. I need to stay motivated and in motion. I need to see progressive growth
to appreciate the process.
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In your Christian life, there must be mountains to climb and a call to grow
perpetually! In the end, God would win the battle and defeat them until they
were destroyed!
•
Deuteronomy 7:24-26 : "And He will deliver their kings
into your hand, and you will destroy their name from under heaven; no one shall
be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. You shall burn the
carved images of their gods with fire; you shall not covet the silver or gold that is on
them, nor take it for yourselves, lest you be snared by
it; for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. Nor shall you bring an
abomination into your house, lest you be doomed to destruction like it. You
shall utterly detest it and utterly abhor it, for it is an accursed
thing." : Whenever a king or a man sets
their hearts against God, they are ruining themselves! They are literally
threatening their very own lives!
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Kings would not be safe from the judgment that was coming! Nobody would be able
to stand against them!
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When they finished with the fighting men, they were to rid the land of all the
implements of the worship, or else they would be snared or trapped by them.
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Why are we to be vigilant against sin in our life? Why is it that we are to get
rid of it all and not covet what comes with it? Because it will be a trap that
will ensnare you!
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It's an abomination. It's corrosive. It's accursed! Think of it the way the
Lord thinks of it! Detest it and hate it!
•
Deuteronomy 8:1-5 : "Every commandment which I command
you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and
go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these
forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in
your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to
hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers
know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but
man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your garments did not wear out on
you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. You should know in your heart that
as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you." : Why
did God allow them to remain in the wilderness? To humble them.
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Why does He allow us to be tested? That we might discover what He already knows
about us! He allowed their time in the wilderness to be productive.
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It's one thing to keep His commandments in the best of times. Every one will!
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But will you keep His commandments in the wilderness? When things are dry and
the journey is endless, will your heart be true to the Lord?
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God humbled them with hunger, giving them manna to show that men were to live
in dependence upon the Lord!
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In all that time, they wore the same clothes and not even one garment wore out!
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He was teaching them that they were His children, as He chastened them. The
word here refers to discipline, but in the sense of instruction. He was giving
them full orbed instruction in life.
•
Deuteronomy 8:6-10 : "Therefore
you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a
good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out
of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and
pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread
without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron
and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are full,
then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you."
The commandments were not just
rules. They were connections that kept God first in their hearts.
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When they came into the land, God's natural provision would surround them.
Water, fruit and minerals would be theirs to enjoy and be enterprising with.
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God was bringing them into this land that they would prosper in. It was a land
that was overflowing with goodness for them. They needed to remember to bless
Him for what He had given!
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What a great reminder for us! Have you blessed God as you look at what He has
given you? Has your heart been thankful. That which you have is a reminder of
that need to bless God.
•
Deuteronomy 8:11-17 : "Beware
that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and
His statutes which I command you today, lest—when you have eaten and are
full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; and when your herds and your flocks
multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have
is multiplied; when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of
the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; who led you through that great and
terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty
land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty
rock; who fed
you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He
might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—then you say in your heart, ‘My
power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’" : Not keeping God's word is equal to forgetting, or setting God
out of His place in your life! When they had been multiplied, when their hearts
were lifted up.
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When they were satisfied and full, their hearts would be tempted to look at
their own exploits and take the credit for what had been accomplished in their
lives!
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How sad is that statement and yet, if our hearts could be examined, how often
have we thought something similar to that?
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In the wilderness, had it not been for God, they would never have made it out!
The fact that they survived was a testimony to God's power, and their ability
to benefit from it!
•
Deuteronomy 8:18-20 : "And you
shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives
you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to
your fathers, as it is this day. Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods,
and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall
surely perish. As
the nations which the Lord destroys before you, so you shall perish, because you would not
be obedient to the voice of the Lord your God." : Listen to those words: He has given you
power, the ability to get wealth. Consider wealth in the context of where they
had been.
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They had been slaves. They had nothing. No land. No possessions. No
inheritance. They had no future and no hope and God redeemed them! Now, they
would have power to possess.
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Why? So that God might be faithful to His promises! Everything that you have is
meant to bring glory to God. Any other use is misuse!
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Moses charges them to remember this because if they went after other gods, then
they would be destroyed as well! Obedience would protect them from that end.
Conclusion
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