Scripture Reading - Deuteronomy 12:12-11:32

Please turn your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 10. This can be found on page 155 of the pew Bible in front of you. Scripture reading will begin in verse 12 and continue all the way through chapter 11. In this passage, Moses, continuing to prepare the people to go in to the promised land across the Jordan, tells them they must circumcise their hearts.

It's not merely their outward body that must be ceremonially clean, but inwardly they must be clean before God. This is spoken of by Paul in Romans chapter 2 as being the mark of a true Jew. In other words, it is an indication, if only a hint, that the gospel will go out to the Gentiles beyond those who are merely physically part of the nation of Israel, but all who trust in the Lord Jesus and are purified before God.

So he continues on telling them how they must serve the Lord and how they must depend on.

Him.

It will be important as they go into this land to depend upon Him for deliverance from their enemies. There are many enemies in this land that God is going to send them into, and they will not go away on their own, nor will Israel be strong enough on their own to cast them out of the land.

Rather, it is only through the Lord's help, if they rely on Him, that these enemies will be destroyed and removed. And moreover, they must depend on Him for rain. This land is contrasted with the land of Egypt that is irrigated by the Nile.

Instead, as they go over to the land of Canaan, this is a land that is watered by the rain, and so they must trust God to send the rain at the appropriate time. So it's not by their own works that they will have abundant crops, rather it is by the blessing of God they will have abundant crops.

And he ends this passage speaking of blessings and curses, that as they obey God, they will receive blessings, and as they disobey Him, they will receive curses. Now within this, even though it's a very strict set of statements about blessings for obedience, curses for disobedience, there's also the statement that God by His strength brought them up out of the land of Egypt.

It says in verse 22, "'Your fathers went down into Egypt, seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.'". So there's a promise here that though we see that the people must obey God, and much of this is in their hands in a sense, even though the Lord will be helping them, there's a promise that God will save His people.

And we see this promise come to full fruition, not in this old covenant that ultimately relies on the people, though God blesses the people, but ultimately in the new covenant where Jesus Christ saves His people.

How many disciples did He send out? He sent out twelve, representing the nations of Israel, and then seventy, representing these seventy that went into the land of Egypt and came out as numerous as the stars of heaven.

So it is that in Jesus Christ, He has perfectly accomplished His purposes, building a people for Himself, this twelve and seventy people, bringing them up out of bondage and saving them so that not by our own works do we receive the blessings of God, not by our own works do we receive the reign of God, but rather by the goodness of Jesus Christ, by His mercy, by His obedience to the Father, do we have these sure and certain blessings.

Deuteronomy chapter 11, beginning in verse 12,. "'And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord which I am commanding you this day for your good?

Behold, to the Lord your God belong the heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set His heart and love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.

Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn, for the Lord your God is God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe.

He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you are sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God.

You shall serve Him and hold fast to Him, and by His name you shall swear. He is your praise. He is your God who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.

You shall, therefore, love the Lord your God and keep His charge, His statutes, His rules, and His commandments always. And consider today, since I am not speaking to your children who have known or seen it, consider the discipline of the Lord your God, His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm, His signs and His deeds that He did in Egypt to bear the king of Egypt and to all His land, and what He did in the army of Egypt to the horses and to their chariots, how He made the water of the Red Sea flow over them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day.

And what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place, and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them in the midst of all Israel.

For your eyes have seen all the great works of the Lord that He did. You, therefore, shall keep the whole commandment that I command you today, that you may be strong and go in and take possession of the land that you are going over to possess, and that you may live long in the land that you are—may live long in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them and to their offspring, a land flowing with milk and honey.

For the land that you are entering to take possession of, it is not a land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it like a garden of vegetables. But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the Lord your God cares for.

The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in grain and your wine and your oil.

And He will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. Take care, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and He will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain, and the land will yield no fruit, and you will perish quickly off the good land the Lord is giving you.

You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth.

For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the Lord your God, walking in all His ways, and holding fast to Him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier.

Than you.

Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the river, the Euphrates, to the western sea. No one shall be able to stand against you.

The Lord your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as He promised you. See I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known.

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun and the land of the Canaanites, who live in the Ereba opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Morah?

For you are to cross over the Jordan to go and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

Amen.