Israel, Hear

Deuteronomy 3:23-4:1 – At that time I pleaded with the Lord: “Sovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do? Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan—that fine hill country and Lebanon.” But because of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. “That is enough,” the Lord said. “Do not speak to me anymore about this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and look west and north and south and east. Look at the land with your own eyes, since you are not going to cross this Jordan. But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see.” So we stayed in the valley near Beth Peor. Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.

Genesis 13:14 – The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west.

Deuteronomy 34:5 – And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said.

Deuteronomy 1:3 – In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them.

Leviticus 18:5 – Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 – This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5 – Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Application:

• ·         Lot and Abram are a study in contrasts. The former looked selfishly and coveted; the latter looked as God commanded and was blessed.
• ·         Servant of the Lord was a special title used to refer to those whom the Lord, as the Great King, has taken into His service; they serve as members of God’s royal administration.
• ·         God’s call to His people to hear and obey is a frequent theme in Deuteronomy and elsewhere in the Old Testament.
• ·         The Lord had condemned the Israelites to 40 years of wandering in Sinai as punishment for not entering Canaan as He had commanded them to do at Kadesh.
• ·         The law was the way of life for the redeemed, not a way of salvation for the lost.
• ·         When the Israelites chose the Lord, they chose life. The law, the Lord and life are bound together. “Life” in this context refers to all that makes life rich, full and productive—as God created it to be.
• ·         All of Israel’s neighbors had to come to terms in their daily lives with scores of gods, each with its own sphere of influence, its own limitations, its own petty self-interests and its own morally erratic ways. But Israel could live serenely in the knowledge that all things and all times were under the rule of one divine King, whose ways are righteous and whose purpose with her and through her is salvation for humankind—from sin and judgment and every evil that has burdened human life. Such serenity in the midst of the ragings of history and all its seeming chaos remains the precious gift of faith for all who know and trust the God of Israel.
• ·         Love for God and neighbor is built on the love that the Lord has for His people and on His identification with them. Such love is to be total, involving one’s whole being.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV