The Unchanging God of Justice (Hebrews 10:30-31)

Kootenai Church

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And now please turn your Bibles to the book of Hebrews in the 10th chapter, Hebrews chapter 10, and we're gonna begin reading together at verse 26, and we'll read through the end of verse 31.

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Hebrews chapter 10, beginning of verse 26. If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

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Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has insulted the spirit of grace?

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For we know him who said, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people.

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It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Let's pray together. Our Father, you are the giver of every good gift, and we pray that one of your good gifts to us today would be that you would grant us understanding in your word and that you would strengthen our hearts and encourage us together in your word by the power of your

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Holy Spirit, and that that grace may attend all who are listening and I who am speaking, we pray that you would be honored through all that is said here today and that your spirit would use it to teach us and instruct us and to unite and knit our hearts together in faith and in faithfulness, we pray in Christ's name.

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Amen. One of the gravest delusions with which men deceive themselves is the delusion that they will somehow be able to escape the judgment of God if they are outside of Jesus Christ.

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And unbelievers have a myriad of ways in which they convince themselves of this and a number of lies that they tell themselves, and I'll give you a few of them.

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Sometimes men just simply convince themselves that God himself is going to forget their crimes, that they're going to get to judgment day and all of the horrible things that they have done, many of them will simply be lost to God's memory and that he will overlook them because he has so many crimes to account for, so many injustices to make right, that he will certainly forget some of their wrongdoing, some of their wickedness.

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Or sinners convince themselves that God is probably going to change sometime before judgment day.

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I mean, after all, he has changed from the Old Testament, he's no longer that vindictive, angry, wrath -filled

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God of the Old Testament, he's much more gracious in the New, and now he's softer and more gentle and kind of like a doddering old man in the sky, and Jesus has sort of smoothed out all of the rough edges of God's character, so he's probably going to change again before judgment day, and so he's probably not going to be as severe as he has said he was going to be, as he has promised he will be in Scripture.

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Or men convince themselves that the threatenings that are promised in Scripture are really only metaphors and analogies and poetry.

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You've probably heard people say this, that all those descriptions of hell in the Old and New Testament, well, that's a lot of poetic imagery, that's a lot of metaphors and analogies, and so they're probably, hell's not going to be really like that.

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When Jesus speaks of the fire that is never quenched and the worm that is never satisfied, those are just pictures, and so hell's not going to be quite that severe, and what they fail to recognize is that if the analogy is that severe, that the reality that the analogy is attempting to picture is going to be even more severe.

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Or pagans will try and convince themselves that the Old Testament and New Testament writers got it wrong, that they were looking through a glass, a dimly as it were, and they're trying to understand these eternal verities, but they really didn't accurately describe what hell and heaven is actually going to be like, and so when you read the descriptions of God's judgment, the

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New Testament and Old Testament writers, just they weren't really all that accurate about it, they got it wrong. Or sinners will convince themselves that their sins are really not all that bad, and so if they do meet with justice, they'll deal with it on that day.

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You've probably heard sinners say this. No, going to hell really doesn't concern me because, well, that's where all my friends are going to be.

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I had a friend in high school say to me that why would you go to heaven and serve when you go to hell and reign? And he said, all my friends will be in hell.

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It's gonna be a big party. That's where everybody that I like is going to be, so I'm not really worried about going there. However bad it's going to be,

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I'll just deal with it when the time comes. Or there is the atheist objection, where the atheist just simply says there is no eternal judgment whatsoever.

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We're all just meat in motion with no transcendent value, no ultimate purpose, no guiding goal, no moral law above us, that all that we have is what is in this life, and there is no life to come.

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So when you die, there is no eternal judgment, there is no afterlife, there is no day of reckoning at all.

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You're just going to go into the grave and become worm food, and that will be the end of you, and there will be no eternal judgment or justice at all.

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That's what the atheist convinced himself of. And in spite of all of the screamings of the conscience of the sinner, that their conscience bears witness to the fact that they are guilty, and in spite of the fact that scripture condemns them with clarity, and in spite of the fact that scripture calls them to repentance, and the gracious offer of salvation in Jesus Christ calls out to sinners, they do not heed the warnings of scripture, and they ignore all of these eternal verities.

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Even in spite of the fact that their conscience bears witness to scripture, in spite of the fact that they have been called to repentance, men go through this life and they ignore it, and apostates do the exact same thing.

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And the result is that men, by their own choice, and as a result of their own rebellion, end up plunging into hell, and eternal judgment, and destruction, and scripture is very clear and very accurate as to the nature of that eternal judgment.

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And so what all of those denials of God's justice amount to, they really are one of two things, either a denial of the certainty of God's justice, or a denial of the severity of God's justice.

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Pagans, in their deluding themselves concerning the day of judgment, will either convince themselves that the day of judgment is not all that certain, or they will convince themselves that it is not all that severe.

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Either way, they do not need to worry about it, they'll deal with it when the time comes. Well, the warning passage that we've been looking at here in Hebrews 10, which we just read, verses 26 through 31, deals with those two doubts.

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It also deals with the potential objection that the severe judgment of God upon apostates who walk away from the faith, that that judgment is too severe, that it is too stern, that hell is overkill for the judgment that an apostate deserves.

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And what we saw in verses 28 and 29 is that God's judgment is just, that the trampling underfoot the

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Son of God, and regarding as unclean the blood of the covenant by which the Son of God was sanctified, and that insulting of the

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Spirit of grace, that this sin of apostasy is a crime against the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a spurning of their character, their grace, and their work, and so therefore, eternal damnation is perfectly just, it is perfectly suited to the sin of apostasy.

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So now we deal with the next objection, which is that God's judgment is not all that certain. So if there was an apostate reading this passage,

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Hebrews 10, 26 through 31, and he wanted to begin to doubt whether or not this judgment that is described here is really a certainty at all, the author deals with that in verse 30, when he says, we know him who said, vengeance is mine,

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I will repay, and again, the Lord will judge his people. He is there describing the certainty of that judgment, and in case any apostate were wondering about the severity of the judgment, he deals with that objection in verse 31.

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It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. God's judgment against apostates is just, it is certain, and it is severe.

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Not more severe than it warrants, but no less severe than it warrants either. It is just, it is certain, and it is severe.

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So we pick it up now at verse 30 with that cheerful and uplifting introduction. Beginning at verse 30, you're probably, you're probably wondering to yourself, is this ever gonna end like Ecclesiastes?

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Is this ever gonna come to an end? We will be done with the judgment passage soon. Not today, but soon.

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I want you to notice that there are two quotations in verse 30, two quotations from the Old Testament, and the author is highlighting, look at verse 30, for we know him who said, vengeance is mine,

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I will repay, and again, the Lord will judge his people. Two different quotations, and they are from the same passage in the

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Old Testament, and the author is highlighting here the person who spoke those words. When he says we know him who said, he's not just identifying the person, but saying something specific about that person, and the quotation is significant, and we're gonna see the significance here in a moment, but I don't want you to miss the fact that the author is calling to mind what the reader or the hearer of these words would have understood about the

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God of whom he is speaking. When he says we know him who said this, he's not simply saying, we know that God has said this, it's more than that.

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He is saying we know the God who has spoken this, not just who it is, but who in terms of his character and in terms of his nature.

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He is calling to mind a specific warning from the Old Testament, and he is saying we know the identity, we know the character, we know the attributes of the one who has said this, and then he quotes those two passages.

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We have a knowledge of this God. And by the way, this would be true even of the apostates. It could be said of the apostates that they had full understanding of who

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God is. That's one of the graces that God had shown to the apostate in bringing them close enough to the truth that the apostate could see the truth and understand the truth.

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So when it says in verse 26 that they go on sinning willfully, remember that is a intellectually astute, a well -considered, well -thought -out rejection of the truth.

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The apostate himself knows this God, not in a saving sense, but in an intellectual sense.

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He knows who it is who has said this. He is familiar with God's character, familiar with his attributes.

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He knows who this God is, and he knows what kind of a God has said this. He knows, for instance, that this

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God is an omniscient God who knows every thought, word, and deed ever spoken or thought or done by everybody who has ever lived.

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He knows that this God is unchanging and immutable. He is transcendent. He knows that he is just and holy and righteous and that his anger burns against sin.

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He knows that this God is omnipotent and that no one can say to him, what have you done, or ward off his hand, that this

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God rules among the affairs of men. He rules over the nations and that the destiny of every person who has ever lived rests in the hands of this

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God. The apostate knows that because the apostate has been enlightened to a point where he understands exactly who this

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God is and what his character is. And one of the graces that is given to the apostate is that he has been brought close enough to that revelation to know intellectually who it is who is given this warning in the

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Old Testament. And this same God who is revealed in Scripture so that we might know his unchanging nature, his omnipotence, his immutability, his character, his wisdom, his justice, his goodness, even his offers of grace, that God is not only revealed in Scripture, but he has manifested his works and his deeds throughout all of human history, so that we see how this

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God has himself judged in the past apostates, and this God has judged the nations, and we have every right and every reason to believe that this

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God, who is never changing and has worked in history, will be the same God with whom the apostate has to do on the final day of judgment.

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We know him who has said this. And so the author is calling to mind all that the apostate would know concerning this

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God. So, would you then, or would we, or would the apostate make the grave mistake of misjudging or denying

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God's omniscience in thinking, oh, he'll forget my sins, he will overlook them?

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Would the apostate make the grave mistake of questioning or denying God's righteousness, that God would simply turn a blind eye away from my sin and just overlook it and not require a reckoning, a payment for the price of my sin?

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Or would the apostate make the grave mistake of denying his justice, thinking that without any payment of that sin, that God would let him into heaven anyway?

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Or would the apostate deny God's word and say that it's not correct, that there is no coming day of judgment, that we are all just molecules in motion, and so therefore there is no day of reckoning after this?

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The apostate, the atheist, the sinner, whatever their level of knowledge, we know him who has said these things, who has warned of this judgment.

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This is both a terror to the apostate and a comfort to the believer. I'll show you why that is the case at the end.

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Notice in verse 30 that he is quoting the Old Testament as if it was reliable revelation of God's nature. He's once again reminding us that God who said this in the

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Old Testament, we can know him because of what he has said, we know how this God has worked, we know how this

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God has revealed himself in the Old Testament. So far from unhitching our Christianity from the Old Testament or disregarding the

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Old Testament revelation, this author quotes the Old Testament as if it is reliable and authoritative and a reliable revelation of God's nature and his character and his eternal purposes.

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And these two quotations are both from the same passage in the Old Testament from Deuteronomy chapter 32 and they are back to back in Deuteronomy 32.

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He's quoting both of these places so as to remove any doubt of what passage the author has in mind when he quotes this.

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Now before we go back to Deuteronomy 32 to catch the context of that, I just want you to notice, particularly the second quotation, but let your eye look at both of those statements.

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Vengeance is mine, I will repay. And again, the Lord will judge his people.

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Notice that reference, the Lord will judge his people. I want you to take that statement, file it away in the back of your mind for a moment because when you get toward the end of this sermon, when it does come to a merciful end,

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I'm gonna ask you to drag that statement out again so we can examine it a little bit in light of what we see in Deuteronomy 32.

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So those are the two quotations. Now I want you to turn back to Deuteronomy chapter 32 and the purpose of this is so that we may go back and look at the context because it is very instructive of what is going on in Deuteronomy 32 as to what the author is driving at here in Hebrews chapter 10.

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Old Testament, the book of Moses and Moses' last book.

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And I'll give you, while you're finding your place there, actually, to be honest with you, you're gonna need to go back to Deuteronomy 27.

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I know that sounds horrible because you're thinking we're gonna go through five, we are gonna go through five chapters. So Deuteronomy is the last of the five books of Moses.

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This records the death of Moses. It is a collection of sermons and addresses and even a farewell address that Moses gave to the nation of Israel.

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It happens and it is written at the end of their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. So you remember that the previous generation who was brought out of Egypt was brought right up to the cusp of the promised land and the 12 spies went in and two of them,

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Joshua and Caleb, came back and said, look, we got this, no problem. The other 10 said, no, the people are big and yeah, it's a land flowing with milk and honey, but we could never overcome them.

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Joshua and Caleb pleaded with them, let's go in and take the land as the Lord has told us, as the Lord has promised us, and the 10 people's opinions prevailed and the people rebelled in the wilderness and would not enter into the promised land.

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Now, if all of that sounds familiar, in terms of the book of Hebrews, it's probably because we reviewed all of that back in chapter three and chapter four when we talked about the generation who would not enter

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His rest. And Psalm 95, which we read at the beginning, describes that at the bottom of it, at the end of that Psalm, which is why

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God says, I loathed that generation for 40 years. So as a result, as a punishment for not entering into the promised land like they were commanded and being fearful instead that God would not bring them in and fulfill

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His promise, God cursed them with 40 years of wandering around on the Sinai Peninsula when

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He allowed everybody who was part of that generation to die off and then all of the children, their children, who had not been responsible for that rebellion, grew up and watched the judgment of God upon that previous generation as all of them died.

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And now, 40 years have passed and it is time for Moses to die. It is time for Joshua to bring them into the promised land.

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The only three people alive when they had come, still alive by this point, when they had come out of Egypt, were Joshua, Caleb, and Moses.

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Everybody else was dead. There are only three people who have seen the Red Sea crossing and the signs that God did in the land of Egypt.

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But this generation that has grown up now and is about to enter into the promised land, they have likewise seen

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God's goodness. They have seen God provide for them and protect them in the wilderness during their wanderings.

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He has given them manna to eat every day. He has given them water to drink out in a desert land. He has provided manna,

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I mentioned manna. I'm hungry, I must be hungry. I'm talking of food twice. The soles of their feet did not wear out.

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Their clothes did not wear out during all of that 40 years. God has lavished his goodness upon them. They've seen his works, and now they're about to enter into the promised land.

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And Moses is giving them this series of farewell addresses at the end of Deuteronomy. There is a restatement of all of the covenant that God had made with the people when he brought them out on Mount Sinai, when he gave them the law, and he gave them the civil law, the ceremonial law, as well as his moral law.

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There is a restatement of all of that covenant. And he is also reciting in the book of Deuteronomy the judgments that God had inflicted upon a generation that disobeyed him and walked away from him.

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A whole generation of apostates, if you will. People who had seen the good hand of God and turned away from it.

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All of that is fresh on their minds. And now they're about to do what their parents and grandparents were not allowed to do and were unwilling to do.

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And because of their unwillingness to do it, they suffered death in the wilderness. So they have seen an entire generation of apostates perish before God in judgment for them not being obedient.

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And that is the context. Look at chapter 27. We're not gonna go through this verse by verse, but I will draw your attention to several passages.

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Beginning in verse 15 of chapter 27, Moses is here reciting before the people, the elders of the people and the nation of Israel, he is reciting to them the curses that would befall them for not keeping the commandments.

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Look at verse one of chapter 27. Moses and the elders of Israel charged the people saying, keep all the commandments which

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I command you today. So it shall be on the day when you cross the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God gives you that you shall set up for yourself large stones and coat them with lime and write on them all the words of this law so that they may obey it.

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That was the point. Then there would be blessings, obviously, if they obeyed the voice of the Lord their

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God and were faithful to the covenant, God would bless the nation. That was the terms of the covenant. Look at verse 15, there is a series of curses.

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Cursed is the man who makes an idle or a molten image, an abomination to the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsman and sets it up in secret.

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Verse 16, cursed is he who dishonors father or mother. Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary, verse 17.

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Verse 18, cursed is he who misleads a blind person on the road. So these are all violations of the ceremonial and civil law that God had given to the nation and he is calling them to account and reminding them that disobedience to this law would result in the nation and the people who committed these sins being cursed.

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And that cursing goes all the way through the end of verse 26. Verse 28 is a recitation of the blessings that would come if they were to obey the covenant that God had made with them.

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So chapter 28, beginning in verse one, now it shall be if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments which

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I commanded you today. The Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the

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Lord your God. Verse three, blessed. Verse four, blessed. Verse five, blessed. Six, blessed. And on it goes all the way through the end of verse 14, a series of blessings.

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Notice what Moses is doing. You remember the covenant. If you don't do this, you're gonna be cursed.

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If you do this, you're gonna be blessed. And back and forth between curses and blessings, Moses goes. Verse 15 through the end of the chapter is one long list of the curses that would befall the nation if they disobeyed

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God and violated his covenant. But it shall come about, verse 15, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe and do all his commandments and his statutes which

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I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed you shall be in the city.

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Cursed in the country. Cursed will be your basket and your kneading bowl. And on it goes. You could pick almost any verse at random out of that passage and you're gonna read about a curse.

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Look at verse 45. So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you would not obey the

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Lord your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. They shall be a sign and a wonder on you and on your descendants forever.

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Again, he restates at verse 58. If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book to fear this honored and awesome name, the

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Lord our God, then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues and miserable and chronic sicknesses.

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That's the rest of the chapter. Chapter 28. Chapter 29 is the restatement of the covenant that God made with them at Mount Sinai.

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Now he mentions in verse 29, verse one, these are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab besides the covenant which he had made with them at Horeb.

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Horeb was Sinai. At that mount where they had received the law, there was a covenant made there. And so this is a restatement,

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I think, of that covenant and the terms of the covenant and he's given them all of this law for a second time. That's what chapter 29 is about.

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Chapter 29, he relates again the goodness of God. You see in verse five, I have led you 40 years in the wilderness.

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Your clothes have not worn out and your sandals have not worn out on your foot. You've not eaten bread nor have you drunk wine or strong drink in order that you might know that I am the

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Lord your God. This recitation of the blessings that he had poured out on the nation in chapter 29. And then in verse 30, or chapter 30,

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I should say, in chapter 30, after again reciting the curses that would come upon them as a nation if they disobeyed.

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Look at chapter 30, verse one. So it shall be when all these things have come upon you, the blessings and the curse which

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I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all the nations where the Lord your God has banished you. This is one of the curses, where if they disobeyed, they would be banished out of the land and run out of the land.

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And the nation of Israel's history is one of being banished and run out of the land. The Assyrian captivity, the

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Babylonian captivity, destruction of other nations, the book of Judges is a record of their disobedience and their apostasy, followed by God bringing in foreign armies who would put their armies to flight and occupy them and conquer them and pillage them and take all of their goods.

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But, chapter 30, verse one. So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which

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I have set before you, and you call them to mind in the nations which the Lord your God has banished you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and your soul according to all that I command you, you and your sons, then

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Lord your God will restore you from the captivity and have compassion on you and will again gather you from all the peoples where the

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Lord your God has scattered you. That's a promise of restoration. Now look down at verse 15.

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See, I have set before you today life and prosperity and death and adversity in that I command you today to love the

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Lord your God, to walk in his ways, to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments that you may live and multiply and that the

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Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess. If your heart turns away and you will not obey but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,

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I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you're crossing the

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Jordan to enter and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, and I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.

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So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by holding fast to him.

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For this is your life and the length of your days, so that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.

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Notice verse 20. By loving the Lord your God, by obeying his voice, and by holding fast to him. Have we heard that language before in the book of Hebrews?

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What does it sound like Moses is describing here for Old Testament Israel? Sounds to me like he is warning them against apostasy.

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You have seen all of God's goodness. You have known this God. He recites all of the good things that God had done for the entire nation, and for peoples in that nation.

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And he says you have seen his good hand, you have known his good hand. If you obey him, he will bless you.

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If you turn away, if you disobey, he will curse you. God asks you to love him, to obey him, and to hold fast to him.

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That language is, well the book of Hebrews language about holding fast almost seems like it's taken right out of this large warning passage.

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Moses is telling the nation do not turn away, do not walk away, do not apostatize.

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Chapter 31 is a prediction of apostasy. Chapter 31 is Moses' last counsel, and then

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I want you to look at verse 14. We are getting to chapter 32. Look at verse 14. Then the

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Lord said to Moses, behold, the time for you to die is near. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the tent of meeting so that I may commission him.

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Verse 15, sorry, still in verse 14. So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the tent of meeting.

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The Lord appeared in the tent, in the pillar of cloud, and the pillar of the cloud stood at the doorway of the tent. The Lord said to Moses, behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers, and this people will arise and play the harlot with the strange gods of the land into midst of which they are going, and will forsake me and break my covenant which

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I have made with them. Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, is it not because our

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God is not among us that these evils have come upon us? But I will surely hide my face in that day because of the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods.

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There he is. The Lord is predicting there their spiritual apostasy. In verse 19, the

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Lord wants Moses to write a song. Look at verse 19. Now, therefore, write this song for yourselves and teach it to the sons of Israel.

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Put it on their lips, so that this song may be a witness for me against the sons of Israel. For when

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I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them and spurn me and break my covenant.

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Then it shall come about when many evils and troubles have come upon them that this song will testify before them as a witness, for it shall not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants, for I know their intent which they are developing today before I have brought them into the land which

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I swore. God is there saying, I know their hearts, and even while you stand before them today and warned them of this,

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I know of the sin that they're plotting when they get into the land of Israel, the land that I've chosen them.

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So he says to Moses, write a song and put it on their lips and teach it to them and to their children.

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Make them memorize this, so that when I do judge them for that apostasy, the words of this song will come to their mind as a warning and a reminder of their great sin.

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Verse 22, so Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the sons of Israel.

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So what is this song? It is chapter 32. It's called the Song of Moses. This is the song that the

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Lord told Moses to write and the people memorized it and it was intended to be a witness against the people. If they rebelled, they would remember all of these things because it would be in a song that they would recite.

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You understand how easy it is to remember song lyrics, right? I remember lyrics from songs from the 80s.

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They just come on the radio and they come back to me just like I was listening to them yesterday, which I might have been, but I still understand.

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I still remember all of the lyrics of those songs, songs I haven't heard forever. They come back just real quick.

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There's something about putting something to music and memorizing that that just sticks with you forever. Same thing with Psalm 32.

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Originally put to music, this is the Song of Moses. This the people would memorize and remember forever.

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That was the intention. Verse 23, the Lord commissions Joshua to follow Moses and to lead the people into the land.

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Verses 24 through 30, it came about when Moses finished writing the words of this law in the book until they were complete that Moses commanded the

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Levites who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord saying, take this book of the law and place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the

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Lord your God, that it may remain there as a witness against you for I know your rebellion and your stubbornness.

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Behold, while I'm still alive with you today, you've been rebellious against the Lord. How much more than after my death?

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Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers that I may speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them for I know that after my death you will act corruptly and turn from the way which

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I have commanded you and evil will befall you in the latter days for you will do that which is evil in the sight of the

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Lord, provoking him to anger with the works of your hands. Then Moses spoke in the hearing of the assembly of Israel the words of all this song until they were complete.

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And then chapter 32 is the song. How discouraging do you think it must have been for Moses? Right? He was part of a generation of people that perished all of them except for Joshua and Caleb and Moses.

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All of them perished in apostasy. Now there's this whole new generation that have seen the good hand of God. They saw that judgment of God upon those apostates.

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They're about to enter into the land. God renews the covenant with them. He says, these are the terms. And then the

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Lord says to Moses, the good that you set before them, they will not choose.

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Instead, they're going to play the harlot as soon as they get into the land. And Moses has to, in honesty, look out over the company of these millions of people and the elders and the leaders and all the various tribes and say to himself, these people are plotting evil even while I stand here in their presence.

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And as soon as I'm dead, they're going to play the harlot. This was a whole new generation of apostates in the making.

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Well, there's a song that the Lord gave to Moses to warn him of that apostasy and to remind them of the dangers of apostasy, and that's chapter 32.

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So now we get to our text this morning. It's chapter 32. I'm going to read through it, and I'm just going to briefly comment on a few things so that you can see the flow of the argument as we get toward the quotation that is found in Hebrews chapter 10.

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Chapter 32, beginning at verse one. Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

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Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the droplets on the fresh grass, and as the showers on the herb.

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For I proclaim the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our God. The rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are just, a

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God of faithfulness and without injustice. Righteous and upright is he.

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What a way to begin the song, right? To remind them of God's character. All his ways are just.

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Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Every decision that he makes, every act of justice is just and it is righteous, and it flows from his unchanging character as a

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God of faithfulness without any injustice whatsoever. So as you describe the judgment that he warns about in chapter 32, we cannot begin, we have to begin by understanding, we cannot think, oh, that's unjust.

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No, this is a God without any injustice. Verse five. They have acted corruptly toward him.

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They are not his children because of their defect, but are a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus repay the

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Lord, oh foolish and unwise people? Is not he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.

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Remember the days of old. Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father and he will inform you.

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Your elders and they will tell you. He's now going to recite all of the blessings that God had given to the nation.

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In verses five and six, he describes the rebellion. Now he describes the goodness that God had lavished upon these people.

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Verse eight. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.

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For the Lord's portion is his people. Jacob is the allotment of his inheritance. He found him in the desert land and in the howling waste of wilderness.

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He encircled him, he cared for him, he guarded him as a pupil of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest that hovers over its young.

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He spread his wings and caught them. He carried them on his pinions. The Lord alone guided them and there was no foreign

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God with him. He made him ride on the high places of the earth and he ate the produce of the field.

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He made him suck honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock, curds of cows and milk of the flock with the fat of lambs and rams, the breed of bation and goats, with the finest of the wheat and with the blood of grapes you drank wine.

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List of God's physical and spiritual blessings of protection and provision. How did they respond to that, the nation of Israel?

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Verse 15. But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You are grown fat, thick, and sleek. And he forsook

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God who made him and scorned the rock of his salvation. He made him jealous with strange gods with abominations they provoked him to anger.

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They sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately whom your fathers did not dread.

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You neglected the rock who begot you and forgot the God who gave you birth. And then verse 19 and following describes the judgment that God brought upon the nation.

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The Lord saw this and spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and daughters. Then he said,

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I will hide my face from them. I will see that their end shall be for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faithfulness.

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They've made me jealous with what is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people.

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I'll provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. Look at the imagery in verse 22.

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For a fire is kindled in my anger and burns to the lower parts of the shield and consumes the earth with its yield and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

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I will heap misfortunes on them. I will use my arrows on them. They will be wasted by famine and consumed by plague and bitter destruction and the teeth of beasts

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I will send upon them with the venom of crawling things of the dust. Outside the sword will be reave and inside terror, both young man and virgin, the nurseling with the man of gray hair.

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I would have said I will cut them to pieces. I will remove the memory of them from men had I not feared the provocation by the enemy that their adversaries would misjudge that they would say our hand is triumphant and the

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Lord has not done all this. Verses 26 and 27, he is saying I would have wiped them out completely and completely destroyed them except their enemy who would be the instrument of that destruction would say these people are not

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God's people, the Lord had not done this. In other words, God is saying I would have wiped them out completely but I'm keeping back a remnant so that my name may be glorified in preserving those people and not allowing the enemy to wipe them out and think that he had done this and it had not been an act of God.

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Verse 28, for they are a nation lacking in counsel and there is no understanding in them. In verse 28 through 33, he is describing the useless idols of the people that they had worshiped in contrast to the

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God who had lavished them with goodness. Verse 29, would that they were wise that they understood this, that they would discern their future.

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How could one chase 1 ,000 and put 10 ,000 to flight unless their rock had sold them and the Lord had given them up? Indeed, their rock is not like our rock.

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Even our enemies themselves judge this. For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of poison.

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Their cluster is bitter. Their wine is the venom of serpents and the deadly poison of cobras. He just describes there the idols of the nations in contrast to God's provision.

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God lavished us with good grapes and good produce and the gods of the nations, which is a rock not like our rock, has given them grapes from the fields of Gomorrah and bitter grapes and nothing good at all.

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Comparing the goodness and the providential protection and provision of God for the nation of Israel to that of the idols, that's what you get in verses 29 through 33.

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Verse 34, is not this judgment laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries,

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God says. In other words, my way of dealing with this nation, this is what I do for my name's sake and that both the provision and the judgment on the nation for their disobedience, both of these things are stored up with me.

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Verse 35, vengeance is mine and retribution. That is what is quoted in Hebrews chapter 10. That was a long walk for a short drink of water, wasn't it?

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By the time we get to verse 35, that is the passage that is quoted in Hebrews chapter 10.

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And not only that phrase, but also the beginning of verse 36 for the Lord will vindicate his people. And you'll notice that chapter 10 of Hebrews says the

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Lord will judge his people. Indicate to that in just a moment. Verse 35 is

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God's promise that his judgment rests with him, his vengeance and his retribution. This is his to dole out upon an unfaithful people.

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Verse 35, vengeance is mine and retribution. In due time, their foot will slip for the day of their calamity is near and the impending things are hastening upon them for the

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Lord will vindicate his people and will have compassion on his servants when he sees their strength is gone and there is none remaining bond or free.

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In verse 26, it says the Lord will vindicate his people. Look at the next phrase, and we'll have compassion on his servants.

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Now, if you were amongst the children of Israel that day and you were a pious believer in Yahweh, and you loved him and you were faithful to him and wanted to be obedient to the covenant, and then you have this warning that these are the people, this is what the people are gonna do.

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They're all gonna be apostates and God is gonna pour out his indignation. The fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries on these people, and I'm like a lone duck amongst this generation of people who are all rebelling against the

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Lord. One of your concerns would be, am I gonna be swept away in the judgment of that? Or will the

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Lord recognize me as his person and spare me in the midst of that, be faithful to me in the midst of that?

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The answer is in verse 36, the Lord will vindicate his people and will have compassion on his servants.

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All of this judgment notwithstanding, yes, the entire nation might be judged, but the Lord knows those who are his, and he will have compassion on his servants, even in the midst of the judgment that has been described in this passage.

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So verse 35 is quoted in Hebrews 10, vengeance is mine in retribution. Verse 36, the Lord will vindicate his people.

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Verse 37, and he will say, where are their gods, the rock in which they have taken refuge? Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering?

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Let them rise up and help you. Let them be your hiding place. See now that I, I am he, and there is no

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God besides me. It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal.

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There is no one who can deliver from my hand. Look again at verse 39, the last phrase.

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There is no one who can deliver from my hand. In Hebrews 10, verse 30, what's the very next verse say?

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The last verse of the warning passage. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. So the author quotes Deuteronomy 32 in verse 30 of Hebrews chapter 10.

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Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and the Lord will judge his people. And the very next thing he says is, it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God. I believe that the author of Hebrews has in mind a reference to verse 39.

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I have wounded, it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from my hand. Do you know why it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living

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God? Because there is no one who can deliver you from his hand. And if he is going to judge you, and that is his intention, if his hand is moving to judge you for your apostasy, no one can deliver you.

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That is your last appeal. That is your last chance. There is no higher court.

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So look at verse 40. Indeed, I lift up my hand to heaven, and I say as I live forever, if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold on justice.

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Look at the imagery of God's hand taking hold of justice. I will render vengeance on my adversaries, and I will repay those who hate me.

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You can see how the author of Hebrews is borrowing language from this, right? The hand of God, the quotation, the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.

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In verse 26, you can see how the author is borrowing all of that language right out of Deuteronomy chapter 32.

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Verse 42, I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh with the blood of the slain, the captives, from the long -haired leaders of the enemy.

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Now you say, what is the response of the people of God? What would be a good and godly response to the word, to the message that God is gonna judge apostates?

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God's people respond, verse 36, or sorry, 43. God's people respond to verse 43.

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Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants and will render vengeance on his adversaries and will atone for his land and his people.

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There are people who think that you need to be nicer than God, and you should never rejoice when God executes judgment in this world or in eternity.

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That is not true. When our government fulfills its responsibility to execute vengeance against evildoers and to punish evildoers with the use of the sword, the last thing

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I do is clutch my pearls and worry and seethe and think, oh, I should feel compassion for this.

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Instead, I say, this is the thing that God has commissioned governments to do is to execute evildoers like this.

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And when that happens, we ought to rejoice because they are doing what God has called them to do. And when God in this world executes justice and judgment upon people who deserve it, the last thing we should do is try and apologize for God or to say

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God didn't mean to do that, he didn't intend to do that, that's really not what God is like. No, after describing his justice in verse 42, he says that we are to rejoice with his people.

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Why? Because he has executed vengeance upon his adversaries and we ought to rejoice in that and to delight in God's work of justice.

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That is very difficult to swallow, I understand that, because sometimes the objects of his justice are the people we love.

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I get that, they're the people that we love. But in eternity, when we have

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God's perspective on his justice, we will not mourn that. We will rejoice in it and say the

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Lord has done that which is good because he is the judge of all the earth and he has done that which is right. God takes delight in all of his works and there is part of God that takes delight even in the vindication of his name in judging his adversaries.

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God does not wring his hands and apologize for judging those who deserve to be judged. And when we try to apologize for God and appear nicer than God and kinder than God, it does nothing but encourage further apostasy and further sin.

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We need to be honest about what scripture says concerning the judgment that comes to those who deny God. All right, now that is the quotation.

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Back to verse 36, not to Hebrews 10 just yet, but back to verse 36. You'll notice verse 36 says the

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Lord will vindicate his people and in the quotation from Hebrews, it says the Lord will judge his people. So one may discern from that that his people are the objects of his justice and judgment and that God would judge people and that these might be

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Christians who are being judged. The word that is translated judge in Hebrews 10 is a word that, it comes from the word krino, which means to make a discrimination or an assessment or a determination to make a judgment based on correct information, to carefully and rightly examine something and then to make a discerning discrimination on that thing, testing it and examining it in light of what is true and in light of reality, in light of known facts.

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So in Hebrews 10, when the author translates that, not the Lord will vindicate his people, but the Lord will judge his people, he's describing a word for judgment there that really has the idea of vindication even in Hebrews chapter 10.

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In other words, the assessment, the sense is the same. The Lord can discriminate and he knows and he can examine a collection of a body and he knows those who are his and he knows who is not his.

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The Lord is able to discriminate that. The Lord is able to discern that. So Christian, if you are wondering, am

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I gonna be caught up and swept away into eternal judgment because my entire family has apostatized, the answer to that is no.

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The Lord judges or vindicates his people. The Lord examines his people, he knows his people. He's not going to be confused as to who belongs to him and who does not.

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So that's a similar idea. So now what has the author done here with quoting Deuteronomy chapter 32?

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What is the intention of the author? He is quoting from a passage that warns about apostasy. You and I may well say that Deuteronomy chapters 27 through chapter 34 is the longest warning passage in all of Scripture.

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If you think this warning passage is going on forever and ever, you should be thankful that I'm not preaching all the way through Deuteronomy 27 through 34.

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The author is seeing the parallels between a new covenant community of people among whom there were apostates, people who didn't really know the

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Lord but had experienced all of his goodness. He sees a parallel between that and old covenant

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Israel, this group of people who were apostates in the making with rebellious hearts even though there were believers in their midst.

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And that Old Testament community of people had seen God's clear revelation of his goodness, they had enjoyed his provision, they had known of his mighty works, they had heard of his good deeds, they were offered life, and they were among the covenant people, the covenant nation.

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So they were among an elect nation even though some of them were unbelievers and apostates in the making. And they had seen the judgment that God had poured out on a previous generation.

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They knew the results of apostasy, they had watched their parents and their grandparents die before their eyes, unable to enter into the land of blessing.

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They had seen God's judgment on apostates. So they were without excuse. And then this passage describes

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God's justice on apostates. Israel was an example of God's judgment against apostates over a long period of time.

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The Assyrian destruction, the Babylonian captivity, them being run out of the land during the days of the judges over and over again,

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God had demonstrated his righteous indignation against people who saw the truth and knew the truth and yet perished in unbelief, even in spite of clear evidence.

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They went on sinning willfully, if you will, even after having received the knowledge of the truth.

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And so the Jewish readers, instantly by hearing these two quotations, would go back to the warning passage of Deuteronomy 32 and they would remember, oh yes, yeah,

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God warned the people back then who saw his goodness that if they continued in unbelief and hardened their hearts and would not turn and obey, that they would be destroyed.

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And what did we see in the nation of Israel? What we have seen in the entire history of the nation of Israel is one long sad tale of generation after generation after generation of apostates who knew the truth and perished in unbelief.

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God has a long and faithful history of judging apostates and damning them. That's what the entire history of the nation of Israel demonstrates.

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So for the author to quote Deuteronomy 32 and refer to that passage and say to them, you know him who said this, oh yeah.

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He is an unchanging and omnipotent God, infinitely wise and good, who says to us, choose life that I may bless you.

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And if you do not, I will destroy you and I will set my face against you and you will get exactly that which is coming to you.

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Damnation and judgment. We know the God who said this and then we know the God who, for the next almost 4 ,000 years, judged an apostate nation over and over and over again, showing to them that he sets his face against his adversaries.

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How certain can we be of God's judgment against apostates? He has a pretty good track record, doesn't he?

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Generation after generation, a good track record. He's faithful to his word. Come to him in repentance and faith, he will forgive your sins, he will cleanse you of all unrighteousness, he will make you his child, he will take you to heaven, he will save you, sanctify you, and secure you everlastingly.

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But turn from him and you will perish. If there is anybody sitting here who thinks that you can skirt around the edges of Christianity because you grew up in a

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Christian home and you made a profession of faith and you were baptized when you were six and that you are therefore secure and everybody rejoiced over your salvation and you think that you can come and play church and you can play this game and you can be part of God's people visibly, experientially, and outwardly, but never have an inward conversion and never bow the knee to Jesus Christ, I promise you that God who said this has a long track record of judging people like you and damning them for knowing the truth and turning away from it.

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So apostate, apostate to come. Turn from your sin and if you will come to Christ, you will find him loving and gracious.

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Choose life that you may have life and that he may bless you with eternal life. Turn from him and he will destroy you.

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This passage is an encouragement to believers. You will not be swept away in God's judgment of the unrighteous. He discerns his people.

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He discriminates for his people. He knows who are his and he is faithful to them and he will not destroy you along with the wicked, but this passage is a terror to the apostate and to the unbeliever because it reminds us that God has set his face against his adversaries and if you will not repent and believe, you will perish just like an enemy of God which you are.

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Come to Christ, repent of your sin, turn to him today for he made an atonement and a sacrifice that is sufficient to forgive your sin if you will come to him in repentance and faith and believe on him today.

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Let's bow our heads. Father, we do thank you for your goodness in saving a people for your own name.

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We thank you for the warnings of scripture, the promises of scripture and we thank you for passages, long ones like we have looked at today that demonstrate your willingness to save, your love for your own, your willingness to shower people with goodness and grace if they will come to you in repentance and faith, but we are also warned of the destruction that comes to those who will not turn and embrace salvation in Jesus Christ.

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We pray that we may heed these warnings, that they would encourage and steal the hearts of those who are your people and that they would prompt in us obedience and loving grace to reach out and to warn others and we pray that your word and the preaching of the gospel may accomplish its purposes in the hearts of any who are hard -hearted and impenitent and do not want to turn to you.

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We pray that you would break down that barrier and draw them to Jesus Christ, that they may be saved. May all that was said here today be clear in our hearts and minds, we pray in Christ's name.