FBC Daily Devotional – June 17, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good Thursday to you. We're winding down this week very slowly. I hope your week has gone well, and as we look forward to this day and all that we have to do in it,

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I hope you've gotten off to a good start with spending some time with the Lord, maybe even just this at this point.

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But, perhaps you can take the time to, and I encourage you to do so, actually open the

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Bible to Deuteronomy 4, read today's passage of Scripture, and and then also first half or a good chunk of Psalm 68.

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Nothing can beat that. What I have to say, you know, little comments on the Bible and so forth are all well and good,

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I suppose, and may be helpful, but it doesn't replace the word in your life.

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Supplement, I hope. Well, anyway, I hope you're getting some time to do that. But today, we did read in Deuteronomy 4, and there's a couple things

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I wanted to bring out in this passage. And one of them is a warning, and it is really a warning.

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The other is an encouragement of the people. And so, here's the warning in the giving of the law.

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And remember, Deuteronomy is the repetition of the law given at Mount Sinai.

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He's rehearsing it. Moses is rehearsing it before Israel goes into the land.

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This is going to be your guide for life, if you will, this law. And so, in the giving of the law, the

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Lord warned against against, if I can put it this way, building unnecessary fences.

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And what I'm referring to is what he says in verse 2. He says this, he says, Well, let me back up to verse 1.

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He says, Moses says, Okay, so he's talking about the law that he's teaching them.

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Then he says this, I want to zero in on that first part of verse 2.

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So, Moses is warning the people not to add, not to build any additional fences.

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And here's what I'm getting at. Alright, think of the think of the law as a fence at a cliff.

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And if you if you do, if you disobey the law, you break through that fence, you're gonna fall off the cliff.

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Okay? So, someone comes along and says, you know, some people are getting too close to that fence.

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You know, that law, breaking that law. They're getting too close to that. You know, the law says, you know, don't do this.

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You got to do this. And some people are getting too close to that fence. So, maybe what we should do is build a fence 10 feet back from the original fence.

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Another layer of fencing that will, you know, keep people from going beyond that additional fence.

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They won't have any chance of breaking through the fence that will go over the cliff. That's well -meaning.

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Perhaps, and seems to be well thought out and reasonable. But that's exactly what the

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Lord says, don't do. He says, don't add any additional fences. Don't add to the commandments.

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And that, you see, here's the thing. When we get to the New Testament, and who's, who does the

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Lord have the most problem with? Not the tax collectors. Not the, not the prostitutes and the lepers and the outcasts of society.

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Not the common men, the common people. Who gives him the most fits? It's the scribes and the

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Pharisees. And what's their problem? Their problem is, not that Jesus is violating the law and going over the cliff.

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But Jesus keeps jumping over the fences that they've built back further and further and further away from the cliff itself.

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You're not supposed to touch, you're not supposed to heal anybody on the Sabbath day.

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That's a work. Where'd that come from? You know, where's that? Your, your disciples are, they're, they're, they're, they're taking grain in their hands on the

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Sabbath. And they're, they're getting, they're getting food. They're working on the Sabbath and making food. Really?

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Or they're not washing their hands the right way. Where did the, where did the rule about washing the hands come?

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It's a fence built 50 yards back from the original fence. We don't want to, we don't want to have the possibility of going over the fence and defiling ourselves with Gentiles.

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So we got to do this and this and this and this. And the fences were built back. If, if they hadn't built these additional fences, the poor

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Pharisees and scribes wouldn't have anything to do. They wouldn't have anything to complain about. Now, here's the thing. This isn't a first century problem either.

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It's, it's a human nature problem. And there, there can be a tendency within our own

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New Testament Christian heart to do this same kind of thing. We know, for example, okay,

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I know this is wrong. I know, you know, whatever that is. I know this is wrong. I, I, and I don't want to do that.

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I can't do that. So I, if I get, if I get too close, I'm going to go over the edge.

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So for myself personally, here's what I'm going to do. I'm, I'm going to, I'm not going to have this in my house.

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Okay, fine. That's a good thing. You know your limitations, you know your temptations, and you know how easily you slip and fall and so you can, you can do that for yourself.

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But here's the problem. Here's where the problem comes in. The problem comes in when you say to a new convert or to another brother and sister in Christ, you have that in your home?

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How can, you can't have that in your home because if you have that in your home, you'll end up going over the cliff down the road.

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You know, you, you can't do that. You can't, you got to get rid of that. And it's especially dangerous for a new convert because he's like, okay, well,

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I don't, it's not in the Bible anywhere, but you know, you've been a Christian longer than I have, so I need to do what you tell me

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I need to do. That's, that's a dangerous thing. The Lord says, the

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Lord says, let's not do that. Don't build any additional fences. Be careful about that. The other thing

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I wanted to point out is just a word of encouragement from verse 9. The Lord says, only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.

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And what the Lord is doing here is encouraging us, encouraging God's people to, to diligently keep our soul, diligently keep our soul, with a desire in our heart to obey

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God, obey his word, live the way God wants us to live.

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Watch our hearts. Keep, keep our eye on our heart. Is, is our heart have that desire?

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If not, we need to deal with the heart, on the heart level, because, you know, you can build all these fences, you can do all these things, you can have all this established, but if your heart's not in it, you're gonna go, you're gonna go over the fence anyway.

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You're gonna go over the fence anyway. No, watch the heart. Watch the heart. Take heed to yourself and keep yourself, the

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Lord says. So let's, let's heed that challenge today, okay?

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Our Father and our God, we do thank you today for this very practical warning about building additional fences.

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May we avoid that, may we avoid that folly, the kind of fences that we expect other people to build in their lives too, even though your word doesn't tell us.

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And then Lord, help us to keep ourselves, to watch diligently what's going on in our own hearts, we pray.

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And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right. Have a good rest of your Thursday and look forward to the weekend.