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¤ýÀÛ¼ºÀÏ 2016-12-11 (ÀÏ) 09:07
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God Goes Before You to Keep His Promise
God Goes Before You to Keep His Promise
Deuteronomy 9:1-29
Key Verse: 9:3

¡°But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.¡±

After a long break it is time to resume our study of the book of Deuteronomy.  In this book, we learn a lot about who God is and who we are as human beings.  God is the one who chooses His people and He is the one who rescues them and gives them victories in this life.  We, God¡¯s chosen people, are nothing but stiff-necked sinners who do nothing but rebel against God and His perfect commands.  In the last passage, chapter 8, Moses urged the people not to forget the Lord after the Lord settled them in the good and abundant promised land.  Moses warned them not to become proud and forget all that God had done for them when He rescued them from Egypt and led them through the wilderness for forty years.

In today¡¯s passage Moses continues the same theme, except this time He goes into detail about how they had so quickly fallen into sin at Mount Horeb (or Mt. Sinai).  Many Bible commentaries focus on the complete sinfulness of mankind when it comes to the study of Deuteronomy 9:1-10:11, however, as I read this passage and prayed about it I was more moved by God¡¯s faithfulness, love, and mercy.  God had chosen the Israelites, and, in spite of all their unfaithfulness, God remained faithful.  He remembered His promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and God was about to fulfill them through this rebellious and stiff-necked people.  As we study this passage, let¡¯s remember that we are God¡¯s chosen people in this generation, but just like the Israelites we are often a rebellious, stiff-neck people who easily fall away from God¡¯s perfect commands and into our own sinful ways.  Never-the-less God is good and always remains faithful to His promises.  Just like with the Israelites, God is going before us into His Promised Land to ensure that His promise to us is kept.  May God bless our study of Deuteronomy chapter 9 and open our spiritual eyes to see how good and faithful our God is in spite of our stiff-necked rebellion.

First, God is going before us in order to keep His promise (1-3).  Let¡¯s look at verses 1 and 2. ¡°Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. The people are strong and tall—Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: ¡°Who can stand up against the Anakites?¡±  We must remember the context of this passage.  The Israelites had just completed forty years of wandering in the desert followed by two short military campaigns against Sihon, King of Heshbon and Og, King of Bashan.  They had defeated these two kings and divided the land between two and a half tribes of Israel. They were camped in the plains of these lands just East of the Jordan across from Jericho.  Now the real work of conquering God¡¯s promised land was about to begin.  They had been in a very similar situation forty years before when they were camped further south near Kadesh Barnea.  At that time God ordered the Israelites to go up and take possession of the Promised Land, but instead of simply believing God¡¯s promise and obeying His command the Israelites sent out spies to explore the land and to see what they were going to face when they got there.  These spies came back with a mixed report.  On the one hand, they said that the Promised Land was an exceptionally abundant land flowing with milk and honey, but on the other hand, it was inhabited by the Anakim, a tall, strong warrior-like people who had fortified cities and good weapons.  The spies said that the Israelites looked like grasshoppers before those people and there was no way that they could defeat them and occupy their land.  The spies¡¯ problem was that they were looking at the situation only from a human point of view.  They had completely forgotten that they were there because God had brought them there.  Not only that, but God had promised to give them that land and it didn¡¯t matter who was living there.  Their sinful human nature caused them to forget who God is and to fall into human despair and hopelessness.  

Sometimes, when we read the story of the Israelites, we might be tempted ask ourselves ¡°How could they be so stupid?¡±  The problem is we are just like the Israelites of Moses time.  The moment we face some type of difficulty in our lives we forget about God and His great promises for us and look at the situation from our human point of view alone.  When we do this, we fall into despair and unbelief.  The Apostle Paul knew that all human beings, including Christians, very easily  fall into this type of thinking, so he encourages Christians not to think this way.  In Romans 8 Paul reminds us that God has graciously given us a new spiritual life.  A new life that we didn¡¯t earn or work for, but that He gave us through His one-sided grace in His son Jesus. With this new life comes the wonderful promises of eternal life together with Him in the Kingdom of Heaven. However, this new life isn¡¯t going to save us from the hardships and difficulties of this life. What it should do is give us a new outlook on how to confront these trials.  We should remember God¡¯s promises and as Paul says live as ¡°More than conquerors¡± based on these promises.  If God is for us, who can be against us.

The Israelites were facing the same thing they had faced forty years earlier, and Moses was reminding them that the situation had not changed – they still had to go in and take the land from the Anakim, who were much larger, more numerous and had fortified cities.  So how did Moses expect them to do this? Look at verse 3. ¡°But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.¡±  Moses told the Israelites that it wasn¡¯t them who were going to drive out these people, it was God who would do it.  God was going to go across the Jordan before the Israelites.  God was not only going to lead them in, He was going to drive out Israel¡¯s enemies and annihilate them.  If you look carefully at this verse, we see that it is God who does everything.  God goes across the Jordan ahead of the Israelites, He destroys their enemies, He subdues them, He drives them out and He annihilates them.  A careful look at that verse should convince you that it is not the Israelites who do any of this, it is God and God alone.  

This is a point that far too many Christians often don¡¯t understand or simply forget.  We like to think of ourselves and capable human beings.  We like to think that we can do something great for God.  However, the truth of the matter is that we are completely helpless before God and before this world.  Because of our sin, we are completely useless to God.  We simply must accept this fact even if we don¡¯t like it.  It is not something in us that enables us to do God¡¯s work in this generation, it is God living in us and acting through us that enables us to do anything at all.  This is a very deep subject and many great men and women of faith have thought and written deeply about this down through church history.  It is a subject I recommend all of you look into, but for right now I just want to stress, that it is not you who can do great things for God, it is only God working through you that you can accomplish anything at all.  This is not always easy to accept because it means that we are helpless, but once we do accept it from our hearts it is truly liberating and we can really understand Paul when he says that in all things we are ¡°more than conquerors¡± in Jesus.  

Let us take a close look at the last six words of verse three, ¡°As the Lord has promised you.¡± These six words are often overlooked, not only in this verse, but throughout all the reading of scripture.  The Bible is full of God¡¯s promises.  It is God¡¯s promises which must be the foundation of our faith.  God¡¯s promises are not small things, in fact, most of them are too great to be believed.  Just think of the situation the Israelites were facing.  They were about to enter a land that was inhabited by people who were physically larger than most of the Israelites.  There were more of them than there were Israelites. Those people were known as great warriors.  They had fortified cities and the latest weapons.  The Israelites were shepherds by trade.  They probably didn¡¯t have great weapons and had no military training and very little military experience.  From a purely military point of view, their situation was hopeless.  They only had one thing and that thing was God¡¯s promise.  God promised to give them that land.  God had already demonstrated that His promises were more solid than rock.  God had promised Abraham that he would make His descendants as numerous as the stars. After a little more than 400 years, God had taken that one old dried up man and multiplied his descendants to more than 2,000,0000.  God had promised Abraham that after leading his descendants into a foreign land, He would come and rescue them from that land and bring them back to this very same Promised Land.  God had already accomplished all this.  Now the Israelites just had to stand on God¡¯s promise in order to take the land.

Like the Israelites we need to simply rely on God¡¯s promises.  As you read through the Bible, especially in the New Testament, I challenge you to look for God¡¯s promises.  Then, I further challenge you to accept, believe and base your entire life on those promises. You might say to yourself, ¡°sure that sounds great, I¡¯ll do it.¡±  It is great, and we should all do this, but it is not as easy most people think.  First of all, the promises are not all that easy to believe.  Just take John 3:16 for example. ¡°For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.¡±  This is perhaps the most famous promise of God in the whole Bible, but have you really thought about what it means? This promise goes against everything we think we know to be true.  Simply by believing in Jesus we can have eternal life?  If we look at the world from a simple human point of view, this is crazy – it doesn¡¯t even make sense.  Yet this is God¡¯s promise and God¡¯s promises are true.  Now take a moment to consider what it would mean to base the foundation of your life on this one promise.  It says that ¡°God so loved the world¡¦¡±  God loved the whole world enough to give everyone a very precious gift in Jesus. In fact, He loved the world enough to give up His own son¡¯s life.  Think about this for just a moment.  If Jesus loved the whole world in this way, what does it mean to you to base your life on this promise.  To me, it means that I if I truly accept this promise, I must love each and every person on this earth in the same way.  I must be willing to give up my life for anyone, regardless of how terrible we may think they are.  The promise itself is greater than anything I can even imagine, but the consequences of making it the foundation of my life is completely impossible.  I simply cannot do it, so should I despair? No! God has already done everything for me.  Paul says this several times throughout his letters, for example in 1 Corinthians 15:57, ¡°But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.¡±  It is not me (or you) who can do any of this – it is only Jesus living in us that can do it.  This is the glory of God¡¯s promises.  They are not only true, but they are unbreakable because God himself makes them true.  I believe that Just as God went ahead of the Israelites and brought them into the Promised Land by His might and power alone, I believe God is going ahead of each of us to lead us into the Promised Land of the Kingdom of Heaven – not by our power or strength, but based on His promise alone.  

Second, don¡¯t think it is because of your righteousness (4-29).  The remainder of this chapter reminds us of the sinfulness of fallen man.  Look at verse 4. ¡°After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, ¡°The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.¡± No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you.¡± Moses begins by reminding the people that once they get settled into the land, they must not forget that it was God who did it all – God drove out those other people and settled the Israelites in their land.  Moses goes one step further.  He says that not only did God do all this, it had nothing to do with the righteousness of Israelites.  In verse 5 and 6 Moses repeats this phrase, ¡°it is not because of your righteousness,¡± not once but twice.  Moses drives home the fact that there was nothing good in the Israelites that God should do this wonderful thing for them.  According to these verses God drove out those people for two reasons. First, they were very wicked people.  A careful reading of the scriptures will show just how horrible their worship practices were – they involved male and female prostitution and even sacrificing their own children.  Secondly, and most importantly, God did it ¡°to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.¡±  In other words, God did it because He promised to do it.  Once again, we see that God¡¯s promises are completely true and reliable.  However, it would be very easy for the Israelites to forget this and begin to think that God chose them somehow because of their own goodness.  In order to convince the Israelites that God¡¯s choosing had nothing to do with their goodness, in verses 7-29 Moses describes in great detail the Israelites sin at Mt. Horeb (in verses 22 and 23 he briefly mentions their rebellion on four other occasions).  In this account, Moses makes it very clear that Israelites in no way deserved this Grace of God.

In the same way, there is nothing in any of us that is deserving of God¡¯s grace.  We are not better than anyone else.  We are all sinners and we have all fallen short of the glory of God.  We all deserve death and condemnation because like stiff-necked people we have all rebelled against our creator.  But by God¡¯s one-sided grace alone, He has chosen us.  He has given us His promises and He has saved us.  Today we learned that it is God Himself who is going before us to accomplish what He has promised for each of us.  May God help us to stand on His promise and grace alone.
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