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26. Deuteronomy 7: “Seize
the Higher Ground!”
Golden
Nursing Center in Mannington, NJ –Evening Service on 1/17/2013
(edited
December 2019)
When Ancient Israel finally got around to
invading and possessing the Promised Land after forty years of being stuck in
the wilderness, they were led by a human being (Joshua), had to engage in
physical warfare, and sought to established political and religious reforms.
Today a Christian is called to follow a
Resurrected King (Jesus), engage in spiritual warfare, and establish the
salvation and internal re-creation of each individual person by
grace, through faith.
Back then, they received (and lost) an earthly
kingdom. We are possessing an Eternal Kingdom. In this study we will seek to
learn what we can from their experiences:
Lesson One: Hard
fought and won ground should not be surrendered or compromised.
Verses 1-2: “When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou
goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites,
and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites,
and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than
thou; And when the Lord thy God
shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy
them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:”
Lesson Two: Our main
covenant is not with our spouses or each other. We are bound to God, Himself,
first and foremost.
Verses
3-4:
“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou
shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For
they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods:
so will the anger of the Lord be
kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”
Lesson Three: No human
relationship should be allowed to drag you away from allegiance to your Savior.
God sanctified (set apart) his people of Ancient Israel, and He is sanctifying
His Church today. But we, too, must sanctify Him and give him preeminence in
our hearts.
Verses
5-6:
“But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars,
and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven
images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord
thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people
that are upon the face of the earth.”
Lesson Four: “We
love God because He first Loved us.” is a paraphrase of I John 4:19 in
the New Testament. Here in Deuteronomy we find its precursor.
Verses
7-8:
“The Lord did not
set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any
people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the Lord loved you, and because he would
keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty
hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh
king of Egypt.”
The Love of God was important then and now,
but the covenants between Ancient Israel and God and the Church and God today
are very different in significant ways. Ancient Israel was motivated by works
and the rewards that came with obedience.
Verses
9-12: “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth
covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a
thousand generations; And repayeth them that hate him to their
face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will
repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep the
commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this
day, to do them. Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye
hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord thy God shall keep unto thee the
covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers:”
I am not saying that good works don’t matter
for us. Quite the contrary, in fact. But while works were the substance
of Ancient Israel’s relationship with the Lord, our love for God through Christ
is the totality of our relationship with him. But works are a bellwether of the
quality and substance of that relationship and our love for Him. Let’s finish
that quote from I John chapter 4 in the New Testament as verses 20-21 do apply
here: “If a
man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth
not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And
this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother
also.”
Their obedience could guarantee physical
prosperity for them:
Verses
13-15: “ And he will love thee,
and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb,
and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase
of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy
fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not
be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the Lord will take away from thee all
sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest,
upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee.”
Through our love for God, we are promised spiritual
prosperity, as seen in Ephesians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in
love:”
It was the command of the Lord that Ancient Israel conquer Canaan.
I think our goals today are more like Faith, Hope, and Love. We need to find these
things in Jesus and hold that very sacred ground. The same Lord who helped them
to win is with us:
Verses
16-24: “ And thou shalt consume
all the people which the Lord thy
God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt
thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. If thou shalt say in
thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou
shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the Lord thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto
all Egypt; The great temptations which thine eyes saw, and the signs, and the
wonders, and the mighty hand, and the stretched out arm, whereby the Lord thy God brought thee out: so shall
the Lord thy God do unto all the
people of whom thou art afraid. Moreover the Lord
thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide
themselves from thee, be destroyed. Thou shalt not be
affrighted at them: for the Lord
thy God is among you, a mighty God and terrible. And the Lord thy God will put out those nations
before thee by little and little: thou mayest not consume them at once, lest
the beasts of the field increase upon thee. But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto
thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be
destroyed. And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt
destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand
before thee, until thou have destroyed them.”
They had clearly defined enemies to face. They were often fearful.
And we are prone to fear our spiritual enemy, the Devil. Believers need
miraculous intervention even to hold the ground on which we currently stand,
let alone to make gains. As in ancient times, the battle is ultimately the
Lord’s.
Above all else, we must guard our Love for the Lord and keep our
relationship with Him vital and functional. I don’t know about you, but I am in
a real daily battle today!
Israel conquered the Canaanites on the battlefield, but wound up
worshipping devils along with them. May you and I never be satisfied with
physical prosperity and outward victory at the expense of spiritual success. In
closing, let’s look at what Moses had told his people back then:
Verses
25-26: “ The graven images of
their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold
that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therin: for it is
an abomination to the Lord thy
God. Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house,
lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou
shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing.”
I pray that you find eternal victory in Christ.