Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / February 11, 2024 | Deuteronomy - A Failed Generation

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February 11, 2024 | Deuteronomy - A Failed Generation · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Seems like you guys were a little scared.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: The front three rows here are all completely empty.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think I spit that bad, so close.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can come out there, right?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's good to be with you this morning.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: We are um I always feel sometimes silly saying we're starting a new series after you probably just see, you know, that we're starting a new series based on the video, but we are going, we're gonna begin going through the book of Deuteronomy.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um so anytime we do this, go through a b uh book and and take a considerable amount of time to do it, I always like to take this opportunity to just say why, why we're doing this instead of in you know four weeks or something like that.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the there are two main reasons really as a church, and and it does have to do with both going through the book itself and the content, you know.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy is 34 chapters long, doesn't mean it'll be 34 weeks, but it's the content of the book, but also just kind of the rhythms that we adopt as a church body, right?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so what it means for us to kind of walk through these books at a certain pace.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the really the first reason that we we take a longer period of time, and over the last couple years it's been an Old Testament book in the spring and a New Testament book in the fall.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first one is really just because of the depth, right?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is a longer book, and it can't be perfectly summarized in four lessons, and even in the way that we're gonna do it, we're gonna still be skipping over some things.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's just my my personal belief, um, and this is true for me, that the busier that I get, sometimes it feels like the shorter my devotions get.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I'm tempted to just kind of base things on, you know, this one verse, this one passage, this one.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it is really necessary for us as Christians to just uh read God's word and sort of understand it in these bigger sort of um passages, right?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it gives us a great depth in the book and ability to understand things, stop and smell the roses.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but the other thing that it does is it gives us as a church, I think, seasons of teaching that are thematically the same, which sounds like the most pretentious thing I could have said.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: But what I mean by that is, you know, if you think about over the last couple years, and we've been doing it for a long time, you know, big books, but Leviticus, Numbers, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, I hope that saying that sort of rests in your mind or brings to your mind some aspect of what that book was like, to go through it.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, hopefully, you know, whether when we go through the book of Deuteronomy, one of the big things we're going to be discussing is what it means to respond in love to God through obedience and and really this sort of call to faithfulness that he is asking the next generation entering Israel, or rather, the next generation of Israel, um, to sort of walk out.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even though each Sunday is different, it gives us a chance as a church to just kind of like hit for multiple months just these themes, these seasons that I think are really healthy to us in core to developing our faith.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, we're going through the book of Deuteronomy.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a lot of fun.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a great time.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you read it along with us.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Deuteronomy, though, is the fifth book of the Bible.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, when we talk about the first five books of the Bible, they have a special name.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to use it, but it's called the Pentateuch, which basically just means five books.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's also, if you're Jewish, it would be um called the Torah or the Law.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so these first five books of the Bible, uh written by Moses, they sort of form not only the beginning of our Bible, but the beginning of our understanding of really all of Scripture, and they set the foundation for what's happening.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we get to the book of Deuteronomy, okay, we've already gone through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time we get here, um really what's happening is we have a book, Deuteronomy, that if Israel had been faithful, wouldn't have been written.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is when you look at just kind of a broad overview of Scripture up to this point, okay?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's take it.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us don't know our Bibles very well, and that's okay, and I'm glad that you're here.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, let's let's do sort of the 30,000-foot view so that we're all hitting Deuteronomy kind of at the same stride.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, not all of Genesis, but the end of Genesis, okay, we have really God calling the nation of Israel through people.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we would call the patriarchs.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have Abraham, his son Isaac, his son Jacob, and then through Jacob we get the twelve sons that later on comprise the tribes, their descendants.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: But God is sort of initiating, this will be a huge theme, God is initiating with love his relationship to this group of people.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he's making promises, we're calling them covenants.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's making promises to these people, like to Abraham.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Abraham, I'm going to make you, you who haven't had any children yet, you and Sarah, I'm going to make you as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I'm going to give your people land.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the land that you're living on right now, your people are eventually going to go away, and we understand that they go into slavery in Egypt.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: But your people are going to go away, Abraham, and they're going to come back to this.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the promised land.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see God sort of, as we head out of Genesis, it finishes with Joseph, and then we get sort of this gap in time, and it's where Israel goes into the land of Egypt, and they are slaves.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we get to the beginning of Exodus, the beginning of Exodus, it is the end of their slavery, and Moses is going, and God calls Moses to go and rescue his people.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then from Exodus and into Leviticus and Numbers, we sort of have a roughly 40, maybe just a little bit more than that, like 41 or two year span of time.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so in Exodus, right, it is God redeeming his people out of slavery.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then Moses leads them into the desert.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then critically, as they're on their way to the promised land, right?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: The land of promise that God had given to their ancestors.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I've saved you, I've redeemed you, I've protected you.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Go on into the promised land, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: What ends up happening is a journey that should have taken a very short amount of time.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're rebellious, they don't want to follow after God.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they say a lot of terrible things about him that he doesn't care for them and he wants their children to die.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so God says, Okay, the entire generation that was over 20 years old when we left Egypt, those people who had been slaves and were rescued from slavery, but who rejected rejected me, everybody over the age of 20 is going to die over the next 40 years as we wander through the desert.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the book of Numbers.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the census that is taken at the beginning of the book of Numbers, everybody there passes away over the next 40 years.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So now we come to the book of Deuteronomy.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have a couple elements that we have to pick up on because they're super important to sort of understanding, even just because Deuteronomy it's sort of it picks up right where numbers left off, and so we sort of need to know.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening is now finally, after 40 years, the nation of Israel, they have come to the edge of the promised land, and they're on the east side of Israel, and there's the Jordan River that sort of borders the east side.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're on the further east side, looking over into the nation of Israel.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses is speaking to the nation.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And see, the only people who survived that fair but severe punishment of dying in the wilderness were three people.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have Moses, who is about to die, and then you have Joshua and Caleb.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so these leaders, but specifically Moses, are talking to the next generation of Israel as they are about to enter into the promised land.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is a promised land that should have been entered into a generation before, if they had just been faithful, if they had trusted in God.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: But instead they were unfaithful, they didn't trust in God.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so now basically we almost get a do-over.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses is going to, through the course of Deuteronomy, which is basically a collection over just the span of a couple weeks of some preaching that Moses does to this nation.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: He is going to res he's going to kind of recite and bring back to their memory the law that they should love and care for and have deep within their hearts.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to recite the law to them, the Torah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then he is also, he is going to call and challenge them.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Are you going to be this faithful nation?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Are you finally going to be faithful people?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or like your parents, like your grandparents, are you going to be ones who are unfaithful?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you going to be a failed generation?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So as we pick up in the book of Deuteronomy and chapter 1, verse 1, we see that Moses is beginning to speak to them.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bibles, you can go there with me.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 1, verse 1 of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses begins with his message to them.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It says, These are the words of Moses.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah, opposite Suf, between Peran and Tophel, Lavan, Hazaroth, and Dezahab.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is an 11-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barneah by way of Mount Saiir.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first of the month, Moses told the Israelites everything the Lord had commanded him to say to them.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: This was after he had defeated King Sion of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and King Og of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth at Edra'i, across the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying, and actually that is where we're going to end for today.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of this morning is not to look at what Moses said, actually.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's next week, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because he what happens in Deuteronomy is from 1 verse 6 through really a significant part of chapter 4.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: He basically just then tells the story of the nation from Exodus to where they are now.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's doing is he's recounting for this nation, right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Who's standing before him?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's nobody in front of Moses that's over the age of 60.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because when they uh left when they they experienced the Exodus, God redeemed them, and they're walking, they're kind of at Mount Sinai, and then they're walking forward.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it only took them, I'll get to this in a second, but it only took them like 11 days to get from Mount Sinai to where they needed to go in the promised land.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's Kadesh Barnea in your text.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of the city where they were going to enter.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's through the southwest portion of the promised land.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It took them eleven days.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was only really 11 days after the journey began, after the journey from Mount Sinai, that they have this sort of opportunity to display their faith to God, and it is there where they fell short.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, Moses said, through the, well, the word of God going through Moses said, anybody who's over the age of 20 is not going to make this journey.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: They are going to die somewhere in the desert.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so you have some folks who are in front of Moses right now, who are the younger generation that could have been, you know, 19.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They've got their, you know, they're whatever, ready to vote, or something like that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they are able to, they understand some of these things.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of their history.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of folks in front of Moses who are babies, infants.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were even born during the journey.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so the things that he's recounting to them, if you're reading through the Bible, you're like, okay, we've covered this already.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they have not.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: This generation in front of Moses needs to hear these things again and again so that they can renew the covenant relationship that their ancestors had and actually be faithful people.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where we begin, though, and there's plenty of stuff for us to finish with this morning here.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: As it begins, it says, These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: What I would want you to get from this passage this morning is understanding how, even in these five verses, the element, uh the what do I say, that Moses is doing a number of things to draw them into this sort of understanding about who they are and what their purpose is.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is the setting that Moses has chosen to deliver this series of messages in.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so they are speaking to all Israel across the Jordan in the wilderness.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the Jordan River, we've already said, is it's kind of the gateway into the Promised Land.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Later on in future books, a significant event is when they cross the Jordan River and head on in and begin to conquer the Promised Land.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: But right now they're across it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so Israel, there are some hilly areas, but it's pretty flat, okay?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit hillier than Kansas, but not a whole lot.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's an element here where they, whether when they were conquering Moab and the Amorites and they were closer to the Jordan, but they can see across, they understand what lies in the distance, and basically what is being withheld for what has been withheld from them up to this point, because of the unfaithfulness of their parents.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of this carrot that's on a stick, and it's not something being used just for motivation, it's something promised to them, but nevertheless, it's a promise that hasn't been realized yet.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses is speaking across the Jordan River in the wilderness.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's this contrast here too, because the wilderness, it's not awesome.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's sparse, it's not great for the herds, it's not a place where you want to really spend all of your time, or certainly where you want to plant a nation, in contrast to the promised land, which is the land flowing with milk and honey, and it is beautiful and gorgeous, and is great for agriculture and all these different things.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so even just as they look around, they they see Moses speaking to them, but they look around, and it is canyons and red rocks and desert and scrub trees.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the setting for where Moses is speaking to them.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So even in there, what they are able to see, uh the idea of entering into the promise is there.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then he also says, it is an 11-day journey from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: So uh occasionally, I know you guys love pronouncing all the different words here, right?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I do too, believe me.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had a considerable amount of time this week just listening to other people pronounce these words.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what you don't know is that I have phonetically tried to type out how to say some of them, even though I guarantee you I am wrong.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, as we look at these things, that some of these places we don't we don't know where they're at.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we don't know.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're probably locations along the journey, but some of them we do.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so the ones that we do, or the ones that Moses references here, when he says it's an 11-day journey from Horeb, Horeb is the region around Mount Sinai.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of the sort of like gathering space for the nation of Israel when they received the like Ten Commandments.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God appears to them.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is the signal, like calling for, this is the base of the mountain where the golden calf was created, all that stuff, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Horeb is the was the gathering place, and then when they took up camp from Horeb and began moving, it was like the next place we're gonna land permanently is the promised land.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so Kadesh Barnea, right, by way of Mount Seir, that's uh through the land of Edom.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So why does Moses bring this up?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's not where they're at right now.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: They are neither in Horeb, that was ways ago, nor are they in Kadesh Barnea.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: They are further up alongside the uh the east side of Israel.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He does it to remind them of what their journey could have been.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: He does it to remind them that what has happened and the punishment and the judgment that has been rendered upon their parents and some of their grandparents and others, that it was not necessary.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: That it was something that they brought upon themselves, and that God had this whole journey from slavery into promise could have been under two weeks, but instead it has lasted 40 years.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, you get when I talk about themes, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of those themes, is that as he's calling this generation to faithfulness, and he says, Will you be the ones that break the cycle?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Will you be the ones that finally say, Lord, I love you.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have you have initiated your relationship to me with love.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love you back.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like Moses says, Will you finally be the generation that does this?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let me remind you of the mistakes of your of your ancestors.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: As he keeps going, then this is in the uh he says in that Moses told the Israelites everything that the Lord had commanded him to say to them, right, in the 40th year.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even though Deuteronomy is a list basically of Moses preaching, this is God's word, and the Lord is still using Moses as sort of a mouthpiece for his word.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: What is unique though, and this is really important as you're reading through the book of Deuteronomy, there are gonna be certain sections where you're like, I've read this before.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for instance, we're gonna uh it a portion of Deuteronomy goes back through the Ten Commandments, okay?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, well, that was an Exodus.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why are we going through the Ten Commandments again?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not only because it's a new generation, that's true.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: They need to sort of have this information again as well.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, Moses is going to take a lot of care and these messages to craft them into a way that makes sense to the current generation.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to take the principles of God's law and he is going to adapt them faithfully to then apply to those people who are hearing them right now.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we do when we go through God's word, is we say, okay, what is the principle?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: What is the text?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: What is God saying to us?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes there are things in the Bible where we say, you know, hey, that's it doesn't, the context, the culture back then didn't exactly relate to what we have going on now, but this is how it is still true today.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Moses is going to do.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, it is still the word of God.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so these commands, and really what Deuteronomy is then going to, what Moses is going to be asking the people, is he says, your faithfulness, your love of God is something that is shown through your obedience to him.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we can go down a like a long road that is, that is unfruitful, where we begin to think too much about what it means in the Old Testament to just be following rules.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over and over again, the way that rules and obedience is presented in the Old Testament is that it is something that comes after the love of God has been understood, and it is an outflow, it is sort of a response to our love for God that then we would follow Him in obedience.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: There are other practical reasons why we might want to do it, but this is a key element here.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not so much Moses going, listen, you have got a 10 p.m.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: curfew.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's roll, it's 9.58, get inside.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, what he's saying is, I want you to love the Lord's law and love his instruction and place it upon your hearts and be a faithful people instead of ones who are constantly going against him.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says that Moses, at the very end here, began to explain this law.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: The word explain here in the Hebrew, it not only means to kind of expound upon something, but it means to make it clear.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so what Moses is doing is presenting the law of God, which is far more than the Ten Commandments.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like some of the topics we'll cover in Deuteronomy, I mean, there's uh there is so um, what do I say?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's military activity, there is law, there is worship, there is uh rules for leadership, there's economic policy, there's things about social and environmental justice.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole host of things that the Torah represents that Moses is going to make clear to the Israelites as they are heading on.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, Moses isn't going with them.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a transfer of leadership that happens from Moses to Joshua.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua's going to be the one that carries them forward into the promised land.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Moses is the one that stays behind.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he will also share in Deuteronomy why he's frustrated that that is the case.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: He wishes to be with them.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, Moses is going to retell this law and he's going to present it in a new context.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as we get to the end of verse 5, then this question comes before us, which is when will the faithful generation appear?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: When will the faithful generation come about?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we go from sort of Genesis all the way through, there are Been some folks who have done the right thing, but this idea of a nation, a body, a people who love the Lord and not only uh love him but respond to that love in faithfulness and trust and all of these things, they have yet to appear.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so Moses wants this group of people who arguably are the best suited to make this decision because they have watched their parents fall in the desert.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of them, right, has lost someone that they loved because of their disobedience.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: When will the faithful generation appear?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, to be clear, the faithfulness in the context of covenant language, which is how this whole book is comprised, right, that Moses is basically asking them, and later on in Deuteronomy they will, to uh reaffirm this covenant agreement with the Lord, which is takes two parties, right?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: It says, God says, I'm gonna do something.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Israel says, We're gonna do something.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's a mediator, and that is who Moses is acting as right now.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I want you to reaffirm this relationship that you have with God.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to say it before everybody.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just something you inherited, it is not just something people told you, it is something that you are making the decision to follow.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses says, I want you to do this.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: But over and again, Deuteronomy, uh, an alternative name for it might surprise you, is actually the book of love.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is here in our Bible that we first see, and rather Israel is first told, that the whole reason that God did that, you know, rescuing from slavery stuff, the calling of Abraham out of the land of Ur, all of the things that God has done up to this point, not because there was some like bogo deal on getting one nation for another, not because he got something out of it, right?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because God benefits from this.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's certainly not because Israel was worthy, it's certainly not because they had done things to deserve their redemption, but instead it is out of God's love that he has done all of this.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 4, verses 37 and 38.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Say, because he loved your ancestors, he chose their descendants after them, and brought you out of Egypt by his presence and great power, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you, and to bring you in, and to give you their land as an inheritance, as is now taking place.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mosa, we're going to kind of take a couple sort of high points for the rest of the book of Deuteronomy to sort of understand this.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Moses says, The reason you are here, standing before me, on the other side of the Jordan River, looking into the promised land, is because God loved your ancestors.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And because God loved your ancestors, he chose you, and therefore he loves you as well.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: He has loved all of you, your people, even your parents who were rebellious against him.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: It breaks his heart, but he says, You have walked against me, you have chosen to go the opposite direction.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: You said that I hated you and I wanted to kill you.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Moses says, God has loved your ancestors.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so he brings forth this idea, and this comes shortly after he's basically just recounted all the rebellion.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You dumb messed up in this way, in this way, in this way, your parents did, and then we get to this section, and he goes, But don't you understand that from the very beginning God has been acting with love?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you understand that before you, before you even cared about who he was, before you even understood him, before you you saw him on the mountain and were impressed by him, before you saw him part the Red Sea, he loved you and loves you.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, Moses draws them in and ends up saying one of the most important passages in the entire Bible.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ends up becoming a theme.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if you know Jewish folks today, they're going to continue to recite this daily as a prayer.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the Shema.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a response to God's love.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: In Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5, listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: You say, I thought Jesus said that.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy when he said that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have Deuteronomy here, which is this response, right?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: This desire for Moses to see the people, God to see the people, respond with love.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's in the Old Testament.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that all about rules?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: God has always had a relationship of love with his people.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: The context has sometimes looked different.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: We don't sacrifice bulls anymore, but at the same time, the context of love has always been there.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, it has always been there with God doing it first.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's never been a relationship that we've had with God where we say, God, I loved you before you ever loved me.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's his quote.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he gets to say.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, will the faithful generation appear and do what is right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: God has loved them first, he has saved them first, and so understandably they should love God.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then this sets us up to continue over the next couple months to look at this question basically.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: What does a nation of committed people look like?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: In the idealized state, as Moses is going to present to them, right?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to follow this law, if you were to follow after God, if you were to respond with faithfulness to Him, out of the love that you have, what would that look like in your life?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so Deuteronomy is this call to faithfulness and obedience.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: They are a people who respond to God's love and faithfulness with love and faithfulness.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, we see in Deuteronomy chapter 30, Moses, though, gives them kind of this ultimatum or fork in the road at the very least.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God, obey him, remain faithful to him, for he is your life, and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Notice here the callback to generations.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be another theme that you'll pick up in this book.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is it's not just the current generation looking back at their parents and grandparents who fell in the desert, but it is also this current generation looking forward to their children and the children after them.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: What is happening here?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: This sort of critical point in the history of Israel.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: They're kind of setting on the precipice, right?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're on the edge, and they have this opportunity before them to change this sort of generational cycle of rebellion that they have experienced up to this point.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: They have the opportunity to be the faithful generation and not just be the faithful generation, be the generation that then begins a history of faithfulness for Israel.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: That Israel would finally be the people who live in the promised land and have their eyes focused on God and are doing what they should, not because they were told to, but because they love him.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they just want to get the blessings of the covenant, which will be a motivation, certainly, but because they love God.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Moses says, though, that this choice that they are making, it is one between life and death.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to outline a lot of the blessings and curses that will come about because of this covenant.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you follow after God, these things will happen.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you choose to reject him, these things will happen.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: But at the very end of both of those roads, it can be summarized with life and death.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so the message, the question, right, is not then just who will be the faithful generation, but implicit within that question is a deeper one, which is will you choose life or death?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Your parents and your grandparents chose death.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Will you make the same choice that they did?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine sitting there before Moses, right?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you have all of these things that are going through your mind.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: All these things about your loss, your pain, the excitement of promise, the opportunity, the magnitude of what is before you and the chance that you have to change, but also the burden that you're carrying for having been a generation that has grown up under and seen parents and grandparents who are constantly grumbling.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: We use, I mean, grumbling is the word that we kind of use in the Bible to describe it, but it was it was pure rebellion, is really how God takes it.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because beyond just, man, where is the where's the meat that we have to eat in the desert, right?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: What the Lord consistently saw from the people were that they didn't trust in him.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe that he cared for them.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's not much of a greater rebellion that we can have than say that God does not love us.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you're this generation and you ask yourself this question, but beyond that, now we kind of take a step back and we say, yeah, but we're not that generation.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're 3,400 years in the future.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're quite a bit of a distance from those who entered into the promised land.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we still have the same question before us.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: The difference, the main difference, is that you and I have even more evidence of God's love for us.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: John picked up on this in the beginning of his gospel.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: When we're in the book of Deuteronomy, I'm going to do my best, and those others who are teaching are going to do their best to endeavor to explain how it is that God was reaching and caring and loving for his people and drawing them into a relationship with him that he initiated by love.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what I also want you to see is that we read Deuteronomy in context.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: We read Deuteronomy in its kind of place and time, and then have to take it to where we are, because we are not the nation of Israel.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're a bunch of Gentiles.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we read the book of Deuteronomy, right, we also have to say, yes, but how is that question for me today?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the question today is still, will you be the faithful generation?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: But now the initiating sort of act of God's love upon you, the fact that he displayed his love for you before you ever had the, not only the opportunity, but the desire to love him.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: That he has for all time been the one that is calling unfaithful people to him, and as the book of Romans says, that he is dying for those who are enemies of him.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: That this relationship with God is one that we see most fully in the person of Jesus Christ.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we look at Deuteronomy today, when we look at that generation, when we ask ourselves, you know, are we going to be faithful people?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is not just, well, aren't you, you know, sort of impressed by the parting of the Red Sea?
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: For the nation that were standing in front of Moses, it's like, you've seen the pillar of fire, you've seen the pillar of cloud, you've seen the Ark of the Covenant, you've seen these things, you've heard God, you've heard the voice, right?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: We actually talked about that a couple weeks ago in the message on pantheism.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we see you've heard the voice of God.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: But what they did not have is the ability to look back on Jesus Christ.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something only that we have.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: The entire part of the Old Testament is looking forward to this promise.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Moses will say it at the end of Deuteronomy.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: He'll say, There is one coming who will be the perfecter of this faith.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: There is one coming who will, the phrase they use is circumcising the hearts.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about it, right?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, There's this one coming who is going to finally bring all of these things to us.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: So even in Deuteronomy, even when they're saying, Will you be the faithful generation?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's still an aspect of their faith where they say, Yes, but something greater is coming.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: And for us, we look back and we say that the promise of God has already been revealed to us.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you can pick, it's like an archaeological or a paleontologist who's going to dig, right, some dinosaur bones or an ancient city, and it's like Deuteronomy, they've just uncovered the foundation stones or just uncovered like the jaw of this massive creature.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we get the full revealed scripture, it's like we're looking at the completed skeleton and city foundations.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: We have all of this to look back on.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is something that Jesus comments on and he says, Therefore you have no excuse.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, You don't really get the same, it's not they didn't really get a pass, but there was some level of understanding in the way that God worked with the ancient nation, where they didn't have all of the information before them, but we do.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so my question this morning is, will you be the faithful generation, right?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we're at.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, you have come from backgrounds where Christianity, faith in Christ was not a part of your walk growing up.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was not in your household.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you are people who have come to faith, and probably more than anybody else, you understand what this transition looks like.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: To become the ones who are then giving on to their kids and their grandkids this ability to know and have faith in their Savior.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: But there are also some of you who maybe grew up in a Christian household, right?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you have experienced sort of this shifting that is going on.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it wasn't a faith matter of faith, but it was, it could have been alcohol, neglect, you know, abuse, it could have been infidelity in your family, it could have been whatever trauma that you have experienced, and you have said, you know, like the buck stops with me.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: This cycle of pain ends with me.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am not going to be one that continues this on into the next generation.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to be the one that perpetuates that, right?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'm going to be the one, or we change, we take a 90-degree turn, or rather 180, and we go back the other direction.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: We say, no, we are going to live with health, right?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to live in all of these ways.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning is kind of more than its application, but honestly, it's also a mindset that I want us to have as we walk, begin walking through the book of Deuteronomy, that there is this understanding of the opportunity before us to be a people who are faithful.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, not just people who say that we trust in God, but as Deuteronomy will reveal, people who show their love for God through their obedience to his word.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: As one commentator I was reading said, it goes from the ears to the heart to the hands.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: That we hear the law and we hear the word of God and it nestles down within our heart, and out of that overflow of love, then it goes to our hands.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't short circuit it by just thinking that the heart is removed.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: But that as a church, we would sort of enter into this season where we are looking at what does it mean to be faithful?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be obedient?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be serious about that commitment to God?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, that also means looking on our past history and saying that we don't want to repeat it because we want to be those who are spurring on this generation and the next for faithfulness to God.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, sort of last sort of comment on that, right, is the generation before Moses, everybody was between the ages of, you know, well, either very young to about 60 years old.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was sort of a span, right?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Mostly, though, they would be adults by that point in time.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And for us, right, we have a little bit of a bigger span.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about our congregation.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want you to be thinking of in this context of generational language is what you are doing, sort of what you are doing to carry forth this faith to that next generation.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: So you can be silent generation, boomers, ex millennials, Z, Alpha, if you've been born since 2014, welcome or yeah, 2010, excuse me, welcome to the show, okay?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Alphas.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever generation you are in, you still have the same call upon your life.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then furthermore, we as a church have this opportunity to be a people who are saying, you know what?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be known.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not, yes, our obedience to God, but the fact that we are living out and we are carrying out God's will, not because we were told to, but because we recognize it is both how God gives us life and how we might be able to show life to the world around us.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: There are good things from following God's law.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: So will you be the faithful generation?
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy is going to be a great time for us to look at these things together as a church.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to begin reading the book.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you read the book of Deuteronomy, right, put yourself in the shoes of a generation that did not have the best examples in front of them.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Put yourselves in the shoes of a people who have great opportunity.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, put yourselves in the shoes of people, or sandals, sandals of people who, if they would follow the path that God has set before them, not only their nation, but the world around them would be transformed.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's the question that's sort of hanging in the balance.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Are we going to be this people who continue on as God's chosen, but really not acting like it?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or are we going to be those that live out our faith and are defined by it?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you spoke through Moses to the people in the wilderness on the other side of Jordan, and you called them to account.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know that you call us to account today.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Your word is true and it rests on our hearts in similar ways as it did to those so long ago.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we thank you for the revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: What it means to accept the love that you've shown us through Him, to accept Christ as our Savior, to know that we might be forgiven, Lord, even though we have done nothing to deserve it.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: But God, that we would be a people, I pray that we would be a people who respond to your love and faithfulness with love and faithfulness.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that one of the ways that we show that and display that to the world around us is through obedience.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, not because we are legalistic, not because we have been just commanded to, God, but because of an overflow of love for you.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that that would be our heartbeat, Lord.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: That would be the truth that we are seeking after.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: God, your truth.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, finally, I pray for anybody who is in the situation of that generation where, Lord, they maybe didn't have the best examples in front of them.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were not privileged, like many of us have been, to experience the fruitfulness of a family that loves Christ in generations.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: But God, that they are striking out on their own.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing a new thing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, would you be with them?
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Would you comfort them?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Would you help them to see what it means to draw deep into a relationship with you, God?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that they would be people.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, set up the generations after them for faith.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for the opportunity you've given us to follow after you, and we pray that we would do it well.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.