As We Do Here Today

Deuteronomy 12:5-9,12 – But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you. You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit, since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you…And there rejoice before the Lord your God—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

Psalm 95:11 – So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”

• ·         The Lord wants His people to enjoy the fruit of their labor, because it is the result of His blessing.
• ·         Joy, based on the Lord’s blessings, was to be a major feature of Hebrew life and worship in the promised land.
• ·         Rest was a rich concept indicating the Israelites’ possession of a place with God in the earth where they are secure from all external threats and internal calamities.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

His Name

Deuteronomy 12:2-6 – Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places. You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.

Jeremiah 10:2 – This is what the Lord says: “Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them.

Psalm 26:8 – Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.

Zechariah 2:12 – The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem.

Exodus 3:14 – God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Application:

• ·         The rituals and accessories of idolatrous worship were not to be used to worship the Lord, the one true God. Everything that does not honor Him must be eliminated from His people’s worship.
• ·         The Hebrew for “ways” is singular and refers to the religious practices of the nations. The early Christians often called their distinctive beliefs and lifestyle the “Way”.
• ·         His glory dwelling in the tabernacle and later the temple assured Israel of the Lord’s holy, yet gracious, presence among them. The same presence is in the Word who became flesh and who “made His dwelling among us”.
• ·         The land was rendered holy chiefly because it was the site of the earthly throne and sanctuary of the holy King, who dwelt there among His covenant people.
• ·         I AM WHO I AM was the name by which God wished to be known and worshiped in Israel—the name that expressed His character as the dependable and faithful God who desires the full trust of His people.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

As Long As You Live In The Land

Deuteronomy 11:29-12:1 – When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses. As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, westward, toward the setting sun, near the great trees of Moreh, in the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal. You are about to cross the Jordan to enter and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you have taken it over and are living there, be sure that you obey all the decrees and laws I am setting before you today. These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land.

Judges 2:1-2 – The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land I swore to give to your ancestors. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this?

Deuteronomy 4:10 – Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

1 Kings 8:37-40 – “When famine or plague comes to the land, or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers, or when an enemy besieges them in any of their cities, whatever disaster or disease may come, and when a prayer or plea is made by anyone among your people Israel—being aware of the afflictions of their own hearts, and spreading out their hands toward this temple—then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with everyone according to all they do, since you know their hearts (for you alone know every human heart), so that they will fear you all the time they live in the land you gave our ancestors.

Application:

• ·         Gilgal was the place where Israel first became established in the land under Joshua.
• ·         The divine call to Israel to remember the Lord’s past redemptive acts—especially how He delivered them from slavery in Egypt—is a common theme in Deuteronomy and is summarized: “Remember the days of old”.
• ·         Fear you means honor and obediently serve you.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Known

Deuteronomy 11:22-28 – If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him—then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. Every place where you set your foot will be yours: Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. No one will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land, wherever you go. See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse—the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.

Leviticus 26:14-16 – “‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you: I will bring on you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and sap your strength. You will plant seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it.

Deuteronomy 27:26 – “Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”

Exodus 6:3 – I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them.

Application:

• ·         The list of curses for covenant disobedience is usually much longer than that of blessings for obedience.
• ·         Humankind is under a curse because no one follows the law lf God fully.
• ·         The patriarchs were not totally ignorant of the name Yahweh, but they did not understand its full implications as the name of the One who would redeem His people. That fact could be comprehended only by the Israelites who were to experience the exodus, and by their descendants.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Teach

Deuteronomy 11:18-23 – Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him—then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you.

Deuteronomy 4:10 – Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when he said to me, “Assemble the people before me to hear my words so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land and may teach them to their children.”

Proverbs 3:1-2 – My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity.

Deuteronomy 6:5 – Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Application:

• ·         The divine call to Israel to remember the Lord’s past redemptive acts—especially how He delivered them from slavery in Egypt—is a common theme in Deuteronomy and is summarized: “Remember the days of old”.
• ·         Fear of the Lord can bring health to the body and “adds length to life”. When Solomon prayed for wisdom, God promised him riches as well as long life if he obeyed God’s commands.
• ·         Love for God and neighbor is built on the love that the Lord has for His people and on His identification with them.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Soul

Deuteronomy 11:8-17 – Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, and so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul—then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.

Deuteronomy 4:29 – But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Deuteronomy 29:18 – Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord our God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison.

Deuteronomy 9:19 – I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me.

Application:

• ·         “With all your heart and…soul” indicates total involvement and commitment.
• ·         “Root…that produces such bitter poison” was the poison of idolatry, involving the rejection of the Lord.
• ·         Moses’ intercessory prayer ranks among the great prayers for Israel’s national survival.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV

Possess

Deuteronomy 11:2-9 – Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the Lord your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the Lord brought lasting ruin on them. It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place, and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them. But it was your own eyes that saw all these great things the Lord has done. Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, and so that you may live long in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Exodus 7:12-13 – Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs. Yet Pharaoh’s heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said.

Deuteronomy 31:6 – Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Joshua 1:7 – “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.

Application:

• ·         Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs, demonstrating God’s mastery over the pharaoh and the gods of Egypt.
• ·         A hardened heart refers to a stubborn refusal to take God and His word seriously.
• ·         By trusting in the Lord and obeying Him, His followers would be victorious in spite of great obstacles.
• ·         Success was not guaranteed unconditionally.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV