Deuteronomy 4:1-43, The Senses Census

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Deuteronomy 4:1-43 The Senses Census

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Deuteronomy chapter 4 hear the word of the Lord and now always rail listen to the statutes and rules that I am teaching you and do them that you may live and Go in and take possession of the land of that The Lord the
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God of your fathers is giving you you shall not add to the word that I command you Nor take from it that you may keep the commandments of the
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Lord your God that I command you Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor for the
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Lord your God Destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor But you who hold fast to the
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Lord your God are all alive today See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the
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Lord My God commanded me that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it
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Keep them and do them For that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who when they hear all these statutes will say
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Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people for that for what great nation is there that has a
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God so near to It as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him and What great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today
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Only take care and keep your soul diligently Lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life
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Make them known to your children and your children's children How on the day that you stood before the
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Lord your God at Horeb the Lord said to me Gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children so and You came near the and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven
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Wrapped in darkness cloud and gloom then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire you heard the sound of words, but saw no form there was only a voice and He declared to you his covenant
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Which he commanded you to perform that is the Ten Commandments and he wrote them on two tablets of stone and the
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Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules that You might do them in the land that you are going over to possess
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Therefore watch yourselves very carefully Since you saw no form on that day that the
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Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure the likeness of male or female the likeness of any animal that is on the earth the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air the likeness of anything that creeps
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On the ground and the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven and when you see the
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Sun and the moon and the stars all the hosts of Heaven you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them things that the
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Lord your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole of heaven But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron out of the iron furnace out of Egypt To be a people of his own inheritance as you are this day
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Furthermore the Lord was angry with me because of you and he swore that I should not cross the
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Jordan and that I should not Enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, but I must die in this land
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I must not go over the Jordan, but you shall go over and take possession of that good land
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Take care Lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God Which he made with you and make a carved image the form of anything that the
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Lord your God has forbidden you For the Lord your God is a consuming fire a jealous
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God When you father children and children's children and have grown old in the land
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If you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything and by doing what is evil in the sight of the
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Lord Your God so as to provoke him to anger I called heaven and earth to witness against you today
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That you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over to the Jordan to possess
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You will not live long in it but will be utterly destroyed and the
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Lord will scatter you among the peoples and you will be left you a number among the Nations where the
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Lord will will drive you and there you will serve gods of wood and stone the work of human hands
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That neither seen or heard or eat nor smell But from there You will seek the
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Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your
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Soul when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days You will return to the
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Lord your God and obey his voice for the Lord. Your God is a merciful God He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them
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For us now of the days that are past Which were before you since the day that God created man on the earth and asked from one end of heaven to the other
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Whether such great a great thing as this has ever happened or was was ever heard of Did any people ever hear the voice of a
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God? speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard and still live or has any
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God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation by trials by signs by wonders and by war by a
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Mighty hand in an outstretched arm and by great deeds of terror all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt Before your eyes to you.
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It was shown that you might know that the Lord is God There is no other besides him out of heaven
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He let you hear his voice that he might discipline you and on earth. He let you see his great fire and you hear his words out of the midst of the fire and Because he loved your fathers and chose their offspring after them and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence by his mighty power driving out before you
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Nations greater and mightier than yourselves to bring you in to give you their land for an inheritance as it is this day
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No, therefore today and lay it to your heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath There is no other
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Therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments which I command you today that it may go well with you and with your children after you and that you may prolong your days in The land that the
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Lord your God is giving you for all time Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the
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Jordan That the man slayer might flee there anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally without being at enmity with him in time past He may flee to one of these cities and save his life
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Bezzar in the wilderness on the table land For the for the Rubenites Ramoth and Gilead for the
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Gadites and Golan in Bation for the Manassites May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his
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Holy Word long passage Well, if you had to be deaf or blind
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Which would you choose? In other words, which sense would you rather do without?
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hearing or seeing The hard choice isn't it? Because we'd hate to be without either one
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You know one study because you know It's hard to say which is worse on one study said that that deaf people have higher levels of depression
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Than blind people do but another study showed that deaf people report higher levels of satisfaction with life than blind people do the fact is we need sight and sound there's nothing like a calming voice beautiful music
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Or bird singing in the waking up to that in the morning There's also nothing like sunshine on a spring day a warm smile the green trees and red flowers blue skies white clouds
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When you hate to be without either one Well, the worst of course would be to be without both
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Both, you know both deaf and blind without hearing and seeing because you know
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Even if you you can't see If you're blind, you can you could hear books and letters narrated to you can hear people talk to you
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You might not could text without Braille or Siri, but you could you could talk to other people on the phone
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If you couldn't hear if you were deaf You could still read you you could text other people and people could text you you could quote chat online
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People could communicate with you and you could communicate with them but if you lost both You would be completely shut off That's what happened to Helen Keller at 18 months old
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She got a disease that left her both deaf and blind. And so for years, this is early 20th century
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So for years, I mean it was late 19th century. It's on that time for years Oh, she like the first six years of her life.
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She was completely cut off from all communication Until a teacher named
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Ann Sullivan broke through to her by By making signs into her hand, you know moving her fingers and doing signs into her hand that she could feel and Of course, it took a while to for her to Helen Keller to figure out the signs were meaning things
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What things were and the first word that Helen Keller learned was was water as Ann Sullivan held out one of her hands under Flowing Helen Keller's hands under flowing water from a well and then made the sign for water
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Into her hand and it finally dawned on Helen that the signs into her hand
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Were about the water and then she wanted to know what everything else meant She finally got the connection the signs were the things now other now
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What does everything else mean after a while? Language that way and she was able to write books and articles and became an international celebrity and Sullivan was called the miracle worker for teaching
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Helen a Popular play was made about them about that moment where they broke through to her at the well called the miracle worker
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It took of course having to break through Her not being able to see and hear We're meant to see and hear if you're if you're if you were like Helen Keller and you couldn't see or hear
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You would you would know you need to break through you need some help. You need someone like Ann Sullivan You need a miracle worker to break through the limitations to communicate to learn about the world to experience reality
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That's outside of your own mind. You know, you're like her, you know, you're limited.
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You're handicapped that you need help Maybe a miracle, but if if you can see and hear
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You have another handicap You might think reality is only what you can see There's nothing beyond what can be seen
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That's a handicap You might not know which of the many voices out there
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You should be listening to You might only hear the ones You know, you might only agree with the ones that you obey the ones that agree with the voice in your head
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You might be just as constrained as Helen Keller was you just don't know it and so you too
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Need a miracle worker And we see that here in this passage Deuteronomy 4 in four major parts the the commandments the consuming fire
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Third the Covenant and finally the consideration First the commandments
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Moses is continuing is what it's basically like a commencement address It's a time of year graduation time
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Israel has graduated from wandering in the desert and now they've got an appetizer of the promised land and Now Oh Israel Moses says to them.
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This is sort of a concluding this chapter 4 Of this first major speech of Deuteronomy now is your listen.
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What do you hear? Israel, what do you hear? Well, if you feel your fill your time
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Listening to the world to its enticements to its advertising for the good life What it says is the promised land you may not be able to hear the
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Lord here Israel Moses says here
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The statutes and the rules that I am teaching you listen to them Listen to the listen to them not just for the comfort of the familiar.
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Oh, we've heard of this all before Moses This is all stuff. We've gone through before this the soothing sounds of the old -time religion
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That's you know, like some people like listening to hymns, but it doesn't change how they live They're still just as adulterous or materialistic or racist or whatever
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They're living for the expensive vacations of the nice cars and the big houses. No listen and do them
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You don't you know, you don't get any advantage Coming to church hearing the Word of God if you don't do it
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Right. It's not just this isn't like a concert. It's entertaining words and you go away entertained. I hope you're entertained if you're not
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I'm presuming too much I guess but anyway It's not just if you hear the word and you go away unchanged as though somehow that's an advantage to you.
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It's not in Fact you get in greater trouble Because too much is given much is required
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You you are to do God's Word in verse 1 that you may live You you have life so you can take possession of the promised land
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So you hear that the Word of God comes you believe it you do it and that gives you life
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You have the promised land. The Lord is giving it to you, but you need the Word of God to give you life
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So you can get it but you got to do it and You don't add to the word
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Mary says that right off there verse 2 Don't add to it. Maybe what you are sure
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It should say Maybe you're so sure you think it really does say that but it really doesn't
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But you'll find a way to insert it in there. Maybe add a prohibition that you just think it's got to have
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But it doesn't really contain you know like Against all alcohol or against all dancing or something like that Christians have been so sure past few generations
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It just must prohibit those things. They'll find a way to squeeze out those prohibitions
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Those laws out of it, even though it's not really there Maybe they want to hear their favorite stories about the end times and it doesn't matter how many verses they have to take out of Context and string them together from one passes to another jumping from one half -baked conclusion to another
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They're just so sure that it's there they won't listen to anything else They they want to hear what they want to hear and so they somehow hear that from the
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Word of God Don't do that. He says you're adding to the word Don't take away from the word
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What's what's not what is there? Even when it's convenient. Otherwise the
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Bible what it says is so inconvenient. You're just find it too hard to believe So you can't you can't do that can't really mean that Be careful, by the way
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Attest when you're probably hearing false doctrine some passages of the Bible that just sounds so radical and someone comes along and just Waters it down so much at the end of it.
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It basically ends up meaning nothing It's kind of like carry on No change
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They're probably taking something out of the Bible when they do that many churches of the last generation or two
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I found the instructions about church discipline to be to be too strange too hard too
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Idealistic what in the world are you talking about? Treat him as a Go through these steps of confronting and all that after all who's gonna stay around and have their sins exposed
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It just doesn't happen. Does it think of what Jesus says in Matthew 18? Is anyone gonna stay around for that?
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No, let's go to another church and we can't really do anything about that. Can we? But it's but it's not as though that passage
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Using example, it's hard to understand Matthew 8 18 verses 16 to 18 is one of the easiest passages to understand
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It's just clear step -by -step instructions. It's just hard to do Especially as it is built on the assumption about what the church is that many
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Christians today Don't see and don't hear you know, if you see the church is like a theater
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Or maybe like a restaurant If that's your view of the church, you can't hear what the
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Lord Jesus is saying in Matthew 18 because you just your vision
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Obscured by what you what you think you see but that and everything else it says you must keep in verse 2
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Don't take away from it. Don't add to it. Keep it. These are the commandments of the
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Lord our God We need to hear them and to do them That's what you hear What do you see?
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Here they saw with their own eyes what the Lord did at ball pure That's how you say that word
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Americans. You say bail. Okay, but it's supposed to say ball or Could be Beth pure which means house of pure and that and if the story comes if you remember from the book of Numbers There at Balaam suggestion the people of Moab Tried to seduce many of the
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Israelites into the worship of this God ball of pure pure is the town
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The ball was the God there which included this of the worship of this God included sex as part of the worship of adultery probably
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These prostitutes who came with a shrine and when they something got in Israelites got involved in that the
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Lord Had a plague breakout among them and the Lord then told Moses to hang the chiefs of Israel Who turned to ball who went after this
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God hang them, you know by a rope we're talking about I guess from a tree or something and then
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Moses told the judges to go out into the congregation out of the nation and Kill the men who had turned to ball
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Phineas Aaron's son When he saw an Israelite taking a pagan woman with him an open view
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This is like Moses and you can imagine Moses and Aaron and Phineas are hanging around talking This is what are gonna do about this horrible situation
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So many of our people are being seduced by this pagan God and there's this Israelite man right in front of them taking this
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More of this woman this prostitute with him into his tent and the Phineas there. It's probably a young man son of Aaron He is he is indignant he is zealous for the
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Lord and so he gets a spear and he follows them these two into their tent and he Spears them to death with one strike
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And the Lord declared that Phileas Phineas is jealousy for the Lord Did it that appease
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God's wrath at at them at Israel So that he didn't consume the whole nation because of what
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Phineas did because of his zeal for the Lord But 24 ,000 Israelites died there and the rest of the people had had seen that Moses is reminding them of that here.
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Your eyes have seen what do you see? Well, your eyes have seen what the Lord did at ball pure in verse 3
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You can see what God does You Can learn what
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God is like by seeing what God does He destroyed from among you
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Moses tells them those who sin Okay, this wasn't just a disease that's happened to strike just at that time.
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It's a coincidence this Phineas. He's a hot -headed young man He shouldn't have done that. No see what the Lord did
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But you held fat but you who held fast to the Lord your God like being faithful in a marriage are
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Still alive today and they could see that too. What do you see? In verse 5 see we're commanded to see open your eyes and see pay attention
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That we've been taught statutes and rules We've been we've been taught that not simply that we would know them.
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Oh, that's interesting. You know, it's just trivia To be knowledgeable about what the
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Lord has commanded but that you should do them. I Think some modern evangelical
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Christians, you know, so want to prove that they're not legalistic. They're too cool to be legalistic They understand that the gospel in this right the gospel is about God saying done not about telling us to do
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Okay, we have a lot of those and some reform people Who want to show how sophisticated they are how smart they are how they have all their theology their fancy theology
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They have it nailed down that they can quote the Heidelberg Catechism on justification or define imputed
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Righteousness, they can define it perfectly. They have fine -tuned their doctrine a lot of those miss this do
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Now sure are being accepted by God becoming his children though It is by his work that the word became flesh and gave us power to become the children of God That is by what
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God has done It is finished Jesus declared from the cross
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He's done Our salvation, but now that that is done That doesn't mean that we don't have to do
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I See some reform people who love the reform books and the reform podcast and to talk
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Reform theology, but you can't get them to do anything Mary Mary and I went to a reformed church this way.
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We tried to help them Like over ten years ago, but you know, they won't give they won't reach out.
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They won't be active with the church They won't pick up some kids that want to come to church You know, they just want to come and talk theology
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Honestly, I'd rather have an Armenian with confused theology at least on some secondary points But who is seriously wanting to be a disciple of Jesus who wants to do everything that he's commanded
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The you know, the Lord Jesus did not commission us to go and make theologians who talk theology
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He didn't he taught us to go and make disciples There's a disciplined people of all nations
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I mean, it's all ethnic groups all races teaching them to What observe to do to practice to live
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Everything I have commanded you now that God has done
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You need to do Well, that's the situation these people were in Israel wasn't saved by keeping the law were they can't you think this is legalism
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No, they weren't saved by keeping the law They were first safe from Egypt through the sea and then after they're safe They're given the law
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Salvation comes first and then God gives us his his statutes his principles his word and we are to do it in verse 6
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Keep them and do them. Don't just talk about them For that doing God's Word.
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He says will be your wisdom and understanding in the sight of the peoples if you do it
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People will say wow, look at these people there Their life is different. It's impressive people around us.
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See us living God's Word in our amazed Take the scriptures for example that we pledged to in our church covenant think how revolutionary they would be if implemented
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We walk together in Christian love from 2nd John verse 6 1st John chapter 1 verse 7
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You know, you know That's not just being smiley on Sunday morning and friendly and shaking hands and asking Daniel how he's doing
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It's been a while But if a member needs something a roof repaired a lawn mowed a dog looked after where's
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Mary's not here, but Wayne helped We don't forsake the assembling, you know, that's it's doing that stuff.
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We don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25 We're slow to take offense.
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Is he talking about me? I'm going somewhere else But always ready for reconciliation from James chapter 1 verse 19
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Matthew chapter 5 verse 23 to 26 Colossians chapter 3 verse 13 We faithfully admonish one another
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Faithfully means they need Admonish can be correcting it can be encouraging but it's it's helping each other get out helping each other be better You know to enable each other sins even just passively letting them slide
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That's from Galatians chapter 5 verse 13 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 11 Hebrews chapter 3 verse 13
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We have a steadfast love I could Ruth remember Chesed steadfast love that endures all things from 1st
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Corinthians chapter 13 verse 7 Everyone loves 1st Corinthians chapter 13 the love chapter.
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What is love it endures all things. I Hate to sound like I'm talking down theological precision
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The truth about God because I love sound theology But we can have a perfectly fine -tuned theology in the world.
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Is it going to care? No God cares but the world as far as In the sight of the peoples that God's talking about here in this passage the world isn't gonna care
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But here it is when we do God's Word when we put it into practice that people will be impressed.
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They'll say in verse 6 Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people
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What they do Because there's when we put God's Word into practice That's when people around us can see as in verse 7 that God is among us
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That we're not just another self -serving club, you know full of individuals. It's all out for ourselves
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They see the work of God by us obeying the Word of God Do you get that they see people around us the work of God by us
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Obeying the Word of God They see that he is near us. He's giving us grace he's giving us power whenever we call upon him as someone said we may be the only
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Bible that that some people read and If what they see and hear in us is the
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Word of God lived out Then they'll know as in verse 8 that we have something that is
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Wow Righteous, they'll say what a what great nation they say
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People is there that has statutes and rules commandments so righteous
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So starting in verse 9 take care Be careful Keep your soul diligently
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Now if you want to keep your body diligently So you want to get in shape physical shape you have to take care about your diet
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You have to take care. You have to be diligent. You can't have every treat you want You'll have to work out often strenuously almost every day
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You have to you have to do it diligently You have to apply yourself. It doesn't come easily So if you want to be a disciple of Jesus who observes all that he's commanded
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Take care To keep your soul diligently. I Mean if you can't watch or listen to everything you might want
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You have to apply yourself to to remember the Word of God. You should you should read it for yourself
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Listen to those who preach it soundly maybe listen to music that reminds you of it lest you forget what your eyes have seen
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It's what a lot of this is about. That's what we're trying to do right now Remind you of what God's Word says
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Remind you of God's Word So you don't forget God's work and then in verse 9
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Make them know God's words and In his works make them known to your children and your grandchildren teach them so that in verse 10 they learn to fear the
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Lord to revere him to tremble at his word and that they might Then they will pass it on to their children
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Well here these people 40 years ago and some of them were just children. They stood at the foot of Mount Sinai as it burned and Smoked and clouds covered it and the
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Lord's voice boomed out of it What did they hear? the
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Word of God and They trembled What did they see? No form
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They saw only what God had done the fire the smoke not the Lord himself. They heard the
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Word of God They saw the works of God So there's the commandments
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Next is the consuming fire Therefore in verse 15 because he's made a covenant with us
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With with stipulations with requirements things we are to do To observe not just theology to know but things to do what he's done should produce our doing because of that Watch yourselves very carefully.
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He says You know, this is it an easy believism That it doesn't matter how you live because you know grace will cover up everything whatever, you know
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Be nice of you a little better, but doesn't matter got a little everything slide No grace is what gets you in a covenant with God Reveals the
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Lord to you and enables you to to be very careful. And if you're not very careful If the
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Bible and prayer aren't that important to you So you hardly read it and hardly pray if church isn't so important.
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So you figure you can miss Pretty regularly and you don't even worry about making up through other means if you're not careful
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That suggests maybe you've never seen his work or heard his word or You are forgetting what you saw and heard
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Here be very careful To remember that you saw
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No form on the day that the Lord spoke to you They saw no form.
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We see no form. So don't make an image that you use in worship Now here
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I'm supposed to say you probably expected me to say something like You know, okay, you know, we don't use idols, but we all know we don't use idols
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It's just so far out of our mind. We'll never do that so Then what we're to do is don't make idols out of cars or jewelry or money or success or sports or relationships or Covetousness, you know covetousness is materialism greed that is idolatry expect me to go right to that, right?
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Well true That's all true that those things are idolatry, but we still need to be careful that we don't slip into making literal idols
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You may think that's just so far out We'll never do that, but actually you can't drive through Dan Danville without going right by some idols right down 86
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Right across from GW High School. There's several idols set up right there Okay, but you know, so don't think that's really so far out that'll never happen to you people have
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All throughout all history all kinds of people all kinds of cultures have people have an urge to reduce
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God To an image that they can see Just because we live in a mostly
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Protestant culture that doesn't have a lot of literal idols Does it mean that that sinful urge has gone away?
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It's not just in the last few months I've written an academic article about how the Eastern Orthodox Church draws many evangelical
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Christians in to them And gets them to accept what they call their icons
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Which are really just idols That article should be published in the Thymian loss
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Have you say that word journal in December now the Eastern Orthodox claim to have preserved the practices of the early church
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This is their claim. They make they may very they put it out there and this is how they draw in a lot of Christians to join them because they'll say we have the practices of the early church
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Preserved from the beginning unaltered. We have never changed a thing from the day of the
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Apostles Okay, they say that clearly strongly and that's their that's sort of their selling point
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But they use icons in worship And I proved in my article
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I think I proved it pretty clearly that the early church the early the real early church and I'm talking about the first four centuries of Christianity strictly prohibited icons
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That that is that they had no images in their worship They no likenesses of any figure the early church saw that doing that using any images in worship
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Like just as Moses does here and they saw that as acting corruptly
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That's the real early church, but over the centuries as superficially converted pagan people came into the church
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They brought their idols with them and eventually by the year 787 icons were accepted
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And so don't think it could happen to the early church It took 700 years, but don't think if it happened to them that it can't happen to us if we're not
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Careful, we have to be careful But yes as for now
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You need to be careful about the idolatry of covetousness of living for wealth the nice car the big house
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The newest gadgets the sweetest relationship even the idol of the family Beware in verse 19 less you you it says you raise your eyes to those things
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That's what gives you hope that's what gives you truth. That's what your firm foundation is
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The husband the wife the money the cash in the bank the big house the stuff
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It's that stuff and you serve them so You can't come to church on Sunday morning
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Because you got to serve the money God, you know, you wish you could do both But you know, you got to serve the money God so you go
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You go serve that God you break your covenant to the church because the family God tells you to beware
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We heard a testimony and I'm sorry somebody missed it in Sunday school this man Nabil Qureshi converted from Islam and he quite clearly had to make a decision between his faith in Jesus and his family and We still are calling people to make that decision today him it's a radical decision somehow
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And Christians among us still have to make that somehow many of them delude themselves that they can't and they're just compromising
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You might think that there is no price to be paid that God won't be angry after all He after all he's all about focusing on the family isn't he or he's so gracious so lenient and indulgent
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That's what some people think grace is that we don't need to worry worry about his any any wrath from him
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But beware the Lord he says here. He is jealous. He's jealous for the affections of the people.
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He's saved He brought Israel out of the iron furnace of Egypt in verse 20 He's brought us out of the bondage to sin
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Us out of the iron furnace of God's eternal wrath to be a holy
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Nation a people for his own inheritance to belong to him. You can't see him
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But you can see what he's done He punished our sins on his beloved
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Son on the cross We look at the cross There's God's work
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Look at the cross sure many most the time we we emphasize God's love the second person of the
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Trinity the Son Giving himself for our sins sure that says that we can see that in the cross, but guess what's also there on the cross also
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God's wrath and the first person of the Trinity the Father is there on the he's
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Punishing the Son because of our sins It's not just the Romans and the Jews and the enemy's doing it
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It's the Father punishing the Son for our sins on the cross. That's what you see.
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That's God's work On the cross and we can see the wrath of God at sin at our sin
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What kind of God do you see by his works When Moses tells them here in verse 21 look at the fact
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That he Moses he can't enter the promised land. The Lord was angry with me because of you
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Talked to that because of you left about that because of you part last week, but here he's not an indulgent
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God It just kind of lets everything slide See what kind of God he is by what he he's he does in verse 22
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Moses says I must die in this land And it's like oh this has come upon me. I can't get the promise
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He doesn't get to cross the Jordan to the promised land now. We might think hey Moses was so faithful for so many years
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He's probably like 120 years old at this time. He's really old You think after all that faithfulness to the
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Lord? He he's earned some leniency from God He's earned, you know, God should let something slide for him for all these years of faithful service
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But because he was given more more was required of him See that and see how holy the
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Lord is and They they will go over Israel will and when they do remember to take care in verse 23 be very careful
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Be careful lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God You know, this is why we take the
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Lord's Supper once a month, you know, we only get baptized once But why are we taking the Lord's Supper over and over and over again?
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When does it take it once in our life? No, we do it once a month. We could do it more often for that Wouldn't be a bad idea.
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Take it every week Why don't we usually use that as an opportunity to remind ourselves of the stipulations of God's Covenant to that?
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We do that to be careful to remind ourselves be careful that we don't forget God's Covenant with us because in verse 24, here's the conclusion
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What do you what do you see? What do you what you can see about God from what he's done from his works?
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The Lord your God is a Consuming fire if that's the
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God you can see in your mind the one you can't see in your eye with your eyes That's good.
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If he's not if you if you don't if that's not the God you see in your mind He's not a consuming fire not a holy.
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Holy. Holy God who makes you cry out like Isaiah Whoa is me. I am unclean if that's not the
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God you can see then you're blind What do you see
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What do you hear you hear God's Covenant before in verse 13
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Moses mentioned the Covenant Covenants bind us to him him to us now in their day covenants had typical parts it was a typical way particular like treaties between countries nations between a
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Great king with a big empire and the smaller and little tiny nation with a small king
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They had typical parts though. They were used to they were witnesses. They would call witnesses to account.
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Look we made a covenant stipulations penalties for breaking them here starting in verse 25
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He says that when they when we have children and grandchildren If we act corruptly we serve an idol either of the literal one like an icon or a figure to one like like money
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Family, then we break the covenant. And so we stoke that Consuming fire like pouring gasoline on a fire.
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It'll burn the Word of God declared his covenant his commitment to them a covenant has stipulations his requirements what you were to do like great kings in their day say a king of a big empire an
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Emperor would make a covenant with some other smaller nation. And here's here's the covenant. Here's the stipulations
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Well the promise I make I won't destroy you you will live if Here's the stipulations you do such -and -such maybe pay me so much money every year
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You know got to hand it over That's you know, not very good negotiating position if you don't
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I'll destroy you or Join with me Send some listen an army with me with my army and we'll go attack this other country like that The covenants would then that's the stipulations
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The covenants would then have witnesses Usually the gods that the great king believed in other words, you know
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He believed in Baal may Baal witness this covenant and enforce it here Moses calls heaven and earth to witness the covenant because the covenant is between the
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Lord and his people The Lord is the great king and Israel is the nation that he is covenanting with the stipulations
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What Israel is to do? Or what we know is the Ten Commandments This is what
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I'm required you to do you don't have to give me so much money you have to give me your life No other gods don't make any idols.
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No, no, no. This is what you were to do the Lord wrote them down and gave them a copy so that they would know that these are
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What we are to do in this covenant covenants have a blessings if you keep them Curses if you break them
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Deuteronomy we're going to a lot more details about the blessings and curses of the covenant in chapter 28 But for now, he says in verse 26 if you break the covenant
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You will utterly perish From the land you will not live long.
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You'll be scattered. You'll be left few a number in verse 27 Says he said he says you break the covenant.
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You'll be driven out to other nations Because of your idolatry and their their punishment your punishment will be
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Ironically they they bow before idols they they embrace idolatry and the their punishment in verse 28 is
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That they will serve other they will serve gods of wood and stone the work of human hands that need to see nor hear nor eat
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Or smell. Otherwise, they chose idolatry and so they will be given over to idolatry to death and blind idols
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That's what they chose but that tribulation They're cast out to the nations as punishment for breaking the covenant the trouble
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Tribulation comes with them trouble because of their sins that the Lord inflicts on them Driven out among the nations that will result in verse 29 in them seeking the
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Lord If they search for him with all their heart, then they will find him. They will turn to him and obey his voice
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They observe all his teachings. That's the covenant Now witnesses stipulations
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Curses for those who break them and blessings for those who from their trials seek the Lord with all their heart and he saves them
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That they hear him Trouble has come on them. They cry out. They listen for his voice.
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They hear him and then they do what they hear The Lord Jesus gave us a new covenant
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That's what we remember in the Lord's Supper This is the blood of the Covenant which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins
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That's what was done on the cross. We have stipulations now, too Observing everything that he has commanded
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Those who don't observe them Maybe they go out from the church. They show they were never one of God's people in the first place
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They show their you know They ever really in a covenant. It's God's people
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Sheep who are scattered in many sheepfolds Tribulation comes Often that's the way
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God uses to bring his people to himself tribulation trials trouble trouble comes to them and That causes them to seek the
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Lord with all their heart And so he finds his sheep They have marital trouble or immigration trouble
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We've had some come to us because of that because of thanks to the immigration department money trouble
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Health trouble and So they cry out to God And they listen to whatever he says and they do it his sheep hear his voice and follow
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The Lord has made a covenant with his people to save his people and he'll save them no matter where they are
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They're being scattered in all ethnic groups all nations and he'll find them You may use trouble to find them but you'll find them in verse 31 and here's the here's another conclusion
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First conclusion about God you remember he's a consuming fire. Here's a second conclusion in verse 31
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There's also something you can see about God from his works He's finding his people wherever they are
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The Lord your God is a merciful God You can see that in the cross too
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You can see it in the Lord's Supper and the kindness and the severity of God God's kindness
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To you who seek for him with all your heart Is that the
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God you can see through his works the God who will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant
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He doesn't forget his covenant with his people no matter where they are He finds them he keeps them.
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Well, if not, if you can't sit her that you can't see that yet Okay, consider something for your consideration
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Let's review what the Lord has done in the past what what you can see of his works See see the
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Lord from his works here his word Moses says ask ask about the past Get a history lesson about what
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God has done Consider whether God whether what God has done with Israel has ever happened to anyone else in verse 33
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Did any people ever hear the voice of of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard?
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and still live See that the Lord is merciful by what he's done He took them out of Egypt by trials and signs and wonders and and war and a mighty hand by great deeds of terror
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Terror to his enemies to whom he is a consuming fire. He did it Moses says at the end of verse 34 before your eyes
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You can see his works To you it was shown in verse 35 again.
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You can see what he does He he he might be invisible, but what he does is visible
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He shows us who he is So that we can see it He shows himself in his works that you might know that the
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Lord is God and there is no other beside him Can you see that?
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The Lord is God. There is no other. He's not just the American God We worship here because we're in America you go back to China you worship
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Go did you do the Chinese thing the three religions? No, he's he is the Lord. There is no other nowhere else
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Can you see that can you hear him Out of heaven he let you hear his voice in verse 36 the word the
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Word of God came from heaven for them at Sinai The Word of God came from heaven for us and became flesh and dwelt among us
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He did it that he might discipline Moses says here disciple Teach us to observe everything that he has commanded you can see his great fire
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You can hear his words out of the fire. You can see his works and hear his words because in verse 37
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He loved us Here here your father's Abraham and his offspring
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Christ is the offspring of Abraham those he has covenanted with are in Christ He sees us you're one of those he's covenanted with he sees us as is under Christ headship is as one of his people
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He loves Christ and so he loves us We come with him.
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We're a package deal We can see who he is by his works We can hear his words because he loved us.
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He chose us notice that here He chose Israel first and Then because of his choice, he brought them out of Egypt for us
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He chose us first and then because of his loving choice He brought us out of sin out of the iron furnace of his wrath.
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He his choice comes first then our salvation Then our faith and then everything we do
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So he reigns now putting all his enemies under his feet like Joshua and to whom he's speaking here
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It's among among those the leader the next leader of Israel Moses is speaking to here that Joshua literally put
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Israel's enemies under his feet in the promised land at one point He literally does that Here the
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Lord is ruling now To give us an inheritance the new heaven and the new earth.
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So no therefore From what you can hear from God's Word.
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What do you hear? What you can see from God's works This is another conclusion in verse 39 to we've had two other conclusions about God.
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He's a consuming fire He is merciful Here conclude from what can can be considered lay it hard.
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He says so you don't forget the third conclusion That the
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Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath Everywhere on the earth
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Now just one nation all nations. You can see it see that you can hear it.
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There is no other and seeing that hearing that you consider that You must not just be a spectator of God's works
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Not just a hearer of God's words like I could in that Someone at a concert you must in verse 40 keep
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His commandments again You do them God has done
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So now we do so, what do you see? What do you hear?
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Three cities east of the Jordan what's that about? Yeah. Well, it's for your consideration
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Israel was supposed to have select cities that were refuges in case someone accidentally killed somebody a manslayer
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It's called in verse 42. So when they crossed the promised land They were supposed to have these cities of refuge that the people could flee to Because if you know, they accidentally killed someone and the family say of the unintentionally killed person doesn't believe it was unintentional and so they're out for blood and you the unintentional killer could flee to that city of refuge for protection from the vendetta and The elders there would decide if this is for real if he deserved the protection
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That was supposed to what they were happened when they crossed into the promised land Now if this land east of the
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Jordan that we talked about last week if this is really part of the promised land Then they needed some cities to some of these cities of refuge.
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So what so that's what Moses does He gives them these cities of refuge So what we see in the cities of refuge is proof proof you can see
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That the Lord had already brought Israel into the promised land had begun that not fully but they're started
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People around us should be able to see in our lives in our church
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That we have already entered the promised land at least in part
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That is not just something we're always singing about in the in the future some glory I'll fly away and go there, but we have a victory now some victory now over the ongoing practice of sin
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We don't live for the dollars of the people around us We're different from the world around us we have a hope
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That that lasts even when we suffer from some of the promises that are still not yet We have that hope because we're in the promised land already and others can see it
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Do you see that in your life? Can it be seen? already That you're in the promised land
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Can other people see that you've heard the Word of God? They might not to be able to hear it themselves yet. They may be blind to it
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They may be deaf to it, but can they see it in your life? Three conclusions about God here.
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He's a consuming fire. He's holy He's merciful and he's the only
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God Not money or family or whatever idol we make Can it be seen in your works that you've heard those words from God Can people see the work of God in your life?
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That you are one of the people that he has covenanted with from before creation
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That he has made you a child of God. He is the miracle worker
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Who reveals himself to us deaf and blind sinners, so no one has ever seen God, but the
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Word of God The God who was begotten and became flesh has made him known
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If you want to see what God is like wrath and mercy grace and truth steadfast love chesed and holiness look at the
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Word look at the Son and Having seen him and heard him
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If you believe in him And observe everything that he's commanded be his disciple and follow him