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Deuteronomy 7-9
Plan and Path
to Blessing
Psalm 27:7-14 Experiencing the Goodness of the Lord
7.“Hear, Yahweh, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also on me, and answer me.8.When you said, "Seek my face," my heart said to you, "I will seek your face, Yahweh."9.Don’t hide your face from me. Don’t put your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Don’t abandon me, neither forsake me, God of my salvation.10.When my father and my mother forsake me, then Yahweh will take me up.11.Teach me your way, Yahweh. Lead me in a straight path, because of my enemies.12.Don’t deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me, such as breathe out cruelty.13.I would have lost heart unless I had believed: I would see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living. (NKJV)14.Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord." (KJV)Observation
27:7-14.David calls out to God for help, who gives instruction to seek His face (character, protection and favor). David responds with purposeful obedience to seek not only God, but His ways as well. Regardless of abandonment, or opposition, David would trust and depend upon God. Waiting on the Lord is not just hanging around waiting for God to do something. The verbs are in the Piel, intensive stem, meaning to “eagerly and expectantly look to”, as in seek His face, in which one finds hope, strength and courage. It is that kind of seeking God that results in a strengthened heart, as one develops confidence in God's goodness.
The last two verses (27:13-14) took on special meaning for me when I discovered them one morning in my quiet time over three decades ago. In the preceding week I heard of at least three guys who were convinced that God wanted them to marry a godly gal whom I was beginning to see as the goodness of the Lord. I waited upon God, sought His face, and found strength to trust and wait; He guided my paths, and in His perfect timing, He gave me courage to ask her to marry me; and I experienced the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Pr 18:22; Thanks God!)
Application
Seek God as your top priority, let Him direct your paths, and bring Matthew 6:33 to fruition in your life. (It worked for me.)
Prayer
Heavenly Father and giver of all that is good, thanks for revealing Yourself so that I can seek and know You, and draw strength and guidance for following Your ways, knowing that they will lead to what's best. (Thanks for Jill, too.) Amen.
Proverbs 7:21-23 What Does It Cost?
21.“With persuasive words, she led him astray. With the flattering of her lips, she seduced him.22.He followed her immediately, as an ox goes to the slaughter, as a fool stepping into a noose.23.Until an arrow strikes through his liver, as a bird hurries to the snare, and doesn’t know that it will cost his life.“Observation
7:21-23.One of the first phrases to learn in any foreign language is “How much?” It's also an important question to ask in your native language. Lot's of things might be fun or enjoyable, but are they worth what you have to give in exchange? Is it a good value? Wisdom and understanding guide in choosing the right objectives by helping you determine what you get for your money, time, or life. Sin might yield some temporary pleasure/benefit (after all, if there was no appeal, no one would do it), but is it worth a lifetime of suffering or an eternity of regret? Unfortunately most sin doesn't have an obvious price tag. Immorality does, and that is why Proverbs spend a fair amount of time warning against it. Sin is enticing and persuasive; it flatters and seduces; it dominates our thinking to the point where we don't think, or care. We become addicted to it, so that we're willing to follow it anywhere. But it doesn't lead to happily every after, but rather death; both physical, sometimes, and spiritual, always.
Application
Count the cost of sin, and determine that it's not worth it, because it isn't.
Prayer
Lord, protect me from both evil and my own desires, so that I might exchange my life for something eternally beneficial, rather than eternal regret. Amen.
Deuteronomy 7-9 Plan and Path to Blessing
Chapter 7 A Holy People Get Blessed By A Holy God
1.When Yahweh your God shall bring you into the land where you go to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before you, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than you;2.and when Yahweh your God shall deliver them up before you, and you shall strike them; then you shall utterly destroy them: you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy to them;3.neither shall you make marriages with them;4.For they will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you, and he will destroy you quickly.5.But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their engraved images with fire.6.For you are a holy people to Yahweh your God: Yahweh your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession, above all peoples who are on the face of the earth.7.Yahweh didn't set His love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all peoples:8.but because Yahweh loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, has Yahweh brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.9.Know therefore that Yahweh your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and hesed/loyal love with them who love Him and keep His commandments to a thousand generations,10.and repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them: He will not be slack to him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face.11.You shall therefore keep the commandment, and the statutes, and the ordinances, which I command you this day, to do them.12.It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances, and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the hesed/loyal love which He swore to your fathers:13.and He will love you, and bless you, and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your fathers to give you.14.You shall be blessed above all peoples: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle.15.Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, will He put on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.16.You shall consume all the peoples who Yahweh your God shall deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them: neither shall you serve their gods; for that will be a snare to you.17.If you shall say in your heart, "These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them?"18.You shall not be afraid of them: you shall well remember what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh, and to all Egypt;19.the great trials which your eyes saw, and the signs, and the wonders, and the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, whereby Yahweh your God brought you out: so shall Yahweh your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.20.Moreover Yahweh your God will send the hornet among them, until those who are left, and hide themselves, perish from before you.21.You shall not be scared of them; for Yahweh your God is in the midst of you, a great and awesome God.22.Yahweh your God will cast out those nations before you by little and little: you may not consume them at once, lest the animals of the field increase on you.23.But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they be destroyed.24.He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name to perish from under the sky: there shall no man be able to stand before you, until you have destroyed them.25.The engraved images of their gods shall you burn with fire: you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it to you, lest you be snared therein; for it is an abomination to Yahweh your God.26.You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and become a devoted thing like it: you shall utterly detest it, and you shall utterly abhor it; for it is a devoted thing.Observations
7:2.God was judging the idolaters according to His plan revealed to Abe (Genesis 15). If Israel became like the people He was judging through them, He would have to destroy Israel too. He requires them to remove anything that might defile their holiness from their midst.
7:9.
This is similar to the great self-portrait of God's glory given to Moses in Exodus 34, and appealed to by Moses at Kadesh-Barnea. God loves those who love Him, and dislikes those who don't. Does this match your view of God?
7:17-22.
God fights our battles according to His wise plan.
Application
We're not chosen for our numbers, strength nor might, but for the purpose of our holy obedience.
Prayer
Great and Awesome God, don't let me set my heart on anything or anyone that will displease You; help me set my heart on You, and what You desire for me. Amen.
Chapter 8 A Full People Fail to Remember and Get Destroyed
1.All the commandment which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers.2.You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, to refine/prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments, or not.3.He humbled you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, that He might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh does man live.4.Your clothing didn`t grow old on you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years.6.You shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in His ways, and to fear Him.10.You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which He has given you.11.Beware lest you forget Yahweh your God, in not keeping His commandments, and His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day:12.lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses, and lived therein;13.and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;14.then your heart be lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;15.who led you...who brought water out of the rock of flint;16.who fed you... that He might humble you, and that He might refine you, to do you good at your latter end:17.and [lest] you say in your heart, "My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth."18.But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth; that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as at this day.19.It shall be, if you shall forget Yahweh your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.20.As the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so shall you perish; because you wouldn`t listen to the voice of Yahweh your God.Observation
8:2-19.Verses 8:2, 11, 14, 18, 19 all admonish us to remember and not forget God, what He's done for us, and what He requires of us. When we're needy, we are quicker to learn than when we're full and complacent.
Application
How do you plan to keep God and what He's done, and requires, in the forefront of your thinking?
Prayer
Gracious God, keep me mindful of all You've done and require, so I won't forget and fail. Amen.
Chapter 9 It's Not That You're So Good, But That They're So Bad.
1.Hear, Israel: you are to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky,2.a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, "Who can stand before the sons of Anak?"3.Know therefore this day, that Yahweh your God is He who goes over before you as a devouring fire; He will destroy them, and He will bring them down before you: so shall you drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you.4.Don`t speak in your heart, after that Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh does drive them out from before you.5.Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God does drive them out from before you, and that He may establish the word which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.6.Know therefore, that Yahweh your God doesn`t give you this good land to possess it for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.7.Remember, don`t forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that you went forth out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.12.“...Your people whom you have brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.”18.I fell down before Yahweh...19.For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also.23.When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn`t believe Him, nor listen to His voice.24.You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you...Observation
9:1-24.Moses recounts the sins of the nation so the new generation won't think it was because of their righteousness that they were being given the land (for they were stiff-necked and rebellious from the get-go), but because of the unrighteousness of the pagans in the promised land.
Application
Never forget where you were before God became part of your life.
Prayer
God thank You for forgiving and blessing me. Send me warnings so I may never anger You by being rebellious or stiff-necked. Amen.
Digging Deeper
God in a nutshell: Yahweh is the knowable faithful God, who keeps covenant promises and hesed/loyal love with them who love Him and keep His commandments; He rapidly repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them. He is committed to those He loves, and trains His people by leading them into difficult circumstances to refine them and build trust towards Himself. He wants to use His people to accomplish His purposes, if they cooperate and believe Him.Us in a nutshell: We tend towards being independent, rebellious, fearful, self-sufficient and inadequate (Think about those last two.) Nevertheless, God loves us, but will loathe us if we cross the line too far. We don't remember very well, especially when our bellies are full.