The Command To Love YHWH

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It is all the way over on on there we go I'll just have to stand still this evening a little bit hot, but that's all right not hot in here
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I mean the microphone it's feeding back a little bit Deuteronomy chapter 11 before we look to the
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Word of God. Let us ask the Lord to bless our time together Grace Heavenly Father We thank you for giving us the opportunity of meeting this day in this place and as we open your word
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We would ask that once again you would help us to understand to Think about your truth to make
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Application that we might understand and truly be servants of yours in this coming week.
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We pray in Christ's name. Amen Well the weather did everything it could to try to keep us from being here today, but here we are
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I was thinking this morning That it was going to be another couple of weeks before we would be able to see one another again
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As most of you know tomorrow evening I board a flight for well
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Johannesburg via London and We'll be engaging in a number of debates again
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Some mosques involved there in in South Africa as well as in churches and universities and things like that So your prayers would be appreciated for that time
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But it has been our our study over the past number of times and I've had the opportunity of speaking
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To be looking at the Holiness Code. We have only begun the background of this study
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We have not actually gotten into Leviticus yet. We will I promise you but you may recall the last time we were together we began looking at Deuteronomy chapters 10 and 11 and the reason we were doing this was to provide the necessary background.
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I To present the righteousness and the binding character of God's moral law is we have to recognize
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That we are dealing with rebels It's so easy in our society today to to be pushed into the mindset that what we're dealing with are
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Neutrally minded individuals that are just you know, they're just not convinced of the particular claims of Christianity and and they're not
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They're not rebels against God. They don't they don't hate God In fact, you're radical and and you're you're gun -loving and you're exclusivistic and just start down the all the bad words
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Discriminating and you know all the words discrimination, by the way means making choices It's amazing how that has become abused in our day
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But but you're all these things and everybody out in the world They're just morally neutral individuals and we open up our
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Bibles. We are taught that men know that God exists They're suppressing the knowledge of God even on a basic level.
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I think it's a it's an accurate Illustration I'll update a little bit. I think it's an accurate illustration that a
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Christian scholar a number of years ago Gave he said if you were simply to Attach a recording device.
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He said a tape recorder. It gives you an idea of how long ago that was. Sorry but today, you know an mp3 recorder or something like that if you were to attach it to someone and Just simply record it just simply turns on and turns off every time they would make a moral judgment about someone else and Then judge them by that standard.
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No one would pass that test We all have that that ability to look at others and we make application
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But we don't even live by the applications that we make to other individuals
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We're hypocrites and yet the world will say oh, no. No, we're all just morally neutral. No, we're not rebels against God We're not suppressing any knowledge about and so when we try to start talking about the law of God What you have to remember is
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That no one will ever hear or honor the law of God Who hates the
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God of the law? No one will ever honor or hear or bow to the law of God who hates
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The God of the law and that's the real issue We are always in a spiritual battle in this situation very often
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You're like me, you know, you approach these situations in a very analytical way And you know this person would just think logically and rationally like I do.
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Well, that's not the whole story. I mean, I think we honor God when we when we speak consistently with this truth, that's that's true, but All the consistency in the world isn't going to change the heart of an individual who fundamentally hates the
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God who gave that law Someone sent me a video clip.
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Oh, I only saw it last evening. I really appreciate the pastor who sent it to me and It was a video clip from I guess the current
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Season of Survivor. I I think I saw the first season of Survivor.
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That was what 1952 something like that it's It's been going a long time and I Just I just don't follow it.
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I I just you know, the first season was interesting I might have seen a few of the second and after that it was like, yeah, okay, whatever but there are two men on this season and they sent me this interview with them and Of course our homosexuals because that's the thing to be these days but with such ease
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They talked about how not only are they saving themselves for marriage, but it's because they're followers of Jesus I'm sitting here watching this knowing full.
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Well, this is absolutely purposeful on the part of the media and all the rest is
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Well aware of exactly why this is happening but through my mind running all of the the issues that this raises and The Frustrations that I feel and yet I also recognize that there's no reason for me really be feeling those frustrations because I know
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Biblically exactly why people behave in this way I know why there are people who want to be religious and yet ignore major portions of God's Word.
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I understand It's there and yet there's still this this natural reaction within me
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And I think it's it's psalm 119 the psalmist talks about crying rivers of water because people
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Disdain and trample on the law of God, you know, I understand that But the
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Christian life these days is trying to hold these balances together. Sometimes you go off this direction you become apathetic
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You just that's just the world and you stop worrying about it. You know this direction You're in a constant state of worry and fretting and unhappiness and it's got to be a balance
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And I think the only way we can have that balance is we really know what God's Word has to say about this issue
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Let's look to the word and then make some application Obviously, I expected more time to cover this material today than we're going to have so I'm going to compress a little bit
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Deuteronomy chapter 11 you shall therefore love the Lord your God and always keep his charge his statutes his ordinances and his commandments
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Know this day that I'm not speaking with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the
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Lord Your God his greatness is mighty hand in his outstretched arm and his signs in his works Which he did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land
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And what he did to Egypt's army and its horses and its chariots when he made the water the Red Sea to engulf them
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While they were pursuing you and I apologize. I need to use the tetragrammaton here
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I did when I read it last time I spoke It's important that we recognize and it says and Yahweh we're talking about a specific
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God here By name and Yahweh completely destroyed them and what he did you in the wilderness until you came to this place
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And what he did to Dathan of Abiram the sons of Eliab The son of Reuben when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them their households their tents and every living thing that followed them
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Among all Israel, but your own eyes have seen all the great works of Yahweh Which he did you shall therefore keep every commandment which
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I am commanding you today So that you may be strong and go in and possess the land in which you are about to cross to possess it so that you may prolong your days on the land which
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Yahweh swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants a land flowing with milk and honey For the land into which you are entering to possess it is not like the land of Egypt from which you came
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Where you used to sow your seed and water it with your foot like a vegetable garden but the land into which you are about to cross to possess it a land of hills and valleys drinks water from the rain of Heaven a land which the
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Lord your God cares the eyes of Yahweh Yahweh your God are always on it from the beginning even to the end of the year
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It's for come about if you listen obediently to my commandments Which I am commanding you today To love
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Yahweh your God and to serve him with all your heart with all your soul That he will give the rain for your land in its season the early and late rain that you may gather in your grain in your
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New wine in your oil. He will give you grass in your fields your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied
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Beware that your hearts are not deceived and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them
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The anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you and he will shut up the heavens So there will be no rain and the ground will not yield its fruit and you will perish quickly from the land
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Which Yahweh the good land which Yahweh is giving you you shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul
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You shall buy them as a sign in your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead You shall teach them to your sons
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Talking of them when you sit in your house when you walk along the road when you lie down when you rise up You shall write them the doorposts of your house on your gates
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So if your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied in the land which Yahweh Swore to your fathers to give them as long as the heavens remain above the earth
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Or if you are careful to keep all his commandment Which I am commanding you to do to love Yahweh your God to walk in all his ways and hold fast to him
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Then Yahweh will drive out all these nations from before you and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you
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Every place in which the sole of your foot tread shall be yours Your border will be from the wilderness to Lebanon and from the river of the river
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Euphrates as far as the Western Sea No, man will be able to stand before you Yahweh your God will lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the land on which you set foot as he has
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Spoken to you and then after this you have the repetition of what we've seen elsewhere the blessings and the cursings
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Which we will not be able to get to at this particular point in time now just a few things very briefly now
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I want to focus specifically upon verses 15 and following Remember what we said last time when we were talking about One of the ways that we can really glean much from not just the
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Holiness Code but from really the entire Old Testament revelation, but especially when we're looking at the the law and The commandments that Yahweh gives to his people if we remember the context in which they were living if we remember the gods
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That surrounded them the people with whom they'd have to be having Interaction as they do trading as they as they engage in you know people coming through with trade routes and things like that There's going to be conversations.
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There's going to be interaction Knowing something about those people is very very important don't have time this evening to review all of that But remember last time we talked about some of the nature of some of these these gods these deities the worship that these people would engage
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Him and when you think about what you have here the gods of those peoples were not really the objects of love
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They're only the objects of fear. They're the objects of fear because the possible withholding of necessary items especially fertility of animals fertility of crops hence rain drought flood forest fire
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Insect infestation etc. Etc. Etc. And basically what they did is they created gods
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That had control over each of these areas, and then you would offer sacrifices to attempt to appease and to please these gods and so this was the nature of The the kind of religious worship that existed in various forms amongst the
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Canaanites the land into which the people were going and so you have
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Instead in this section a very different approach You do have the command that we are to fear
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God we are to obey God. He has commandments But it is very different than what you have and the religions of that day because it is a command to love
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It is a command to love and the God that you're commanded to love is not you are to love the
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God of the weather Over against well You know you can you can have a particular place in your heart for the
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God of the crops because you're a farmer Or as this person over here Would have a particular place for the
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God of war because he's a soldier And then you've got another God of merchandising
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And so if you're a salesman or or something like that then you might have a special place that God no there's only one
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God and Because we are his creation And it's not like the the Canaanite religions had where the gods were sick and tired of feeding themselves
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And so they created mankind to do the feeding for them That whole concept is completely absent instead you have
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God as our creator and our maker and our sustainer and the proper focus of our love and our passion because everything we have
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Any good thing that we have comes from his hand and that we only find our find our fullest
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Fulfillment in Knowledge of him and so Deuteronomy 11 starts off you shall love
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Yahweh your God always keep his charge his statutes Orders commandments, you know it's it's it's sad, but a lot of people think
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Then the Old Testament You have one God and he just tells you to obey him
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And then we get to New Testament we've got the the father of Jesus and and now we are obedient because we love
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God and God loves us and now we've got love as if that wasn't a part of the
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Old Testament revelation Now certainly there were many people under the Old Covenant Who had hearts of stone and we see the difference between the
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Old and New Covenant? They all know you least of the greatest of them in the New Covenant And they've all had that heart of stone taken out, and you've got that concept of regeneration
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That's very very important But there were people in the Old Covenant who loved
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God because that heart of stone had been taken out And they had been Recipients of that tremendous grace from God and so the command to love
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Yahweh your God Then the command to obey him and keep his commandments It wasn't like you have in so many people's minds
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Where it was just this this kind of angry God do this and there's no reason for it and do this
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There's no relationship to God etc. Etc. I don't know how anyone can read the Old Testament and come to that conclusion
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I really they must be skipping the Psalter or something I don't know or all the prophets They're skipping the
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Old Testament in essence and and just not really listening to what it's saying because notice the love of God is directly connected with fidelity to his charge faithfulness and Keeping his statutes his ordinances and his commandments
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It's a loving relationship and that obedience flows from the scriptures have always known
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That the only heart that's truly going to give obedience to God is that broken heart that recognizes its own sin and turns
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In love to God it's nothing new about that. It's just now in the
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New Covenant We have that specific fulfillment And we had a specific fulfillment that we see in the work of regeneration of all those that are in it
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And so when Moses makes this commandment He says I know who I'm talking to I'm not talking to your children who've not seen what
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God has done you've seen what God has done his mighty and outstretched arm his signs and his wonders what he did to Egypt and Remember what
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Dathan Dathan of Byrom the earth opening up and swallowing the enemies of of God and so on and so forth verse 7 says but your own eyes have seen all the great work of Yahweh which he debt did you shall therefore keep every commandment which
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I'm commanding you today. So these individuals had seen God's faithfulness to his promises.
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They had also seen his mercy Because so many of these incidents have to do not only with delivering
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Israel But how many times that we're reading through it right now in in in the Old Testament as we read on Sunday evenings the people rebelled they forget
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They are provided for all this bread is wonderful new chapters later. We can't stand this bread
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Oh, these birds are under I can't stand it. Now. We don't have enough water. What didn't God provide water before and they
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Clearly These individuals is the vast majority of them are going to die in the wilderness They're not going to enter into the promised land
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They had very hard hearts and so we learned from that that you can see all the miracles in the world
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You can see all the glorious acts of God remember Hebrews chapter 6 You can be in the congregation.
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You can see the Spirit of God working. You can see hearts and minds changed
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But if your heart has not been changed seeing it will never change you Anybody comes up to you and says, oh man, if I could just see some miracles, you know
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Ridiculous as Jesus himself said It wouldn't matter if someone came back from the dead if they have
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Moses and the prophets don't listen to them They're not gonna it's not gonna change their heart The visible signs and miracles cannot change the hardened heart
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That's why I say regeneration is one of the greatest Well, it may be one of the may be the greatest miracle that we see certainly in our day
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It is so you shall therefore keep every command which I am created in because you've seen
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God's faithfulness So you may be strong going to possess land in which you were about to cross possess it So you may prolong your days and land which you always swore to your fathers and give to them that think of that Extending your time upon the land
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What does that bring up in your mind? Remember Well, we haven't read it tonight, but remember the phraseology in the scripture
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Then in the description of why God was going to be dispossessing these people. Also people just hated
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Oh, you you believe in a God who is genocide all the rest of stuff. It's amazing It's amazing if God wiped out these people with plague fire flood earthquake
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They'd be going But if you use this human instrumentality and What's that?
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What's the problem with their thinking that these people are not under God's wrath and Yet we know that the
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Canaanites Genesis chapter 15 tells us Their iniquity was being filled up It's being filled up.
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And so when God brings his judgment, it is justice. It is right
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Shouldn't be ashamed of it But notice the language that's used when that type of judgment is announced
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It is said that because these these people did what they did the land
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Spewed them out literally vomited them out What a picture that is
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Think about what that picture is telling us the land belongs to God and Even the land the impersonal land
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Knows what's right and wrong in that sense and If people cannot possess a land
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Who spit in God's face and abuse the land and themselves in?
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rebellion against God The land spewed them out and that's the language that's used and when
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God says the people of Israel don't do these things We're going to see in the Holiness Codes specifically when it talks about Sexual practices it says don't do what?
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the people before you did and the land spewed them out It is so unnatural what they did that the natural land didn't want to have these
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Unnatural creatures inhabiting it and so the land spewed them out is the picture that is used it's the it's a picture of of a person who man,
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I wish I had done this but Remember I got I got really sick back in January of 2013 because one morning at a
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Hotel, I'm having breakfast and I grab a carton of milk and I take a swig and man.
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I wish I had spit that stuff. I Swallowed it and man did I pay for that for the next 36 hours?
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But it just was all you could just tell there's something wrong here. There's something this is this is not right and It was just the natural.
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It's an unnatural taste and you want to spew it back out Well when mankind gets to that level of depravity the land itself wants to just get rid of this unnatural rebellion against God And that's the language that is used and so the opposite of that is love
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God keep his commandments dwell on the land Keep possession of it live long in the land
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The idea is once you stop that level of obedience, the land is not going to want you any longer man doesn't view the land as a as a
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Given promise from God is a gift from God anymore We just we just view it as where we you know,
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I've got a title deed. So it's mine but that's not how it works and no people who ever get to the point of Thinking that well we have this land and it's ours and God has nothing to do with it.
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Any people that get to that point are going to be in great great difficulty but notice something else notice it talks about how the land of Egypt was sown and Verse 11 says but the land in which you are about to cross to possess it now if you know about Egypt The Nile is the mechanism.
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I mean You think we don't get rain. Well, actually we've done pretty well this September. Actually, I think your brother
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Callahan's been praying and so we Did you back off a little bit brother cuz last night my house almost got blown away
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I mean it was it was coming down sideways yesterday I think my my neighbors stole this little plant thing that used to be on my front porch.
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I now see it on theirs I feel like I feel bad going over there going Please but it just ended up down the street some ways and so we've gotten some rain but Egypt it's not really like that and How do you grow things and how do you support a meaningful population in Egypt?
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It's the Nile It's the river so you have to when it says using your foot to dig it's those canals.
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It's those irrigation canals They're all over the place But he says the land you're going into it. It's not it's not like that It's a land of hills and valleys it drinks water from the rain of heaven a land for which
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Yahweh your God cares the eyes of Yahweh your God are always on it from the beginning even to the end of the year What's the echo in the back of this?
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This is what we have to be thinking of when we hear these things What's the echo? The echo is the Canaanite religions.
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You've got gods of the hills You got gods of rain.
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You've got gods of freedom. You've got all this division of stuff and what's in the language Inherent in the language that God uses to speak to his people is no all that's wrong
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I'm the one in control of everything everywhere because I'm the only true
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God and I give the the early in the latter rains, and I have my eye upon this and I don't have to I'm not in competition with some other
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God You don't got it you have to have to go looking for but all and say it well, okay
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We're gonna offer sacrifices to Yahweh. And then we're also gonna offer some sacrifices to but all to cover our bases see
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The whole point is there are no bases to cover and then in fact to think that there are is a tremendous insult to the one true
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God Now you might say well Why do you have decided that so strongly because I really think that so many of the objections
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That are raised against what we have in our Old Testament Vanish away not not some magical way, but they vanish away once we realize that God is constantly engaging in an apologetic for his people.
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I've mentioned to you before I love that text in Jeremiah chapter 10 where Even though Jeremiah is written in Hebrew When Jeremiah is telling the people this is what you will say to the people who invite you to worship their gods
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Who've not created the heavens and the earth and then it switches from Hebrew to Aramaic It switches the very language of the people that they're going to be interacting with and says say this
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The gods that did not create the heavens and the earth will perish from under the heavens and the earth gives them the exact words
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To say in the language that people would understand then goes back to Hebrew fascinating element of the text and so the point is that God is giving to his people and Apologetic even in the way that he frames his promises
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You don't have to worry about these competing deities and go into this temple over there and that temple over there and opening this
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God's mouth and putting this in there that's completely untrue I created all of these things and The eyes of Yahweh your
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God are always on this land from the beginning even to the end of the year He doesn't fall asleep.
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You don't have to have priests come over and Gong and and offer Sacrifices to wake him up and all the rest that kind of stuff.
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No, this is something completely different than that It should come about if you listen obediently to my commandments
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Which I'm commanding you today to love Yahweh your God and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul
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Again, see the intimate connection. There is no separation of obedience and love if You will listen
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Obediently to my commandments how many people listen to the commandments of God with a just a stiff?
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You may tell me to do that. I'm I may have to but I don't want to That's not the attitude that is that enters into this at all
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If you listen obediently to my commandments I'm commanding today to love Yahweh your
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God to serve him with all your heart and all your soul This is a call
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To the complete surrender of each of the members of the people of Israel to a life
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Dedicated to service to Yahweh now there may have been specific people
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Who because they were in the priestly class they did certain things and and you would think that there had it
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They had a special relationship, but the reality is all of the people of Israel were being called to give their lives as Representatives of this one true
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God All of their lives didn't matter if they were a poor farmer or if they had
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More land and maybe they sat in the city gates, and they're one of the elders or something like it didn't matter
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This is a commandment to everyone and for every person to serve him with all your heart and all your soul
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There is no half -hearted following of Yahweh That's why idolatry is such a horrific sin
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That's why idolatry is so constantly warned against and it's really found at the base of so many things
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Because you see idolatry in all of its various forms that has many more forms than we might think
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I'm afraid we We tend to go well. You know I haven't seen any hideous idols along the side of the road recently well
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Actually, I have now they're electronic and flash different things at a time in certain ways You can see three of them right in the time you're driving by but we have them all over the place
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But there there is so much idolatry and idolatry in all of its forms
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Fundamentally is seeking to stop us from doing this To stop us from loving
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Yahweh your God and serving him with all your heart and all your soul So when the world is constantly seeking to snatch
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Not all of your soul or all of your passions all of your heart away from God but a portion
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Wants to separate that out and and cause you to elevate a certain aspect of of the world's possessions the world's praise
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Whatever it is each one of us has different temptations as to what we can turn into an idol in our own life
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The first temptation is not to simply throw God off completely and grab that It is to give a portion of what belongs to God to that thing and then it grows and then it grows and And sometimes we can't see that happening in the life of somebody else sometimes it's it's it's invisible to us
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The Lord suffers a time we're supposed to examine our lives and and to see if that's if that's happening
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We pray that the Lord would reveal that to us before it becomes Well what we end up seeing
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There have been times. We've all known people We thought they were right there with us and then all of a sudden
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They're gone and You go and you Where did so -and -so go haven't seen so -and -so for a few years soon your phone calls don't get returned and emails don't get returned and Finally you track somebody down or you hear through the grapevine or something
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I also discover someone has completely thrown the faith off. Well, I guarantee you that didn't happen one day
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They weren't going along loving God one day and then the next day wake up and go done with it
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No, it was a process And there was idolatry involved and there was that that growth of something that was given love and service that God demanded for himself
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God demand for himself To serve him with all your heart and all your soul not just a part
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You say but God's made me really passionate about this thing in life or that thing in life Yes, he's made us that way, but those things all have to be seen as part of how we serve
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God That's how you keep it all going the same direction. I Drove my halfway through my sophomore year in high school
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The Lord really grabbed hold of me. In fact, I look back now and think about The preacher
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On the radio that I listened to for a week of revival meetings at a local church here. I Look at him now and man, is that a fulfillment of the saying that I heard first from Pastor Frye years ago
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God can God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick Because I look at this guy today and go
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Wait, I mean he's sort of on TBN Hawkin Jesus soap or something like that, you know,
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I mean, he's just gone way off in the Nana land, but but somehow that man preached some fiery stuff and Halfway through I think it was like January February of my sophomore year
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The Lord really grabbed hold of my heart and said, you know better You you need to be living your life in a better way that you've been living your life really called me to that's when
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I Really got serious about the Bible I mean had all the great background of being raised the Christian family and stuff but man
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I really started to come serious at that particular point in time and I was playing on the varsity tennis team that I was
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I was either number one two or three and You have to play these challenge matches and that would determine where you were in the rankings on the team well, it's a high school and When the guys
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I'd be playing for Would mess up a shot or something like that you'd get an expletive
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But I wouldn't do that and Instead if I'd miss a shot
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I'd go. Oh my word. Oh my word and Eventually, they got
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I remember this one guy got so sick and tired of it all sudden I missed a shot said oh my word and he he dropped his racket
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Everybody could hear it all across the all across the tennis course and he just stopped and said what is your word?
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And everybody else like yeah, it was it just they hated that I would not do what they would do in in the utilization of Vowel language they just they just thought it just graded against them
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That when I would have one of those situations as I told my word Well, I understand that I understand the world doesn't like that but what
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I was trying to do and the best way that I could and I I Really poured myself into being the best tennis player
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I could as part of my Demonstration that I was serious about my faith.
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I Even got up to number one while I was doing that That's what we've got to be thinking about when you when you're if you're a housewife and You love taking care of the family that doesn't have to become an idol
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It doesn't have to be something separate from your love to God You need to see how to make that a part of your expression to God If God has given you certain physical abilities you do it to the glory of God You know when it becomes something that's distracting you from God Or when you're doing everything you can to make it a part of your worship and service of God, you know
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You can see when it starts wandering that direction God hasn't called us to just sit around and contemplate our navels
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There is a real truth the idea that when God gives you certain gifts and abilities when you use them to their utmost as a servant of Jesus Christ your honor and glorify
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It's a good thing to do and that's what the people of Israel were called to do well time is escaping me, unfortunately, and I want to Look at verse 16 beware that your hearts are not deceived and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them warning
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Against idolatry because then you have the anger of Yahweh will be kindled against you
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He will shut up the heavens. So there'll be no rain. The ground will not yield its fruit. God will not bless an
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Idolatrous people I could stop here and spend the rest of the evening Talking about how that is a principle that I think is valid even outside of the people of Israel because again if a land will spew out of people for their abhorrent behavior in God's sight and God never sent a prophet to a single one of those people
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Then I would say we can make application here if a people in our day and habit a land and spit in God's sight they can't be asking for God's blessing upon them and They will be spewed out of the land as well but what
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I really want to focus in is the next phrases You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul
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And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontals on your forehead you shall teach them to your sons talking of them when you sit in your house when you walk along the road and when you
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Lie down when you rise up You shall write them in the doorposts your house on your gates so that your days and the days of your sons may be both
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Multiplied and land which Yahweh swore to your fathers to give them now. What do we have here?
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Well, you remember the small Deuteronomy 6 My Israel Yahweh Elohim Yahweh of God here
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Israel Yahweh is our God Yahweh is one Then you should love
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Yahweh. And then what are you to do? You're to talk about these things you are to teach these things to your sons
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You're to walk along the way and discuss these things You're to put them as frontals And of course we know in the days of Jesus that the
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Jews had taken this to a ridiculous level To where you had these people walking along big old boxes bouncing around their foreheads and and you know
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They had put the tassels on their garments and they were big huge fancy things it made you look really super spiritual and all the rest that stuff and if you've maybe seen a mezuzah on a house a mezuzah is a little
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Container that has you can buy them in Israel or Israel connection up at 7th Street in Missouri I think if it's still there,
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I don't know if it is but the Jewish bookstore there and it's got a little Hopefully a handwritten thing by a rabbi blessed by a rabbi of the law
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In Hebrew and you put it in there and you attach it to the doorpost of your house And and that's in fulfillment of all this but what what does it really say?
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What's it? It's really say what if you really want to see something here is I'm not going to call it a
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Christian worldview for our our purposes It would be but here is a godly worldview
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Here is a Yahwistic worldview you shall therefore Impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul.
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I'm not going to spend much time on this but there is an apologetic We're calling every
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Christian to do serious theology. It's not
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Just a weird thing that Reformed Baptists do That keeps them small and weird
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It should be our joy it should be the joy of every believer to enter into the depths of the revelation that God has given us in his word and We are to impress these words on our heart and on our soul
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And we are to bind them as a sign on our hand. In other words, they're always to be there They're always to be your hand never gets very far away from it that's about I Can't get rid of that If there's a sign there,
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I can't get rid of it's there you are to bind them in the sign your hand It should be as frontals on your forehead
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Every time you look in the mirror there it is Right there. You can't you know, this is you protect this, you know
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Frontals on your forehead you shall teach them to your sons talking of them when you sit in your house when you walk on the road
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When you lie down when you rise up Wow, that pretty much covers everything doesn't it lying down rising up walking
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There's not too many other things you can you can fit in there The point is that is to it is to soak your experience your your speech
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Your life this is walking in the ways of the Lord When we talk about walking the ways of the
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Lord, it's all of our life is to be ordered by the impressing of these words on your heart and your soul is to be
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Something that you you when you speak to your children when you speak to those around you
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They shouldn't be having to guess where you're coming from Doesn't mean you have to be one of those
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You know guys that runs around that Jesus loves you t -shirt on all the time Because the way you speak about every aspect of life should already be saying that The fact that you don't engage in certain activities the fact you don't use
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Certain language the fact that you don't enjoy certain jokes that are being told the fact that you do positively speak
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About things that you enjoy and then a rapture your heart the world goes really
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That's odd Here you have really,
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I think the foundation for understanding Why it is that when we?
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Will spend the difficult time studying and Digging into the
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Holiness Code and trying to figure out Why is it that Paul says all of this is they are new sauce?
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It's God -breathed. It's profitable and Then once we wrestle with it, and we look at it, and we see it we want to embrace it
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We want to make it ours you can't force that upon a hardened heart you cannot force that upon a heart of stone
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Because they're not doing this the person Who lives in?
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Relationship with the God of the law Will be obedient to that law will be willing and pliable
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To understand even if it even if there's times where you don't understand Well, why is that the first reaction that heart will not be rebellion well if I can't understand.
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I'm just not gonna do it What's it? What's the first response of? A loving heart that loves
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God when you encounter something this word that you don't understand judgment lack of faith rebellion questioning no the first response is well,
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I trust God and Every time this has happened in the past God has eventually led me to an understanding of what his word is saying and My heart was obedient to that and so I'm going to be patient now the desire should be
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I'm not just gonna Put this under the rug someplace and stop thinking about it, but the first response should be trusting patience and When I see somebody
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Man do I see it? because of what I do you know when you do a Webcast and you get calls from Norway and Germany and Australia and things like that you hear a lot of stuff we've been doing this for many many years now and man,
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I get so many people and If you believe them they've just been
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Going along as a good old Christian, and they're just there they're walking with the Lord and everything's well and all of a sudden someone comes along and hits him with a verse and They are flat out on their back and ready to become a
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Buddhist Just like that and when I see someone like that who just gets completely knocked off their pins
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By one quick thing no patience No trust No recognition, you know this is the
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God that I have said that I have given my heart and life to I'm really concerned about whether we're really talking about someone who's ever done any of those things
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Or if we're talking about one of those first John to folks It would have abided with us if they had truly been of us, but since they weren't they went out from us
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You see you and I both know Because we have the full revelation description
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That the person who wants to impress these words of mine and your heart and soul you and I both know that heart and that soul needs to be touched by grace ever tried to impress something upon a heart of stone
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It's really hard to impress anything on a heart of stone, but when you've got a heart of flesh You can write upon that heart of flesh
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You and I both know what this is talking about When the Spirit of God has changed us when the
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Spirit of God has has made us new Then we want to talk about these things
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We want to live in their light We want it to to infuse our speech and our behavior in every aspect of our lives
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That's why we can't have it as something over here some Sunday morning Sunday night Wednesday night type thing
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That's unnatural and that's why when we come into the holiness code
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The background that you and I must understand is that these words will only have meaning for those
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Described right here that have had a change of heart what that means to you and me Is while we need to be convinced and we need to have understanding and you and I need to to be able to handle these words
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I Don't care how well, you know the background of those texts
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You must always keep in your mind That unless you're talking to someone who has been the gracious recipient of the work of the
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Spirit of God they are going to throw this stuff back in your face and If your judgment as to how successful you're being
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Is their acceptance of what you're saying? You're not gonna be doing this very very much You're gonna you may try it once or twice and go that's no fun.
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And then you're gonna become silent the only reason for you and I To be working through these issues honor
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God Honor his word Be firmly grounded in the truth ourselves.
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And as a result then Be Christians who are salt and light in this world to the glory of God even if we live in a day
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Where that is going to get us ridiculed Don't judge the successfulness of your speaking out and your witnessing in the way the world judges us
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If you accurately handle the Word of God and consistently bear testimony to others God is glorified in that Do not give in To the worldly temptation to go well
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That one didn't go very well. So I'm never gonna do that again. The words of the law are
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Precious in the heart of the person who loves the God of the law And to the person who remains in Rebellion, they will hate what that law says
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You and I want to explain it clearly so even if they express their hatred at least they're expressing it
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Against that which God can then use to bring conviction We don't want to be amongst those Christians that are ashamed of what
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God's law has said And sadly, there are many like that today.
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May God keep us from being amongst them May God keep us as those who with new hearts and new spirits
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Love God's law because we love the God of the law. Let's pray together
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Indeed our Heavenly Father we bow before your word we bow before your holiness we
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Recognize by your spirit that you revealed these things So that you might lay that foundation
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You might reveal to us what is pleasing to you But we know you did not stop there we know that you gave the illustration after illustration for generation after generation of what happens when unregenerate men encounter the law of God the rebellion the apostasy restoration followed by more
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We see this in your word, and we know it all led eventually to that great fulfillment of the promise all the way back in Genesis 3 in the coming of our
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Lord and Savior and Lord he brought Life and immortality to light through the gospel
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Grace and truth were found in him we see the wholeness of this beautiful plan of yours what you've done to glorify yourself and Here we sit this evening
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So far away from the events of these of these texts Speaking a different language in a different day and yet that same spirit
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Who caused some of those? Who first heard these words to love them and to obey them?
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We too have that same desire May we rejoice in that may we understand?
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And as we understand may we be used of you to be salt and light in this dark and dying world
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We thank you that you've brought us together this evening Bless us each as we seek to serve you in the coming week to pray in Christ's name