Dread and Fear

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Kyle Douglass; Deuteronomy 2:1-25 Dread and Fear

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Welcome to Recast Church, where we're growing in faith, community, and service. You're listening to a message by Pastor Kyle Douglas from the
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Book of Deuteronomy from a series entitled, Clinging to God on the Way from Here to There. If you'd like more information about Recast Church, check us out at recastchurch .com
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or you can find us on Facebook. Here's Pastor Kyle. Good morning, everyone.
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Welcome to Recast. I'll try not to yell into the microphone. Talk very softly so you can hear me.
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As always, we are glad that you are here and that you've joined us for worship. We just love that you've ventured out into the snow to be a part of Recast this morning.
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Be sure to check out your connection card folder thing, right?
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The worship folder is what we call it. That gives you some updates on what's happening in our church. Please read through those.
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There is a connection card in that that we would invite you to fill out, especially if you're a visitor. We can get your email and some contact info, at least just your name so we kind of know who you are and we can get connected that way.
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Great way to share prayer requests with us and connect with us. If you do fill that out, it goes in the black box back there at the
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Welcome Center. And then also, if you feel led to give, tithe or an offering, put it in that envelope that's in that worship folder and put it also in that black box back there.
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Well, Don is back from Mexico, complete with spray tan. It's actually, it's a real tan and I'm pretty jealous.
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But he's actually not with us this morning. At least I don't see him. Anyone see Don? Not here.
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Okay. So he's actually hanging out at another church in Coloma. We have a friend who's a pastor there and they set up church in a school.
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And so he's seeing how they do their thing on Sunday morning because we are getting ready to do our thing in a school.
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So the launch of our new service at Madawan Elementary School is coming up on what day?
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March 9th, which is how many weeks away? Three weeks away.
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Countdown is happening. Big deal. We will not be meeting here.
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We'll be meeting over there at the school. One service, 10 .30 a .m. and, excuse me, we've been doing a lot to get ready.
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As you can see, new equipment, equipment's getting changed around, new soundboard in the back and a whole bunch of stuff piled up here in the corner, but we're getting ready.
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In preparation for that, on Wednesday of this week, so February 19th, all of the volunteers involved in what happens here on Sunday morning will meet at the school from 6 to 8 p .m.
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And we're going to do a run -through, just almost like a wedding rehearsal is how we're going to run it, right? We're going to do a talk -through, we're going to do a walk -through, and we're going to do a run -through.
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So we're going to practice setting up, getting everything ready, tearing down, setting up, tearing down, and just make sure that we are aware of any problems that we have or things to adjust by the night.
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So if you're a volunteer, you are invited to come, and hopefully your ministry director, whoever is helping you, has clued you into that or overseeing your area has clued you into that.
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And then also, if you just want to come and be a part of our pretend church for that night and just kind of see what's happening, or if you're interested in volunteering, or you just want to get in on the ice cream that I've heard rumored may be there, please come and check it out.
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So that's coming up this Wednesday night, 6 to 8 p .m., and you can see me for more info.
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Okay, so we are continuing in our series on Deuteronomy, and this is my last time to preach for a while as Don returns.
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And it's kind of neat because Don's coming back into the book of Genesis, and he's actually going to land on one of the stories that we're going to reference here that Moses is looking back on.
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But he's going to get back into Genesis, and I'm really looking forward to that. But for now, we are in chapter 2 of Deuteronomy, and we're still in the historical prologue of Moses' sermon.
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And this text is an intriguing, lightning -fast summary of the 38 years that Israel spent wandering in the wilderness.
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And it's a very thematic text that deals with territorial possession and who's deciding what pieces...
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Hello? Check, check. One, two, one, two. Okay, so it's this thematic recap of what
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God was doing in that time and how He was arranging all the pieces of the nations, right? Deciding who goes where.
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And we're going to see that the one, well, like I just said, the one who's deciding who goes where is
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God Himself, our sovereign God, arranging the nations. There are three main people groups that are encountered in these wanderings, the descendants of Esau around Mount Seir, and then the descendants of Lot's two sons through his own two daughters.
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And yes, that's awkward, okay? If anyone needs to get caught up on that story, it's in Genesis 19.
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But basically from Lot and the relationship with his daughters, he has the
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Moabites and the Ammonites. And Moses recounts here that God said that Israel was to be careful not to contend with any of these people because God had promised land to them just as He had promised to Israel.
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So we see that God's faithfulness extends to even those who are outside of His direct covenant people.
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And I think that kind of shows that God is a merciful God, especially because some of these people would end up becoming enemies of the children of Israel down the line.
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And then we also see God being faithful to His word to kill off the generation of unbelievers who had refused to believe
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Him and enter into the land. So this episode is sandwiched between their original rebellion against God's word to go up into the land at Kadesh Barnea and then their fighting of King Sihon as they get ready to cross the
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Jordan River. And part of the reason that God was walking these people out in the wilderness was because He wanted that generation to die off.
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He swore to them, you guys have not believed me that I would help you get into the land and you're not going to see it now.
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So head on back into the wilderness and let's take a walk, right? Thirty -eight year walk.
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And then we'll land on verses 24 and 25. And the text ends with God commanding the people to fight the
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Sihon Amorite King. And He says this, and we're going to read it in a second but it's worth repeating. He says,
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This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.
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Okay. Does that sound like the normal message that we get in church?
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Is that how you view yourself? Are God's people a people to be feared? Should people tremble when we're around?
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We are just dipping our toes into the murky waters that are the God -ordained killings of the people of Canaan.
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Our text doesn't even contain some of the most explicit commands to wipe out entire people groups but it opens up the opportunity to ask some big questions.
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Maybe you haven't really considered the fact that when God said that He would give His people a land that there were already people inhabiting that land and that they would be militarily removed in order for God's people to take over.
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Maybe as a Christian you've ignored or written off the fact that God saw fit to use
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His people as an instrument of destruction, one that other peoples would dread and fear.
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And maybe, and it would not be wrong if you're in this camp, maybe you're confused as to how that all fits with Jesus who told
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Peter to put away his sword in the Garden of Gethsemane. These are really big questions and it would be impossible for me to comprehensively if not satisfactorily answer them for you in the time that we have this morning.
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And admittedly I'm still wrestling with some of it. But my hope this morning, especially as we focus on what is this idea of fearing
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God and what does it mean for His people to be feared, that I would begin to help you form a biblical understanding, a true biblical perspective on these matters rather than just write them off or walk away from them.
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And I do hope that it will increase your understanding and fear of our awesome, glorious God.
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So let's read the text. Turn with me to Deuteronomy chapter 2 and we'll read verses 1 through 25 and it's on page 126 in your seat back
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Bible. Deuteronomy chapter 2 starting at verse 1.
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Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the Lord told me.
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And for many days we traveled around Mount Seir. Then the Lord said to me, you have been traveling around this mountain country long enough.
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Turn northward and command the people. You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau who live in Seir, and they will be afraid of you.
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So be very careful. Do not contend with them for I will not give you any of their land. No, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given
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Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. You shall purchase food from them for money that you may eat.
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And you shall also buy water of them for money that you may drink. For the
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Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows you're going through this great wilderness.
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These 40 years the Lord your God has been with you, you have lacked nothing. So we went on away from our brothers, the people of Esau who live in Seir, away from the
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Araba road from Elath and Ezean -Geber. And we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab.
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And the Lord said to me, Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given
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Ar to the people of Lot for a possession. The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the
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Anakim. Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites called them
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Emim. The Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the people of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and settled them in their place, as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the
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Lord gave to them. Now rise up and go over the brook Zered.
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So we went over the brook Zered. And the time from our leaving Kadesh -Barnea until we crossed the brook
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Zered was 38 years until the entire generation, that is the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the
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Lord had sworn to them. For indeed the hand of the Lord was against them, to destroy them from the camp until they had perished.
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So as soon as all the men of war had perished and were dead from among the people, the Lord said to me, Today you are to cross the border of Moab at Ar.
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And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.
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It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there, but the Ammonites called them
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Zemzumim, a people great and many, as tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before the
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Ammonites, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place, as he did for the people of Esau, who live in Seir.
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When he destroyed the Horites before them, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day. As for the
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Avim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Kephtorim, who came from Kephtor, destroyed them and settled in their place.
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Rise up, set out on your journey, and go over the valley of the Arnon. Behold, I have given into your hand
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Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession and contend with him in battle.
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This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you, and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you."
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, we do thank you for these stories that you preserved for us in the scriptures.
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We thank you, God, that we get to read of you and your interactions, and that we get windows into your character and your heart.
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And Father, I pray this morning that as we come to your word, and as we sing these songs and just continue in this time that we have together,
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God, that you would open up our hearts and our minds, so that we can understand you fully. And Father, I think each one of us can probably admit that our view of you is somehow, um, weak.
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That we don't totally appreciate you for you. That we don't totally understand you.
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That there are parts of you that we'd rather not even admit are there. But God, rather than us molding you into our image,
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I pray, God, that you would mold us, continue to mold us into yours, that we can see you fully for who you are, and that we would understand you.
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And I pray, also, that as we struggle with who you are in these texts, God, that it would also make Jesus and his ministry more clear to us.
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That the great news would be truly great because of what we understand of your workings in the world. And so be with us now as we sing.
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I pray, God, that our hearts would lift up to you in worship, that we would truly glorify you and praise you for being our awesome
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God. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thanks, band, as always.
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Go ahead and open your Bibles back up to Deuteronomy. It's always great to kind of have it open so you can reference it if you'd like.
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Feel free to get up and get coffee and donuts, make yourself comfortable as we dive in here. And it is a doozy this morning.
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I'll just admit that this is not a super easy text to preach because I have a sense of how it sounds.
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I know how it sounds to me. And when we get to the point of wrestling through the questions, these are difficult things.
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But, hey, it's the word of God and we're going to work through it and pray that it helps us to know him better.
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As we begin, we're going to go through the text and sort of outline it and I'll make some comments and we'll sort of look at the history.
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There's going to be a lot of names thrown at you. Admittedly, I have trouble keeping all the A names like straight,
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Ammonites, Amorites, right? The land of Ar. So hopefully you won't get lost, but it's okay if you do just, you know, relax, we'll get through it together.
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So as we look at verse one, it says, Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the
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Red Sea. Turned from the promised land because they had refused to go in when
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God told them to go in. And so he said, all right, back out to the woods, you guys. And they had to turn around and go back into the wilderness.
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And they stay around Mount Seir for many days, it says, which is an extended period of time. It might have even been some years that they were out there.
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And God gives them the order to head northward, which involves passing through Esau's territory.
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Anyone know who Esau is or at least recognize that name? Okay, so you got Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob and Esau were twins and God's favor went to Jacob.
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Well, Seir means hairy or shaggy. And it's related to the word for goat and sometimes used for a wooded forest or mountain.
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And so God gives the hairy guy, Esau, a hairy mountain.
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It's just funny, right? I mean, like his own mountain is named after him. So this is the place where Esau has landed,
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Mount Seir, literally the hairy mountain or maybe even known as Esau's mountain. Little background on Esau, right?
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He took Canaanite wives, which displeased his parents as part of the family dynamic there.
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They sent Jacob away to go find a wife from relatives. Esau just went and did his own thing and took wives from Canaan.
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His rashness and Jacob's deception combined to result in Esau losing both his birthright and the blessing of his father,
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Isaac. That would have included becoming a great nation. Instead, Isaac tells
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Esau that you will serve your brother. Even though he's the older brother, the way of the times was for the older brother to inherit the blessing, to get the larger portion.
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Instead, this older brother is going to serve the younger, which is part of what God is doing oftentimes in the world.
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He's trying to say, I'm going to use the weak to shame the strong, right? And that partly goes back to the story of these brothers.
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So the best he could do was say that he would eventually break the yoke of his brother, which probably happened when he moved away to Seir, to this mountain region, going away from Jacob because they had both become too large to dwell in the same area.
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Genesis 32 and 36 has the background on that stuff if you guys wanted to look at it. Now there was a point of reconciliation when
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Jacob came back from Laban with his wives and he's going out to meet his brother. And maybe you remember that story. Jacob's really nervous about meeting his brother.
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Why? Because he's bamboozled him, right? I mean, he's deceived him. He's Jacob the liar, right?
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Now he's coming back. He's been made this great and powerful people and he's coming back to meet his brother. His brother, he sends word to his brother.
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His brother Esau comes out with 400 fighting men to meet him. Jacob's like, man, how's this going to go, right?
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And he has that wrestling match right before he meets them. But they come together and they reconcile, which is awesome.
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But that doesn't mean that the family tensions all went away, all right? And there's still kind of this, you guys keep to yourself.
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We're going to keep to ourselves. No harm, no foul, but look, let's not hang out anymore, okay? So then we get to verse 4.
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And as the children of Israel are coming to interact with this people of Esau, also known as Edom, the
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Edomites, God tells them to be careful with their brothers because Esau will be afraid.
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Afraid of what, right? Afraid of Israel's power, very likely.
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You got a million people coming, that's a big army, all right? He also might have been afraid of what it would have required of them resource -wise.
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You have some guests over to your house, they eat your food, right? And the more people, the larger the grocery bill.
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Well, it's interesting, later on we'll see, you know, we'll get to this King Sihon. And if we go back to the historical record in Numbers 20 that tells about these interactions in more detail that Moses is referencing, listen to what
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King Sihon was afraid of as the people of Israel approached. It's probably the same that Esau was worried about.
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In Numbers 22, verse 4, he says, this horde will now lick up all that is around us as the ox licks up the grass of the field.
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So you get a million people walking through your territory and they're going to use your resources and it's probably right that he would be concerned about that.
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We find out in Numbers 20, 21 through 22 that Esau actually denies the people passage.
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He says, you can't come through, we don't want you here, stay out. They come to meet them with soldiers and Israel has to go around.
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You know, it's interesting that Moses recounts that God had commanded the people to be gracious to their relatives.
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He said to make sure that you pay for whatever you use, food or water. If you take anything from your relatives there, the
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Edomites, I want you to reimburse them for it. So they weren't going to come through and just ravage them.
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In fact, that probably would have been a pretty significant windfall, right? I mean, it's like being at McDonald's and all of a sudden a bus pulls up.
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It's like you're going to sell a lot of hamburgers, okay? So it's interesting though that Esau, the people of Esau still reject them from being in their land.
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So God is telling his own children to be gracious to them, to be generous to them, pay for what you use and yet Esau denies him.
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It's going to prove to be a bad choice because later on God would judge Edom for not supporting their brothers as they came through the wilderness.
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A couple of brief notes of application here. Even though Esau was an idiot and Hebrews actually refers to him as godless, right?
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Not the prime example of a faithful follower of God. God still sees fit to be faithful to him and protect the land that he gave to him.
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Isn't that an example of the mercy of our God? God says, you protect him, you take care of him, even though eventually his people would become their enemies.
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But then I think it's also interesting to note that God's favor on our lives often means giving somebody else the deal rather than getting the deal yourself.
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I have some friends who own a sign shop, it's a small business and pretty close with them.
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And sometimes I'll go and we'll go in the back room and they'll be doing their work and we'll just be shooting the breeze. And I was back there one time and this car pulls up, a gold speckled
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Cadillac, custom paint job, high rolling, right? Spinners, everything.
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The people that I'm meeting, the owners of the shop kind of roll their eyes. They're not Christians, good friends, but not
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Christians. And they're just like, oh man, watch this. This guy comes in, we're just sitting there, right?
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Happens to be a local pastor who's being driven by a driver. And he comes in to talk about the signs that they're doing for him for his church remodel.
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And they're going through all these details and he's being nitpicky about this and saying, I want this changed and I want you to redo this one and that's not what we wanted.
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And just going through this whole big thing, right? And then he gets to the end and he starts haggling about price.
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And he says, oh, but you must understand this is the Lord's work. Can't you do a little bit better than this?
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Is that the kind of example that we're to give? This guy's rolling in a gold speckled
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Caddy and he's asking for a deal on signs. I'm a
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Christian, so give me a deal. Maybe it should be, I'm a Christian and I'll pay full price because I want to bless you.
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God says to the people, look, I've been with you this whole time. Don't you worry about being generous. I've always provided for you.
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Yeah, it might cost a lot to pay for all this food and stuff that you're going to use, but don't worry because just like I've been with you these 38 years in the wilderness,
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I'm going to be with you again. So go ahead and bless your neighbors. Do you know that your inability to be generous and bless others may be an indicator of your own lack of trust in God's provision?
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A little aside there. Back in the text, if we look at verse eight, we see that Israel's rerouted.
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Moses, for some reason, was kind of generous in his recounting here. He doesn't explain why they were rerouted.
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He simply says that we just went around our brother Esau and they head towards Moab. And then in verses 9 through 23, we get two more instances of God protecting people that Israel would interact with and both sons of Lot.
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Moab both refers to a larger general area from east of Canaan and more specifically the strip of semi -fertile land just east of the
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Dead Sea. And Genesis 19, 30 through 38 recounts the origin of the Moabites.
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And Moab, as I mentioned, was the son of Lot and his eldest daughter when Lot fled with his family from Zoar.
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So the whole Sodom and Gomorrah thing happens. Lot's freaked out. He goes and hides in a cave with his daughters.
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His daughters are afraid that his line's going to be cut off and so they seduce him, get him inebriated and then both have children through their father.
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And then that produces the Moabites and the Ammonites. So that's where the
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Moabites come from. The family would spread out so Lot's lineage wouldn't be cut off and the
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Moabites and the associated land of Moab would play an important part in the history of Israel.
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More often seen as enemies of the Israelites than as friendly cousins. And the
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Ammonites, the descendants of Lot's other son, Ben -Ammi with his younger daughter. And that's not to be confused with the
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Amalekites, right? So all these names, it's just like, what? What's happening? They both become a people.
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And it says that God tells Moses and the Israelites, don't contend with them because I have given them the land of Ar, which is part of Moab, to the descendants of Lot.
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And then the same is said of them in verse 19, that God has given them their territory. So once again,
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I just point out that this shows how awesome is the faithfulness and the kindness of God.
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That these peoples would all prove to be annoying, dangerous, contentious enemies of Israel down the line, but God keeps his word.
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However it happened, he said, I'm gonna place you here and don't worry, I'm gonna protect you and your land. God is gracious up front, even knowing that eventually they would sin against him.
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And it reminded me of the 10 commandments. Remember what God said as he was giving the law?
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He says, I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
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And I think this is an actual example of God showing his love down through the generations, even to those who would eventually oppose him.
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Now in the sandwich in between this whole deal with all these names and these people who are getting moved around are a couple of verses, several verses that talk about, you know, who's displacing who and who whooped so -and -so and who completely annihilated this other person, right?
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And these are all pretty obscure references. We don't know much about the Rephaim and the
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Anakim and the Horites, but what is clear is that Moses sees all of this territorial shuffling as being under the authority and intention of God's will.
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So who's in control? God, and not just with Israel, everybody.
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Says, as the Lord gave to them. Psalm 47, verse eight says,
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God reigns over the nations. God sits on the throne. God is in control of the nations.
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And it certainly doesn't mean that everything that goes on in the world is condoned by him, right? Manifest destiny, anybody?
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But even in the sinful and greedy exploits of men, God is working to position all peoples to come to an understanding of himself and the work of his son all the time.
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He's the engine behind history. Then right in the middle of all of these kind of footnotes is an important note about all the rebels who
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God swore would not enter the promised land. And look at the emphasis that he puts on this.
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It really reminds me of the Monty Python deal, I'll kill you till you die from it, right? I mean, it's just like, he just wants to make really clear that they're all dead now, right?
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That as the men of war had perished from the camp as the Lord had sworn to them, for indeed the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them from the camp until they had perished.
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So as soon as all of them had perished, right? It's just, they're done. Do you ever wonder how this played out, right?
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They're in the wilderness because of all of these sinners who refuse to obey God and now they all have to walk around the wilderness until they all die off.
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Could result in some awkward moments, you know? I imagine like one of the boys sitting there at breakfast with his dad eating his cinnamon toast manna, right?
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And he's just staring at them. We're out here because of you, right? Maybe they had like a checklist, you know, where they were like keeping track, you know?
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And like every time someone kicks the bucket, they're like, another one down. We're one closer, right? Only 3 ,812 more to go.
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What if you were the last one? You know, I mean, like would people have a funeral for you or like, would they be sad or would they be like, yes, we're moving, right?
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Anyway, sorry, that's probably like really bad. Joking aside,
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God was very serious that his consequence would be fully played out.
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And God is faithful to keep all of his promises, blessings and curses.
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And now we arrive at verses 24 through 25. And this is where it starts to get really fun.
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I mean, not really fun, but maybe interesting is the better word. Here, Israel gets clear instructions that it's game on, okay?
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Time to start moving into the land of Canaan. And again, God's sovereign will is revealed.
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He says, he has given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, along with all of his land.
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So after three no contends, right? Don't contend with them in battle. Don't contend with them in battle. Don't contend with them in battle.
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Finally, time to contend. And I think that this is showing that Israel is starting to figure it out.
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Of course, they would fall again many times, but it's evident that they have learned over the course of these past 40 years of wandering to be relatively obedient, right?
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If God says don't contend, then don't. If God says it's time to fight, then fight.
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The key is obeying God in whatever he says to do, whenever he says to do it.
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The rest is up to him. So we've gone back.
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We've looked at the people of Esau, Moab, the Ammonites, right? And done a little bit of background on them. But what about these people who
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God finally gives the green light to fight? Who are these Amorites? They were a notable cultural presence in the ancient
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Near East. It's actually been shown through research that much of the Babylonian culture is rooted or influenced by this
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Amorite nation. And Babylon was a major force, a major power, also seen as an enemy of God.
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And much of their thinking comes from these Amorites. They were likely descended from barbaric nomadic peoples from the
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Northern Arab regions. But they established themselves as a nation comprised of well -fortified villages, all kind of spread out.
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And they specialized in animal husbandry, likely sheep, probably supplied the surrounding area with wool and things for clothing, and also agriculture.
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By the time of Israel's confrontation with them, they were in decline.
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Their power was in decline, likely due to the pressures of the growing populations and people around them. But they were still a respectable force.
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Their gods included, and here's a list, quite the list. Dagon, Hadad, and Anat, Atharat and Yam, Il, Ilat, Ba 'alat, and Ba 'al,
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Baal, whose proper name is unknown, but who is later identified with the
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Amorite storm god, Hadad. These are idol -worshipping pagans.
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So in verse 25, after giving orders to take these idol -worshippers out, God promises them, this day
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He will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.
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And so begins the Canaanite conquest. Cool, right? Yeah, finally, the good guys.
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Gonna get some respect. We got these weak slaves, you know, they're just wandering out in the desert, no land of their own, and man, now they're gonna really start, you know, whooping some behind.
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If you're like me, maybe there's a part of you that both rejoices in it and feels uneasy about it. It almost sounds like God wants
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His people to be bullies. You ever been there when like winning didn't seem that fun?
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Like you wanna win real bad, but then you feel bad for the losers? Is that what's happening here?
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Should we feel bad for these people? Should we question the celebration of God's strength and might being put on display among His people?
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I think this text gives us some options. And other texts like this in the Old Testament that we come across and we go, what, is that our
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God, right? Option number one, we can ignore it. And we can just say, well, this is just too uncomfortable and I don't even wanna hear that happened.
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Onto the New Testament, right? Option two, we could deny that it even happened or that it was sanctioned by God and just say that the
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Bible is inaccurate. And there are some people who try and prove that, that this conquest is really just secular history, that they were adopted into the canon against God's will.
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And so we don't actually have an honest representation of what God was doing. Option three, we can argue that the
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New Testament God represented by Jesus isn't the same God we see in the Old Testament, thank the
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Lord. And maybe some of you have heard that argument. Oh, I'm just glad God isn't like He was back then, right?
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The trouble there is that the Lord you're thanking wouldn't be the Lord Jesus knew and spoke about. We do serve the same
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God. So maybe the fourth option is the right way to go. We can take a deep breath, we can settle ourselves in and humble ourselves to listen fully to the
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Word of God in an effort to know God fully in His great love and in His wrath.
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This is by far the more difficult option I know. It was a tough week of study, but I do think it's the right one.
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Remember Hebrews 4 .12, a lot of you probably have this memorized, right? For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two -edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
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I think a good preparatory question might be to ask ourselves as we move into some of these harder questions, as you read these things about God, why does your heart fight it?
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What might be in it that would cause you to say, God, you can't be like that. That's not you.
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I don't want to serve you if you're doing this. These hard examples can do just what
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Hebrews says. They can help us understand the intentions of our heart and maybe identify some pride that we have or some ignorance that we have about who
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God really is. And we can either run from that or step into it.
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So let's take on some of these questions. I have four of them. The first is why would
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God want Israel to be feared? Why would God want Israel, his people to be feared?
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Well, Israel is a reflection of the God they serve. And in this particular time in history, especially what was happening to the people was a direct reflection on the
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God that they served, right? So if a people is prosperous, everyone said, oh, look, their God must delight in them or he must be powerful.
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He must be helping them in their victories, right? And it was no different for Israel. Moses actually uses this fact as protection for the people on several occasions when
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God was upset with the people because of their disobedience. And God's like, step aside, Moses, I'm wiping them all out.
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Starting clean with you, pal. And what does Moses say? No, don't do that, the people are so good.
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They really love you, just give them a second chance. No, he says, don't do it,
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God, because if you do it, all the surrounding nations are gonna say that you're not as good as we all know that you are.
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They're gonna blame you for it, saying that you brought this people out in the desert just to kill them. They'll say you're a terrible
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God, right? So Moses acknowledges that the reputation of the people was tied up in the reputation of God himself.
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And God actually listened to him and relented from completely destroying his own people on several occasions. So I think the answer to this question depends on a more fundamental question.
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Should their God, Yahweh, be feared? And I say yes.
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Last night, I'm hanging out with my brother. He's a scientist. And we get talking about science and the universe and all this stuff.
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And he shows me a YouTube video. It's called The Scale of the Universe. Anyone seen it? Okay. What they basically do is they start with a tiny little spec that, you know, string theory.
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It's one of the common ideas of how the universe runs, whatever. So a string is like the smallest thing that we can even theorize exists.
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And it starts there. And then they kind of start moving into the background, right?
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And then from the background come all of the things that are a little bit bigger. So it moves up to like the size of an electron.
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And then it moves to a proton. And then it moves to E. coli and DNA, right?
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And everything's just kind of getting bigger by order of magnitude. And then it gets up to animals and then a human and then an elephant and then the state of Nebraska and California, right?
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Yay, Nebraska. It just keeps moving. And things are getting bigger and bigger.
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And then you see the earth zoom by, right? And the earth's pretty big, right? I'd have a hard time lifting it.
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And then from the earth, then you get the other planets, right? And then you get our star. Our star also you think is pretty big.
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Actually, we're really small. These other stars come flying by and they're huge and they're gigantic.
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And then we start getting into galaxies and then bigger galaxies.
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And eventually it ends with the width of the known universe. And then it rushes all backward.
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We are small. But even contained inside of us, we are a universe in ourselves.
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Every cell its own city. Every part of that city made up of a solar system of atoms and molecules.
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Each of those its own universe of subatomic particles, right? And then you stand on this rock and you look out and the size of it all is just unfathomable.
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Our mind cannot comprehend how big the universe is. And the psalmist is inspired by God to ask in Psalm 8 verse 3, when
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I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?
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We are just dust in the universe and tiny dust at that.
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We are the creation of an all -powerful God who did it all with the work of his fingertips.
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Don't get lost in the metaphor. I'm not talking about God standing up there shooting thunderbolts out of his fingers, right?
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I'm just saying the psalmist was just describing to us in poetic language that it was nothing for God to create all this.
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And when I just begin to fathom that, I do get a little bit scared.
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And I think rightly so that when we think of the power and the awesomeness of our
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God, we ought to tremble. Revelation 14, 7, and he said with a loud voice, fear
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God and give him glory because the hour of his judgment has come and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.
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Someday we're all gonna watch that go down. And maybe even in our joy, we're gonna shake in our boots a little bit.
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So yes, God is to be feared and worshiped. And I do think that his people infused with his power and under his direction and protection are also a force to be contended with.
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In a really small way, have you noticed how people change in the presence of someone righteous?
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Ever happened to you at work? You know, someone lets out a swear word or something. They're like, oh, dude, sorry.
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You're religious, right? They know you're Christian or they don't bring things up around you, right?
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In a way, they're kind of afraid of you because you're representing the light. You're a sign of righteousness before them.
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Is God's power evident in you? Do people fear to be evil when you're around?
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Second question, does God have the right to kill someone who is innocent?
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It's a doozy. We read these things. We read that God is telling them to go and wipe out all of the people, leave no survivors.
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Well, what about the children part of the conquest, the leave no survivors part? In a strict sense, no one is innocent because we're all born in sin.
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At least not innocent in the sense that God is obligated to us or would have his rights over us subjugated to our righteousness.
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Does that make sense? We're not innocent to the point where God's rights would be subjugated to us.
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He's our creator. He's over us. The Bible does speak of a time before a child has any knowledge of right and wrong.
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That actually came up in the curse over the people who refused to go in the land, right? The only ones who would see the land were the children before the age of accountability, whatever that is.
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But it's never taken to mean that God does not have every right over our lives to do whatever he wants at any time.
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And in some of the cases of the pagan idol worshipers of Canaan, he saw fit to judge the entire people and remove any possibility of the continuance of their evil practices through what some might call genocide.
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That's a weighty statement. This is really important to understand as well.
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That God's actions here against these nations aren't just random, let's roll the dice and see what innocent people get slaughtered today, right?
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That's not what's happening. Josh and Sean McDowell, you guys might know
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Josh McDowell, but they're both authors now, he and his son, Sean. And they wrote this book, Bible Handbook of Difficult Verses.
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And look at their explanation of the Canaanite Yahweh killings. He said, there is a reason that God commanded that an entire people be destroyed.
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Moses told the children of Israel that, and now he's quoting Deuteronomy chapter nine, we're not there yet. But he's,
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God says this, God will drive these nations out ahead of you only because of their wickedness.
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And to fulfill the oath, he swore to your ancestors of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if we read a little bit more context, we'd hear that he makes it clear that they're not getting the land because of their righteousness.
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It's because of the intense wickedness of these people that he's driving them out. They go on to explain, the
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Canaanite people were idolaters. They engaged in incest, temple prostitution, adultery, homosexuality, and bestiality.
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They molested children and sacrificed children alive up to four years old.
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They were a depraved people. But even so, even if their atrocities were not so horrendous,
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God has every right over our lives. Job was righteous yet allowed to suffer and Satan had no power over Job except what
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God granted him. Paul talks about God's right to make a pot for whatever use he sees fit, some for common and some for holy.
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Can you accept that? I've gotten in some real knock down, drag out debates over this.
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Because there've been times in my life when it's been harder for me to accept. Can you accept that you have no right over your life to do so and not lose all hope?
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But rather trust in the goodness and rightness of Yahweh which
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He has expressed to us in Jesus Christ is I think the beginning of an understanding of what it means to fear
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God. To fully acknowledge that God has every right over you and to know that you have no power apart from what
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He grants to happen in your life and yet to know that in His goodness He has provided Christ for you.
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That is to fear God. Third question, isn't accepting the fact that God judges people make us somehow arrogant and self -righteous who think that God is on our side?
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Also I think something that's commonly out there, who are you to tell me what's right and wrong? Who are you to judge me for your lifestyle, right?
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And a lot of people think that because we proclaim or claim to have
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God on our side that we're really just calling the shots, right? Whatever we want goes and somehow we're privileged or shown extra favor, right?
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Of course God did choose a people for Himself in order to bring about His plan for the world. They are a chosen people, no fault of their own.
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But is it true that they got special treatment? As in are they calling the shots or can they oppose
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God somehow and get away with it? Do whatever they want to other people around them? Absolutely not.
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God does not hold them to a different standard at all. In fact, it's a higher one, if anything. We see in this very text that God would not allow some of His own people to enter the promised land because they had been unbelievers at the time of Kadesh Barnea.
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And He swore to them that they would die off before He fulfilled His promise to them. It sounds like discipline.
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It sounds like punishment for wickedness. I'm gonna flip over to the book of Amos. If you wanna join me, you can.
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Otherwise, you can just listen along. But Amos 1 begins with this series of pronouncements against Israel's neighbors.
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All of these people who are opposing Him, right? He says stuff like this. And He said,
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The Lord roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem. The pastures of the shepherds mourn and the top of Carmel withers.
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Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they have threshed
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Gilead with threshing sledges of iron. God's bringing judgment on Israel's neighbors.
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And He goes on to do this many more times. We have Damascus, we have Gaza, we have
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Tyre, we have Edom, Edom, which we just talked about.
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We have the Ammonites, just talked about them. We have Moab, just talked about them too.
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But then guess who He saves the two final pronouncements for? The last one, at least three times as long as any of the other pronouncements
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He's made on the neighbors, His own people. First for Judah and then for Israel.
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Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not revoke the punishment because they sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
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Those who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and turn aside the way of the afflicted. A man and his father go into the same girl so that my holy name is profaned.
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They lay themselves down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. And in the house of their God, they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
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God's not playing favorites. God judges those outside of Israel and He judges those within Israel, both for having wicked and evil hearts and refusing to put
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His righteousness on display. And as we read through the other scriptures, we see in many cases that foreigners are shown mercy and grace as evidenced by Rahab the prostitute who's in the city of Jericho.
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Jericho, one of the cities in Canaan that the Israelites were coming in to destroy. And why does she get saved?
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Because she believed in God, because she had faith and she helped the spies of the land and her whole family was protected.
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And she actually gets entered into the lineage of Jesus, King David and then on to Christ.
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So God's just not arbitrarily shooting people down. And we're not somehow privileged as if we can just go after anybody we choose.
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It ought to always keep us humble. John the Baptist said it perfectly when he told the Jews, you guys think you're all good just because you're sons of Abraham?
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God could turn these stones in the sons of Abraham. Turn from your evil ways.
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He warned them in Matthew chapter three, verse nine. Do you think being a
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Christian puts you on a pedestal above everybody else? That it gives you a right to take and abuse, to judge?
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If you find yourself in such a place, it's time to worry because Jesus is not up there with you.
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He's down in the mire and the dirt washing people's feet. But last question, speaking of Jesus, does
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God call us today to use the violence to expand his kingdom? Is Jihad an option for us?
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Although God does not change, his methods might. Our great distaste for such bloody events,
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I think is partly because our nation is founded on a Christian ethic, right? We're built on these principles that Jesus has taught us.
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I think they're waning a little bit. But we Gentile followers of Christ living in 2014 are following the orders of our
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Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ, who came as a tiny baby not to overtake with power, but to overcome with love.
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And God is love. And I really believe that both death and violence are both outcomes of sin, neither of which he enjoys or ultimately desire to see take place.
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Violence and harm are only used to correct those employing violence themselves and harm against others or to instruct the sinful, prideful hearts of those who refuse to listen to him, like Job.
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Sometimes it's just to display his glory. So we do serve the same
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God that Moses and the Israelites served, but Jesus clarified or reversed some of the practices that God gave
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Moses. And he can do that because he's God. We're in a different mode.
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A lot of people don't know that a lot of the things that Jesus told us to do are in the Old Testament, like love our neighbor, right, forgive.
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A lot of these come right out of Leviticus or Deuteronomy. But what is exceptionally different about Christ is his example, his refusal to escalate violence, his silence before his accusers, his spoken forgiveness in the middle of his torture on the cross.
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And without a hesitation in the world, I suggest to you that in those moments of love, Jesus was more dreadful and fearsome to the forces of evil than at any time in history.
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And we as people are to be just as terribly loving and dreadfully righteous as our
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Savior was. And my heart abounds in thankfulness and worship for God's grace to me in Jesus and his patience towards me, a sinner, because I do deserve to die.
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I'm a lawbreaker. I have no right. And if God saw fit to bring destruction into my life, he would be just in doing it.
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I'm in Christ. I am forgiven based on the work of Jesus on my behalf.
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And God isn't mad at me anymore. I thank
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God for his mercy. And now I'm called by my Savior and Lord Jesus Christ to do the same to my enemies until he tells me differently.
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And he'll have to be real clear about that. And what has he now called us to use to conquer the world, but the gospel and his ruthless, aggressive, relentless love.
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We are a people of peace and hope and love of patience under persecution and silence under mistreatment, leaving
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God to fight for us. And I assure you that there are a few things as fearful and dreadful to a wicked person as someone who loves them in the midst of their wickedness.
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Even so, and this is final point here. The judgment of the enemies of God, those who reject
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Christ as the son of God is not over. There is coming a time called the great tribulation outlined in Mark 13 and afterwards when the son of man will return and when
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God's magnificent and terrible wrath will be unleashed on the world that persists in hating him.
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Why? Because God's just a big bad guy in the sky. No, because he's finally going to put an end to all of the wickedness and the evil and the pain that has infiltrated his perfect world.
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And as hard as that is to hear, I'm glad for it. I rejoice.
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So what do we have from this text? Again, these are really hard things. I hope maybe at least you've been sparked to think through who
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God is in a deeper way. He's not just some cosmic fuzzball going around giving everybody hugs, but he loves you deeply.
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And the greatness of the good news is greater because of what it saves us from, and that is his just and righteous wrath.
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We see that God is all -powerful and sovereign over the affairs of men, putting the nations wherever he wishes. He's rightly feared.
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God is faithful to keep his promises, whether blessings or curses. It is within God's right and will to bring calamity on the wicked, whether that's pagan
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Gentiles or his own people. And now in Christ, we are no less called to be a fearful and dreadful people as we obediently expand the kingdom of God.
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And we also fight in the power of our holy God. But our weapons are no longer swords and shields, but hope and love.
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And may all the forces of darkness tremble in anguish before the resurrected son of God who spilled his blood and broke his body to save us from hell.
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Amen? Amen. So we come to communion and we do take this cracker representative of the body of Christ broken for us.
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And we drink that little cup of juice as a reminder of the blood that he spilled for us. Symbol of the new covenant.
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And we do this until he comes back to remind ourself of what Jesus has done for us. And we look forward to the day when he's back and makes everything right.
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If you're not at that point yet, where you're someone who could say you fear
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God because you've acknowledged Jesus Christ as his son, who's paid the sacrifice for your sin, we ask to just pass the elements by and think about it.
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Really think about it. That God doesn't have to be mad at you anymore.
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But in Christ, you're forgiven. But if you do believe in Christ, then please join us in celebrating communion together.
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Let's pray. Oh, Father, there are some really hard things in this book.
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But I thank you, Lord, that you don't hide yourself from us, that you don't apologize for who you are, that you just hang it out there and we get to deal with it.
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And Lord, I pray that we really would wrestle with these concepts, that we wouldn't become off balance either way, that we would treat you as just so graceful that we could never imagine you doing any harm to anybody.
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But at the same time, God, that we would not be crushed by the weight of your wrath. And it is deserved.
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But God, in Christ, in Christ, we are forgiven. And Father, we just acknowledge before you this morning again that you are in control of our lives.
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And Father, if there's anyone here who even if they say they know you, has not been acknowledging that reality, who's just been looking to you like someone to give some advice from time to time or to bail them out of a tough situation,
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God, then I pray that their hearts would be broken, that they'd humble themselves and realize that you are in control of every moment and that they would rejoice,
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God, that you are a good God who wants to bless them. Thank you for the sacrifice of Jesus.
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Thank you for his resurrection. Thank you for the hope that we have in him. And it's in his name that we pray.