Latest / A Chapter a Day Bible Reading / August 7 - Deuteronomy 32

Transcript

August 7 - Deuteronomy 32 · A Chapter a Day Bible Reading

• 0:11
  Hey Groovers, and welcome to Top of the Pops Ancient Near East
• 0:16
  edition. We are going to listen to that
• 0:18
  groovy song that you have been waiting for.
• 0:20
  That's right, the Israelites can't get enough of it.
• 0:24
  It is the song of Moses straight to the top of the charts in 3431
• 0:28
  BC. And here we are to enjoy a
• 0:31
  rendition of it, not sung, but read in ancient rap style to
• 0:35
  you, coming out through the airwaves and digital, digital by
• 0:40
  waves. But here it is coming to you
• 0:42
  straight from Moses to your bro and mine, the Israelite people.
• 0:47
  Ha ha, it's that classic favourite from Deuteronomy 32.
• 1:02
  So Moses recited this entire song publicly to the assembly of
• 1:06
  Israel. Listen, O heavens, and I will
• 1:11
  speak. Hear, O earth, the words that I
• 1:14
  say. Let my teaching fall on you like
• 1:17
  rain. Let my speech settle like dew.
• 1:20
  Let my words fall like rain on tender grass, like gentle
• 1:25
  showers on young plants. I will proclaim the name of the
• 1:29
  Lord. How glorious is how God.
• 1:32
  He is the rock. His deeds are perfect.
• 1:35
  Everything he does is just and fair.
• 1:38
  He is a faithful God who does no wrong.
• 1:41
  How just and upright he is, but they have acted corruptly toward
• 1:46
  him. When they act so perversely, are
• 1:50
  they really His children? They are a deceitful and twisted
• 1:54
  generation. Is this the way you replay the
• 1:57
  Lord, you foolish and senseless people?
• 2:00
  Isn't He your Father who created you?
• 2:02
  Has He not made you and established you?
• 2:05
  Remember the days of long ago. Think about the generations
• 2:09
  past. Ask your Father and He will
• 2:12
  inform you. Inquire of your elders and they
• 2:14
  will tell you. When the Most High assigned
• 2:17
  lands to the nations. When he divided up the human
• 2:20
  race, He established the boundaries of the peoples
• 2:24
  according to the number in his heavenly court.
• 2:27
  For the people of Israel belong to the Lord.
• 2:30
  Jacob is his special possession. He found them in a desert land,
• 2:35
  in an empty, howling wasteland. He surrounded them and watched
• 2:39
  over them. He guarded them as he would
• 2:41
  guard his own eyes, like an eagle that rouses her cheeks and
• 2:46
  hovers over her young. So he spread his wings to take
• 2:50
  them up and carried them safely on his pinions.
• 2:54
  The Lord alone guided them. They followed no foreign guards.
• 2:59
  He let them ride over the Highlands and feast on the crops
• 3:02
  of the fields. He nourished them with honey
• 3:05
  from a rock and olive oil from the Stony ground.
• 3:09
  He fed them yoghurt from the herd and milk from the flock,
• 3:12
  together with the fat of the lambs.
• 3:15
  He gave them choice Rams from Bashan and goats, together with
• 3:19
  the finest wheat, who drank the finest wine made from the juice
• 3:23
  of grapes. But Israel soon became fat and
• 3:27
  unruly. The people grew heavy, plump and
• 3:30
  stuffed. Then they abandoned the God who
• 3:33
  had made them. They have made light of the rock
• 3:36
  of their salvation. They stirred up his jealousy by
• 3:39
  worshipping foreign gods. They provoked his fury with
• 3:42
  detestable deeds. They offered sacrifices to
• 3:46
  demons which are not God, to gods they have not known before,
• 3:51
  to new gods only recently arrived, To gods their ancestors
• 3:56
  had never feared. You neglected the rock who had
• 3:59
  fathered you. You forgot the God who had given
• 4:02
  you birth. The Lord saw this and drew back,
• 4:06
  provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.
• 4:10
  He said I will abandoned them, then see what becomes of them,
• 4:15
  for they are a twisted generation, children without
• 4:19
  integrity. They have roused my jealousy by
• 4:22
  worshipping things that are not God.
• 4:25
  They have provoked my anger with their useless idols.
• 4:28
  Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even
• 4:33
  a people. I will provoke their anger
• 4:36
  through the foolish gentiles. For my anger blazes forth like
• 4:40
  fire and burns to the depths of the grave.
• 4:44
  It devours the earth and all its crops, and ignites the
• 4:47
  foundations of the mountains. I will heap disasters upon them
• 4:52
  and shoot them down with my arrows.
• 4:55
  I will weaken them with famine, burning fever, and deadly
• 4:58
  disease. I will send the fangs of wild
• 5:02
  beasts and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust outside.
• 5:06
  The sword will bring death and inside terrible strike, both
• 5:11
  young men and young women, both infants and the aged.
• 5:15
  I would have annihilated them, wiping out even the memory of
• 5:19
  them. But I fear the taunt of Israel's
• 5:22
  enemy, who might misunderstand and say our own power has
• 5:27
  triumphed. The Lord had nothing to do with
• 5:30
  this. But Israel is a senseless
• 5:33
  nation. The people are foolish without
• 5:36
  understanding. Oh, that they were wise and
• 5:39
  could understand this. Oh that they might know their
• 5:42
  fate. How could one person chase 1000
• 5:45
  of them, and two people put 10,000 to flight, unless their
• 5:49
  rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?
• 5:54
  But the rock of our enemies is not like our rock, as even they
• 5:58
  recognise. Their vine grows from the vine
• 6:02
  of Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah.
• 6:05
  Their grapes are poison and their clusters are bitter.
• 6:08
  Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of
• 6:12
  cobras. The Lord says, Am I not storing
• 6:16
  up these things, sealing them away in my treasury?
• 6:19
  I will take revenge, I will pay them back.
• 6:22
  In due time their feet will slip, their day of disaster will
• 6:26
  arrive, and their destiny will overtake them.
• 6:30
  Indeed, the Lord will give justice to his people, and he
• 6:34
  will change his mind about his servants when he sees their
• 6:38
  strength is gone and no one is left slave or free.
• 6:42
  Then he will ask, where are their gods?
• 6:45
  The rocks they fled to for refuge?
• 6:48
  Where now are those gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and
• 6:53
  drank the wine of their offerings?
• 6:56
  Let those gods arise and help you.
• 6:58
  Let them provide you with shelter.
• 7:01
  Look now, I myself am he. There is no other God but me.
• 7:08
  I am the one who kills and gives life.
• 7:11
  I am the one who wounds and heals.
• 7:14
  No one can be rescued from my powerful hand.
• 7:19
  Now I raise my hand to heaven and declare as surely as I live,
• 7:25
  when I sharpen my flashing sword and begin to carry out justice,
• 7:30
  I will take revenge on my enemies and repay those who
• 7:33
  reject me. I will make my arrows drunk with
• 7:36
  blood, and my sword will devour flesh, the blood of the
• 7:41
  slaughtered, and the captives and the heads of the enemy
• 7:44
  leaders. Rejoice with him, you heavens,
• 7:48
  that all of God's angels worship him.
• 7:52
  Rejoice with his people, you Gentiles, and let all the angels
• 7:56
  be strengthened in him, for he will avenge the blood of his
• 8:00
  children. He will take revenge against his
• 8:04
  enemies. He will repay those who hate him
• 8:07
  and cleanse his people's land. So Moses came with Joshua son of
• 8:15
  Nun, and recited all the words of this song to the people.
• 8:20
  When Moses had finished reciting all these words to the people of
• 8:23
  Israel, he added, Take to heart all the words of warning I have
• 8:27
  given you to day. Pass them on as a command to
• 8:31
  your children so they will obey every word of these
• 8:34
  instructions. These instructions are not empty
• 8:37
  words. They are your life.
• 8:39
  By obeying them you will enjoy a long life in the land you will
• 8:43
  occupy. When you cross the Jordan River
• 8:47
  that same day, the Lord said to Moses, go to Moab, to the
• 8:52
  mountains east of the river, and climb Mount Nebo, which is
• 8:56
  across from Jericho. Look out across the land of
• 8:59
  Canaan, the land I'm giving to the people of Israel as their
• 9:03
  own special possession. Then you will die there on the
• 9:08
  mountain. You will join your ancestors,
• 9:11
  just as Aaron, your brother died on Mount Hor and joined his
• 9:15
  ancestors. For both of you betrayed me with
• 9:18
  the Israelites at the waters of Merabah, at Kadesh, in the
• 9:22
  wilderness of Zin. You failed to demonstrate My
• 9:26
  holiness to the people of Israel there.
• 9:29
  So you will see the land from a distance, but you may not enter
• 9:33
  the land I'm giving to the people of Israel.
• 9:46
  Well Lord, that is not the sort of songs we are used to hearing.
• 9:51
  It lays out so clearly the blessings and the curses.
• 9:55
  And unfortunately, the curses outnumber the blessings because
• 10:00
  we are stubborn people and our hearts find it so hard to
• 10:06
  permanently fix themselves beyond our own needs and
• 10:10
  interests and beyond the the foreign gods that are in front
• 10:13
  of us, beyond all the things that tempt us to follow them and
• 10:17
  place them as our priority. And Lord, even though as we read
• 10:23
  this it sounds brutal and harsh, we know that all of this comes
• 10:27
  from you, as you are already planning to send your son so
• 10:34
  that none of these curses need come to us, but that he will
• 10:37
  deal with it once and for all for us.
• 10:40
  So we thank you for your generosity, that even though you
• 10:43
  are a God of justice and righteousness who is unable to
• 10:47
  tolerate sin, you have found a way to bring us, your broken
• 10:52
  people, into your loving embrace, saved by your perfect
• 10:57
  Son. Thank you for your generosity.
• 11:02
  You found a way. And here we are, your chosen
• 11:05
  special possession, your people, and we love you.
• 11:09
  And we pray all of this in that saving name of Jesus who makes
• 11:12
  all of this possible. Amen.