Deuteronomy 11

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Deuteronomy 10:14-22

“Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. 15 Only the LORD had a delight in thy father’s to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. 16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. 17 For the LORD your God is God of gods, and LORD of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: 18 he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. 19 Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. 20 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. 21 He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. 22 Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.”

Introduction

[Audio version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED601]

“Chapter 10, verse 12, there’s kind of a summation, an exhortation that begins, God was challenging the nation not to misinterpret their history, as they would come into the land, not to forget him, not to start to interpret the blessings they would enjoy as the fruit of their own labours--that they were to remember that God was supernaturally providing through the natural the way he did provide Manna and so forth, and water out of the rock in their long journey to the land. And then he also told them it’s not because of your righteousness, it’s not because of your size, it’s not because of anything in you, in fact, you’re a very stiffnecked people, you’ve worn me out, ‘A couple times I said, let’s just smoke this whole program, and go to plan-B,’ and he said ‘Moses besought me, prayed on your behalf.’ So at the end of all that, now in chapter 10, verse 12, he’s going to say ‘So then, what is it then, it’s not because of your righteousness, and yet God has been gracious to you all this way,’ they complained all through the wilderness journey, and yet God was faithful, brought them to the edge of the land, and he’s going to say ‘What is it now?’ “And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the LORD and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” (verses 12-13) “to walk in all his ways,” it speaks of progress, of moving forward, of faith in the New Testament as well as the Old, to walk in his ways. Interesting, what does he require, “that you would love him,” because he knows if he has your heart he has all of you, and just interesting the cry of Almighty God, “to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God,” notice, “with all thy heart and with all thy soul,” Now he’s going to mention “the heart” five times through this section, it’s here in verse 12, it’s in verse 16, it is in chapter 11, verses 13, 16 and 18. And what he’s going to say is, what he’s desiring from them are the issues of the heart. He doesn’t just want outward performance, and the heart being somewhere else. He’s going to challenge them about that. And I would say the same as any parent, the same as any father, he’s going to address them in regards to their heart. So he says this is what I want, to fear the LORD, to walk in his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD with all of your heart and with all of your soul, and “to keep the commandments of the LORD and his statutes, which I command thee this day” and again, he ends, and all of this is “for thy good.” And again, think of how much good he had done to them in their rebellion all this way. Imagine the blessings that would be on Israel if they were to yield, to be obedient, and to keep his commandments, of the good that would then come unto them. And that’s in the LORD’s heart.

The God Of The Heavens Of Heaven Chose Israel & Has Chosen Us As Individuals

He says this, “Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD’s thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the LORD had a delight in thy father’s to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.” (verses 14-15) the universe, the spiritual heaven, other dimensions, the heaven of heavens [i.e. also outside of Space-Time, that “heaven”] “is the LORD’s thy God,” Now it reminds us of Psalm 8, you know ‘O LORD our LORD, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, when I consider the sun, the moon, the stars, the work of thy fingers, what is man that thou art mindful of him, the heaven of heavens can’t contain thee, out of the mouth of babes you’ve perfected praise,’ you can actually make a little child sing ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so,’ and actually mean it. And he’s saying here, consider this, the heavens, and the heaven of heavens, is the LORD’s, you’re God, and the earth also, and everything that’s in it. Only what he had delight in, and “delight” means “to cleave to, to cling to, to find joy in,” now this is what he’s saying, he’s saying that the LORD, who is the LORD of heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and of the earth and everything that’s in it, finds delight in a part of his creation, and he says it was this: he said “Only the LORD had a delight in thy father’s to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.” (verse 2) Notice this, it wasn’t that he had delight in them because they were so delightful, he had delight in them “to love them, and he chose their seed after them,” even you” notice this “above all people, as it is this day.” And by the way, it’s still that way, Israel is God’s chosen people. ‘God, who is the God of everything, not just the heaven you see and understand, but the heaven of heavens [outside of Space-Time], and who has made the earth and everything that’s in it, found delight in your fathers.’ Abraham was an idol worshipper in Ur of the Chaldees, it tells us in the end of Joshau chapter 24, the first three verses, and it tells us the same thing in Acts chapter 7, first three verses. And the God of glory appeared to him there, and called him, and set him aside, and chose him, God’s choice. How can you argue with that, to be his people, and to set his love upon them, what a privilege, what privilege. Look, the interesting thing is for you and I, we have that applied to our lives individually. You know, God chose Israel nationally, but he chose you and I individually, called us to be his own [sort of like Abraham], to stand in his presence, to be his children, to love us. This is quite a privilege, to be chosen by the God of the heaven and heavens of heaven, and of the earth and everything that’s in it. Israel, it says here, he’s chosen them above all people, nationally, as it is this day. The current leaders of Iran had better read Deuteronomy [considering the latest wars going on between Israel and Iran’s proxies, HAMAS and Hezbollah, and now the IDF’s air force strike flying right into Iran and blowing up a missile manufacturing plant this very morning I’m transcribing this, Pastor Joe hit the nail on the head, I’d say]. God’s going to tell us why as we move on here.

“Circumcise Therefore The Foreskin Of Your Heart, And Be No More Stiffnecked”

‘Look After The Fatherless, Widow & Foreigner

This is what he says in verse 16, “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” Why? “For the LORD your God is God of gods, and LORD of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:” (verse 17) “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart” this is what he’s saying, he wants to deal with the innermost part of the being. You know, circumcision was a sign of the covenant he had made with the nation [starting with Abraham and his family]. By this time, and particularly during the time of Christ, the Jewish people are so absorbed in outward observance, that they’ve lost track of the fact that God cares about the heart, that that’s supreme then. What does it matter if we tie a phylactery to our head or our hand, or we dress a certain way, or we do all of this, and our heart is somewhere else. And Jesus would condemn that, he said ‘These are people who draw near me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’ [And the apostle Paul said the true circumcision was to be of the heart, and not of the flesh where he said in Romans 2:28-29, “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.” Colossians 2:11-12, “In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.”] And here he says, look, cut away the flesh of the inmost part of your being, what’s wrong in there, of your thoughts. That’s where I wrestle, I hope we’re all the same, in my intentions, in my motives, you know, the innermost part of my being. When you first get saved, and the Lord changes your life, in so many outward things we change, and you kind of think ‘I’ve arrived, I’m so different.’ And you don’t realize, years later, he’s going to be dealing with you ‘What about that thought? What about that motive? What about that circumstance?’ And the point is, that he wants something genuine, within us, the same way you and I do raising children. We want it to be real, the communion you have with them, the lessons that you give them, the way you instruct them, their obedience, you want it to be genuine, you want it to be from the heart. And he says here ““Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.” (verse 16) Now look, the Church [greater Body of Christ] does the same thing, the Church can get so involved in baptisms, church membership, communion, you know, all of these things, and how many people in the Church on a Sunday [or Sabbath, or Holy Day] worldwide come into the doorways of a church building, that have never come into the Kingdom? They’re not born-again [maybe converted to the information found in the Bible, but never received the indwelling Holy Spirit of God]? They’re there by rote, they’re there by tradition, they’re not born-again, they’re there by habit, they’re there by signing a register or something, but they’ve not been born-again. And it’s the same thing for you and I today, the Lord wants our heart, he wants us to be genuine. He wants it to be real, and he says “For the LORD your God is God of gods, and LORD of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward:” (verse 17) Hee’’s not impressed with the candidates, he’s not impressed with the president, evangelists or pastors, “he regardeth not persons” he’s not partial, “nor taketh reward,” he can’t be bribed. It’s so refreshing, isn’t it? That somebody is not partial and can’t be bribed, I knew there was somebody out there somewhere. But look, take heed to it, because sometimes as Christians we try to bribe him, don’t we. ‘We really blew it last week, so this week we’re going to be extra good, we’re going to get more stars on the refrigerator for our behavior.’ And then in that we’ll be earning a little bit more of his favour and his love. And it never comes that way, it’s through the blood of an innocent substitute, it’s because of Jesus Christ, he bathes us with his love, through grace, through grace. We have to be careful we don’t do the same thing. He says here God doesn’t regard people, he’s not partial, neither does he take a bribe, he can’t be bribed. Listen, “he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.” (verse 18) This is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the God of the heavens and the heaven of heavens, that’s awesome and terrible, that’s not partial, he can’t be bribed, but he stoops down to care for orphans [log onto and read through this series on George Mueller: https://unityinchrist.com/prayer/mueller.htm ], for the fatherless. That he partakes of the burden of the widow and enters in with her, sustains her. We’re going to read in other places in the Law, you mess with the fatherless, you mess with the widow, God says ‘You’re messing with me, you and I are going to come to terms.’ That this great awesome incredible God stoops down to the widow, and there’s probably enough of you here this evening, widows, and to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, a father to the fatherless. The heavens can’t contain him and he cares about one child, one youth that’s lost their father. And he loves the stranger, the foreigner, “and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.” (verse 18b) isn’t that interesting? That’s God’s love towards a foreigner, food and raiment, but that’s really all a foreigner needs. Look, you and I, the Bible tells us, are pilgrims and strangers, that’s a foreigner. Remember it tells us that Cain became a fugitive and a vagabond, after he killed his brother. A fugitive is someone whose running from home, a vagabond is somebody without a home. A pilgrim is someone whose headed home. That’s us, the Bible tells us we are pilgrims, we’re headed home, we’re on a journey, we’re headed home, we’re pilgrims. And we’re foreigners, we’re away from home. And he says here, his love to the foreigner is food and raiment. Jesus said consider the sparrows, they don’t worry about what they’re going to eat, and yet your Father feeds them. Consider the lilies, Solomon in all his glory wasn’t arrayed like these, why worry about what you’re going to wear. We’re strangers, we’re foreigners, this is not our place. And we’re pilgrims, we’re on our way home. And God’s love towards us is that he will provide food and raiment, isn’t it interesting, food and raiment. “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (verse 19) Reflect your God’s heart. “Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.” (verses 20-22) 70 souls went down to Egypt, and the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude, the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, fulfilled. There was no chapter break…

Deuteronomy 11:1-32

“Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. 2 And know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, 3 and his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land; 4 and what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD hath destroyed them unto this day; 5 and what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place; 6 and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel: 7 but your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did. 8 Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it; 9 and that ye may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey. 10 For the land, whither thou goest in to posses it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: 11 but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: 12 a land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. 13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. 15 And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full. 16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; 17 and then the LORD’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you. 18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 20 And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: 21 that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. 22 For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; 23 then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. 24 Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. 25 There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye tread upon, as he hath said unto you. 26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; 27 a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: 28 and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known. 29 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal. 30 Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh? 31 For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein. 32 And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.”

Your Relationship With God Is Not Theoretical, It’s Not About Book-Learning, It’s Experiential, Alive, Powerful

“Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway. And know ye this day:” here comes a challenge, “for I speak not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm,” (verses 1-2) Here he’s talking to the parents, ‘I’m talking to you, those who have seen, not your children who haven’t seen, who haven’t experienced, I’m talking to you, those who have experienced,’ verse 3, “and his miracles, and his acts, which he did” we have “he did” five times in these next few verses, “in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land; and what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the LORD hath destroyed them unto this day; and what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place;” (verses 3-5) how he provided the Manna and so forth, the battles they won against Amalek, all of God’s provision. And look at verse 6, “and what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth,” this is memorable, you see that once it kind of sticks in your memory, “and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel:” not just what he did, what he did to enemies without, but what he also did within the nation to those who were in rebellion. “but your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did.” (verse 7) So he’s going to say ‘So I want you to go on then, you’re a witness to all these things.’ Your relationship with the Living God is not theoretical, it’s not book-learning. Your relationship with the Living God, he’s saying, is experiential, reality. Even for you and I, it should never be book-learning, this is not a textbook, it’s not a biology book, it’s not a chemistry book, it’s the living Word of God, it’s alive and powerful. When we sit with it, it should still speak to us. You know, if you’ve been walking with the Lord for 30 years and you’re not as excited about the Bible as you were when you first got saved, you need to get your heart before the Lord. Because there’s all kinds of nonsense and substitutes out there now, there’s all kinds of psychobabble in the Church [greater Body of Christ], there’s all kinds of other things, very self-esteem oriented, human-centrist. You talk with people for an hour, they don’t say a word about Jesus Christ or about the Bible. God’s given us his Word. All through this he’s going to say ‘Keep my commandments, my statutes [which statures include the Holy Days and dietary laws], my ordinances,’ “Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it;” (verse 8) There’s something about our relationship with the living Word, that it’s real to us, that we thirst and hunger for it, and that we obey, we yield to it, that produces strength, it produces fulfillment. And your relationship and my relationship with Jesus Christ is not to be theoretical, it’s not to be just theological in position. The most profound theology is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And that’s what he longs for, that we would love him. He’s saying that here, he wants it to be a heart issue. So he challenges them, and he says, look, ‘Know ye this day, God brought you out of Egypt, God dealt with your enemies, and God dealt with those like Dathan and Abiram, those in the camp that rebelled against him.’ Because look, back in verse 15 of chapter 10, he said ‘Keep the commandments which I command you this day,’ and look in verse 15, “Only the LORD had a delight in thy father’s to love them, and he chose their seed after them,” The problem with the Egyptians is, they meddled with God’s people, with God’s plan. And rest assured, any nation in the world today that meddles with God’s chosen people will find themselves ultimately in the same position [and that’s happening right now in the Middle East, in the fall of 2024]. And then inside the nation of Israel, Dathan and Abiram, Korah, those who rose up in rebellion, meddled with God’s choice, who was Moses and Aaron. And he’s saying here, you’ve seen, God is active in all this, not theoretical, he chose you as a nation, he chose leaders among you. He did these things, “But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD which he did. Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it;” (verses 7-8) We’re going to hear about the land over a dozen times in the next few verses. To keep the commandment of the LORD, look, the Bible tells us that his commandments, they’re not grievous, they’re not hard to be borne. You know, God tells us, he instructs us, the way a father instructs his children. He loves us. We find our life in these pages. The Holy Spirit when he comes to us, will affirm what we’re reading in the Book he inspired. He will never lead a Christian to do something that transgresses the Book that he wrote. And we hear Christians say ‘Oh, ya, we’re sleeping together, but God knows our heart, God’s still blessing,’ well he’s not, that’s a dumb statement, you’re running out of room, he’s not blessing. The noose is tightening, he’s going to chasten you because he loves you. And that may be unpleasant, but it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. It’s as we obey his Word, as we give ourselves to it, spend time with it. Look, for me, look, experiential, if I get up and seek him. Now up is a challenge for me. Get up, and it’s easier for me to get up in the summer than it is for me to get up in the winter. In the summer, when the sun is up shining, I can roll out of bed, I can drag these bones out of bed. And I can really enjoy some quiet time, and I promise him ‘Lord, I’ll be up earlier, I’ll meet you.’ And it’s funny, if I’m late, he’s waiting for me. If I’m early, he’s already there. If I’m on time, he’s surprised [laughter]. If I miss a day or three days or four days, he’s still there, his mercies are new every morning. But every time I do get up, and sit with this [his Bible] in his presence, and his Word rises off the page and the tears begin to flow, I say ‘I’m so stupid, why don’t I do this every single morning.’ And just the next morning it’s ‘Duh, stupid old me again.’ In the winter I don’t like it, the alarm goes off and it’s dark and it’s cold, I don’t want to get up from under, I need blanket victory. Allan Redpath said he needed blanket victory, and that’s what I need in the winter. But it’s so wonderful for it to be alive, to have that time with him, not “devotions” please, we can be legalistic and self-righteous about that, but devotion, devotion. Devotions are wonderful [I prefer the term ‘prayer and Bible study,’ which literally that is, the word “devotions” to me is a syrupy term evangelicals have coined], but not unless there’s devotion though, then they’re just empty. And when I’m alone with him, it’s not devotions, it’s devotion. He says I want you to keep my Word and my commandments, that you might be strong. Thank you Lord, “and that ye may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey.” (verse 9) Grazing and pollination, a good land.

‘The Land You’re Going Into Is Watered By The Rain Of Heaven’

“For the land, whither thou goest in to posses it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:” (verses 10-11) He says you’re used to Egypt, the Nile River was deified in Egypt. And there were floodtides that would come, and the Nile would water their fields, and they made these little bicycle wheels that drove these mills that dropped buckets of water into their channels and into their irrigation ditches, and it was with their own sweat that they brought water up, their own doing that watered their fields. And of course the Egyptians didn’t have any idea the monsoons were way up the river somewhere, and the water they had was from heaven anyway. But they worshipped their own labour, they worshipped the Nile as a deity. Ah, Zechariah tells us this, you don’t have to turn, as Zechariah 14 ends, he says in verses 16-19, “And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.” God mentions the family of Egypt, “that have no rain,” in other words they weren’t dependent on rain for the land to be fertile, they were dependent on their own labour. It says here the labour of their foot, they wateredst it with thy foot, and it’s a picture of the world. The world wants to produce everything it can with it’s own sweat. And I think we should be diligent and work hard, I like hard work, I enjoy sweating, it’s therapy for me, it’s a good thing, I enjoy it. [One thing he overlooked, he was quoting from a passage found in Zecharia 14 that proves that right after Jesus Christ’s 2^nd coming, with the setup of the Millennial Kingdom of God, the world will be brought into the observance of keeping God’s Holy Days as listed in Leviticus 23, from the observing of the weekly Sabbath through to the Feast of Tabernacles, Isaiah 66:22-23, “‘For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me,’ says the LORD, ‘so shall your descendants and your name remain. And it shall come to pass that from one New Moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before me,’ says the LORD.” This is something the Calvary Chapels also admit as being true, a true interpretation of Scripture. They know it, but don’t always admit it.] My wife had me working in the yard all last week, I felt like the children of Israel making bricks without straw, ‘ok, honey, ok honey.’ But it’s good, it’s therapeutic. The point is, he’s not saying they shouldn’t work, he’s saying here, it’s with their own energy that they received the blessings, bringing up water out of the Nile River with their foot. But he said the land I’m taking you to, the Egyptians didn’t have to look to heaven, the land I’m taking you to is not like the land of Egypt, where you go to possess it. “For the land, whither thou goest in to posses it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven:” (verses 10-11) That makes you a little more dependent on God. He’s going to challenge them, because as they come into this land, Baal is one of the principle deities of the Canaanites. And they believed that Baal was in charge of the elements, the Canaanites. And they worshipped Baal to produce the rains. And God is going to warn them not to let their hearts be deceived, because he’s going to say ‘I’m the one who brings the rain.’ I have this little excerpt, remember I had it stuck somewhere, that I actually found it was a miracle, and it’s just a picture of speaking to someone in this scene, about God’s ability to bring them rain. It says ‘A few wells keep the family and the animals supplied with water, but if the crops are to grow and the family is to be fed from month to month, water has to come on the fields from another source.’ now they weren’t used to that, ‘From where? Well, from the sky. The sky? Water will come out of the clear blue sky? Well not exactly, water will have to be carried into the sky from the Mediterranean Sea over several hundred miles and then be poured out from the sky onto the fields. Carried? How much does it weigh? Well, if one inch of rain falls on one square mile of farmland, during the week, that would be 27,878,400 cubic feet of water, which is, 206,300,160 gallons, which is 1,650,501,280 lbs of water, in an inch in a week on a square mile.’ That’s heavy. ‘How does it get up in the sky and stay there if it is so heavy? Well it gets up there by evaporation. Really? That’s a nice word, what’s it mean? It means the water sort of stops being water for awhile so it can go up and not down. I see. Then how does it get down? Well condensation happens. What’s that? Well the water starts becoming water again by gathering around little dust particles, between 0.0001 and 0.001 centimeters wide. That’s small, right? Yup. What about the salt, the Mediterranean, yes, it’s a sea of salt water. That would kill the crops, what about the salt? Now the salt has to be taken out. So the sky picks up over a billion pounds of water from the sea, takes out the salt, then carries it for 300 miles and dumps it on the farm. Well it doesn’t dump it, if it dumped a billion pounds of water on the farm, the wheat would be crushed. So the sky dribbles the billion pounds of water in little drops, and they have to be big enough to fall for one mile without evaporating, but small enough to keep from crushing the wheat and the stalks. Well how do all these microscopic specs of water that weigh billion a pounds get heavy enough to fall?’ If that’s the way they would ask the question, ‘Well, it’s call calescence…fall, well not exactly, because they would just bounce off each other instead of joining up if there was no electric field present. What? Nevermind, take my word for it.’ It’s easier to say ‘the LORD will provide water from heaven, the land you’re going to is not like the land of Egypt where you water it with the foot, for the land you go into is a land of streams and valleys, and of God’s blessing, a land that drinketh the water of the rain of heaven,’ which should be a picture of our lives in the Holy Spirit. By the way, how often we find ourselves parched and dry, how often we find ourselves doing something in our own sweat, the way the Egyptians do it, how often what calls itself the Church today finds itself trying to build the way Egypt built it’s monuments, sweating and in desperate need of the refreshing rains of God’s Spirit from heaven. How desperately our church and my life, we need a revival, an awakening here in our own church, in our own lives, how wonderful it would be. Wouldn’t it? To see our church touch the entire city of Philadelphia, and the entire eastern seaboard, to see all of the churches alive and flourishing. It’s a great idea. Verse 12, “a land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.” Now he promises us, in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5, which is really from Joshua 1:5, that he’ll never leave us or forsake us, individually. Here’s a promise in regards to the land of Israel, nationally, that he never takes his eyes off the land of Israel. When President Reagan was in Israel years ago, and I think it was Menachem Begin he spoke to, and said ‘That in America, we try to remember to pray for Israel, Menachem said ‘You should pray while you’re here, because it’s a local call.’ “a land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.” (verses 12-15) The land of Israel is never what the land of Israel is, without the people of Israel in the land of Israel. In fact, for the last 2,000 years there was a diminishing, the former rains were there, measurable, coming in the fall, but the latter rains of the Spring were all but departed. And since 1948, when the children of Israel [the children of Judah, the Jews, the other 10 tribes are still historically lost from view] have come back to the land, the former and the latter rains have returned. There’s been a lot of reforestation, I understand that. But the point is, God blesses the land because of the people that are in the land. “I will give you the rain of your land in his due season, the first and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.” he’s speaking to them, “And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.” (verses 14-15)

‘If You Turn Aside & Worship False gods I’ll Shut Up The Heavens So That There Will Be No Rain’

“Take heed to yourselves, that your heart” here it is again “be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then the LORD’s wrath be kindled against you,” notice “and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.” (verses 16-17) the rain and the blessing is directly related to the people’s hearts remaining faithful to their God who blesses them. You know Elijah understood this perfectly. Elijah watched Ahab and Jezebel, and the prophets of Baal, and the other foreign worship that they promoted throughout the land [for the full history of Elijah, Ahab and Jezebel (whom Ahab married, she being the chief Sidonian priestess of Baal), read through https://unityinchrist.com/kings/1.html ]. And somewhere in the mountains of Gilead, this man was jealous, he was jealous for God, and he was praying, and the LORD’s eyes were going to and fro throughout the earth, looking for someone whose heart was perfect towards him, that he might show himself strong on his behalf. And Elijah must have been praying ‘LORD, you promised, you told your people, that if they’d served other gods you would shut up the heavens, that they would dry up, they wouldn’t give forth, that the land is blessed because the people keep your commandments.’ And at some point the LORD said ‘Elijah, you go and walk in before Ahab, and you give him the weather report, No Rain.’ And Elijah walked in and pronounced that before Ahab, and it tells us in James for three and a half years there was no rain. And Elijah came to Mount Carmel, there to challenge the people, and he said ‘How long will you halt between two opinions?’ Halt means to limp, because there’s a crippledness to that. ‘Ya, we believe in God, we worship God, but we do these other things too,’ we’re inconsistent in our devotion to him, we give him lip-service, but we also do this, ‘How long halt ye between two opinions, if God is God then worship him, if Baal is God then worship him.’ And you know the story. ‘Let’s test it out.’ I love Elijah, he offers Ahab and Jezebel and all their prophets a test, he said ‘Why don’t you go out there and get yourself an ox, kill it, put it on your altar, carry on, if fire falls from heaven, consumes your sacrifice, then we know Baal is God. Then I’ll try it, and if fire falls from heaven, consumes the sacrifice I make, then we know that Jehovah is God.’ And the whole story, the priests of Baal jump around, cut themselves, screaming, sweating, wearing themselves out, and nothing happened. And then wonderfully, and mystically in some ways, it says Elijah repaired the altar of the LORD, and altar of the LORD, not in Jerusalem. Isn’t that interesting? There was an altar of the LORD, some ancient altar on Carmel. And if we want the rain of the Holy Spirit to return to the Church [greater Body of Christ] today, there needs to be a repairing of the altar of the LORD, because the Church is starting to talk about the atonement of Jesus Christ as a bloody doctrine, the Church is starting to turn away from the inerrancy of Scripture, the Church is turning away from the very centrist Gospel, the issues of the cross of Christ, his death and resurrection, that have been the Gospel preached for the last 2,000 years. And it’s not going to happen, the rain is not going to return until the fire falls, until there is a repentance, until there is a rebuilding as it were of the altar of the LORD. And he took it (his ox) and he flayed it, the animal it says, he dressed it, which is a Levitical word, he put it in order. Those people had never seen that, this is a generation that had never seen that. And I think there’s a generation out there that have never seen it, they’ve never heard it. For them, they watched him put those twelve stones together, they watched him disembowel that animal, they watched him lay the legs on, with the entrails ontop and the head. They watched it, again, the whole thing a monstrosity, [representing] Jesus Christ on the cross, bearing the sin of the world, a monstrosity, something extremely wrong, the pure Son of God, the sin-bearer of the world’s sins. And then Elijah says ‘O God, that they might know that you, you’re the one whose turning their hearts,’ and the LORD’s talked to them all through this chapter, ‘you’re the one whose in the process of turning their hearts back to yourself, LORD.’ And then the fire fell from heaven, consumed the ox, the stones, the wood, the water, and left a smoking hole in the ground, that said ‘it is finished, Tutelisti, paid in full.’ And Elijah said, you know, the people fell on their knees, they cried out to God, he understood their hearts had turned back, and he said ‘Now, get ready for the rain.’ God didn’t just bring rain to prove he was God, he needed repentance first, their hearts needed to turn back to him, there was a rebuilding of the altar of the LORD, and then Elijah sent his servant seven times, who finally on the seventh time said ‘I see a cloud that’s the size of a man’s hand.’ Jesse Pen Louis, the great Revival in Wales, first articles she wrote in the paper, she said “There’s a cloud the size of a man’s hand, appearing over Wales,” and God poured out his Holy Spirit, and an entire country was touched and changed, and it spread around the world. “Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; and then the LORD’s wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.” (verses 16-17) Because if they turned to Baal, and think that Baal provides rain, then God’s going to have to disprove that theory, “and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you. Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children,” we spent a lot of time on this in chapter 6, “speaking of them” look, here it is, not just “devotions” in the morning or evening, “when thou sittest in thine house,” sitting in your house, great time to talk to your kids, “and when thou walkest by the way,” speaking to your kids “when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” it should be the normal part of the center of your home, the commitment to Christ, “And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: that your days may be multiplied,” notice this, “and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.” (verses 17b-21) What a blessing, what a blessing. Let me tell you something, when you’re home with your children, your family, your spouse, when in this crazy world some sanity, some semblance of something that’s fixed and solid, when the Lord is spoken of in your home, in the morning, and the afternoon, during the day, he says it’s like God’s blessing, it’s a multiplication of days, it is like “the days of heaven upon the earth” how wonderful “as the days of heaven upon the earth.” Because what are we going to get out of this world? You ain’t taking your bowling ball, you’re not taking your Mercedes Benz with you, take your spouse and your children and your grandchildren. The time you spend with them now, in the Spirit in Christ are as the days of heaven upon the earth.

‘If You Obey My Commandments, This Is What I’ll Do--Make A Choice, Do You Want Blessings Or Curses?

“For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves.” (verses 22-23) Listen, we’ve got all kinds of schemes and plans and ideas on how to fix things that are within us, and I think we should be pragmatic and I think we should learn, do our best within the Body of Christ. It says here ‘If you shall diligently keep the Word of God, if you will love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to cleave to him.’ You know, Hudson Taylor said “It’s not the energy of faith in the mission field, it’s the clinging to the faithful God of the mission field that produces results.” It’s not the exerting of and demonstrating of faith, Hudson Taylor said, but it’s the clinging to the faithful God of the mission field. And this is what he’s saying, ‘if you cleave to me, if you love me, if you walk with me, if you keep my Word,’ “then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you,” victory “and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours:” this is not real popular in the Middle East today, “from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be.” (verses 23-24) The coasts of Israel are going to be from Baghdad to the Mediterranean, that’s what the LORD says, I’m just a dummy that reads English, I know the Hebrew says the same thing. “There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye tread upon, as he hath said unto you. Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;” (verses 25-26) Look, the first word in verse 26, “Behold” think about this, consider this, this is what God said, “I set before you, in front of you, this day, a blessing and a curse,” “a blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: and a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.” (verses 27-28) So important, that children when they’re raised in the home, understand obedience. Listen, you never break their spirit. But you bend their will. You never hit a child on the face, you never call them a name that will break them and injure them for the rest of their lives. But God has put a nice slab of flesh there that can be dealt with and spoken to, you know, wisely, not punishment, discipline. Learning from the time they’re little that obedience yields blessing, disobedience and rebellion yield chastening. And God is telling them as adults, he’s talking to us. ‘I put before you a blessing if you obey the commandments of the LORD which I command you this day, and a curse if you will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God,’ “but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.” (verse 28) Now look, here it is, make a choice. Because the question is ‘Well how can a God of love send people to hell?’ he’s not sending, he’s asking these people to make their reservation, choose. We’re different from the beast and the animal, you’d never know that listening to some of the ecological things today, Mother Earth, you hear about them talk about Mother Earth. If you’ve been watching the news lately, it’s one mean mother, I’ll tell you that, earthquake in China, one mean mother out there…the Golden Plover flies from the west coast of the United States to Hawaii, because it’s in their DNA, hatches the eggs, leaves the chicks before they’re ready to fly, and the chicks when they’re fat enough and ready to fly, leave the nest, they’ve never been to Hawaii, and their internal pilot guides them there anyhow, even though they’ve never been there before. The Golden Plover never says ‘You know, I always wanted to see Cincinnati, you guys go to Hawaii this year, I’m going to head east, been dying to, saw a commercial on television, just want to get there and see what’s going on.’ There’s no choosing, you have the capacity to choose, you have the capacity to make a choice, he appeals to us in his Word. In Eden, he gave man the capacity to choose, why? because he loved man. He didn’t program Adam and Eve to be little robots ‘I love you God, I love you God.’ That doesn’t mean anything. You have children. For there to be genuine love, there has to be the capacity of choice. Choose, he says, God says choose. ‘If you walk with me, if you serve me there’s blessing. If you go and you rebel and serve other gods,’ he says, ‘there’s cursing, there’s difficulty.’ “And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh?” (verses 29-30) Now what they will do, and we’ll get to this in chapter 27 and 28, and then we’ll get to it in Joshua, they go into the land of Canaan, they come to the valley between mount Gerizim and mount Ebal. On mount Gerizim they put half of the tribes, and they carve out the blessings of the LORD [probably those blessings mentioned in Leviticus 26]. On mount Ebal they put the other half of the tribes, which is the mount of cursing. And the priests and the Ark of the Covenant, they built an altar down in the valley, and they pronounce out loud the curses of God. And all of the people on mount Ebal will cry out loud ‘Amen! We agree with that, we understand that.’ If you drink alcohol every day for the rest of your life [through over-consumption], you may get cirrhosis of the liver. If you shoot heroine every day you may die of an overdose, you may get A.I.D.S. If you live a certain way, if you turn your back on the LORD your God and you live a certain way, you will reap the consequences of that. They all cried ‘Amen, we understand that.’ And then they cried out all of the blessings, and everybody on mount Gerizim, those six tribes, screamed out ‘Amen, so be it!’ And it was a grand demonstration, and there’s a valley inbetween, where we all live, where there’s a choice to be made. And it’s not ‘How can a God of love send people to hell,’ if you don’t know Christ tonight you can choose. ‘Well, I thought you said back in chapter 10, verse 15, that God chose them.’ I did say that in chapter 10:15, because I was a Calvinist there. I’m an Armeniest in this verse. My position is shut up, teach the next verse. We’re right here in this verse right now, where God says “choose, choose.” You can choose Christ, or you can reject him. If you don’t know him you can choose to receive him, receive his forgiveness. You don’t earn it, you’ll never deserve it, you’re not worthy of it. It’s given freely. Because it’s given freely, it doesn’t matter if you’re in addiction, or if you’re being injurious to other people, it doesn’t matter if you’re filled with hatred, it doesn’t matter what kind of sin you’re in, because it comes undeserved and unearned, you just choose ‘That’s what I want, I want Jesus Christ, I want to be forgiven of my sins, I don’t deserve it, I don’t earn it, but if it’s there and he offers it, I want it.’ You make a choice. Don’t say how can a God of love send people to hell, no, no, there’s the door, behind this door, heaven, joy, peace, no death, no sorrow, no suffering. Behind this door, eternal separation from God, gnashing of teeth, eternal suffering. Choose, seems a no-brainer, choose. [Comment: None of these Israelites being addressed here had or were offered God’s Holy Spirit, as Numbers chapter 11 shows. So does that mean they all went to “eternal suffering, or hell-fire?” So what happens to these Israelites after they die? What is the purpose for all of “unsaved” humanity throughout the long history of this world who die in their sins, unsaved? Do they go to some “everburning hellfire” to spend eternity there? That doesn’t seem fair. Don’t forget, only those with God’s Holy Spirit are offered salvation, eternal life. God is a great teacher, and he’s teaching mankind a great BIG lesson. Mankind is taking the long way around the barn, including all that died in the wilderness, and including all of unsaved Israel, which was all of them except for Moses, Aaron, and maybe Eleazar, Joshua and Caleb. Most all of mankind is learning what Satan’s way is like first, in their normal lifetimes. And then what? Ezekiel 37:1-14 is the only Bible promise given to the Jews in Babylon of a hope that they would be resurrected back to life at some unspecified time in the future, and verses 13-14 of Ezekiel 37 actually shows God giving his Holy Spirit to those resurrected in this resurrection. Now connecting the dots with the New Testament, we find that Revelation 20:11-13 shows this is the time of the Great White Throne Judgment, the 2^nd resurrection, when all of unsaved mankind will be resurrected back to life. In Ezekiel 37:13-14, it shows that at this time, God will give everyone resurrected in this resurrection his Holy Spirit, offering them salvation, which for most coming up in this resurrection, will be the first time that has been offered to them. See https://unityinchrist.com/ezek/Ezekiel%20pt3-2.htm and scroll to Ezekiel 37:1-14 and read that section about what those verses mean. So is God being unfair to the Canaanites, or mankind in general? No way, man. That’s not the God I worship. He is both just and merciful at the same time, all in due time.]

In closing

“For ye shall pass over Jordan to go in to possess the land which the LORD your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein. And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day.” (verses 31-32) A great, great challenge, choose this day. Look, I look at the news, he’s coming soon. How much time is left, how long is the economy going to hold together, is he going to Scotch Tape it together until the election [he’ll scotch tape it together as long as he wants it to last, simple answer]? Who wants to be the next president anyway? besides the devil, to drive us all the way into the ground. Think of the trouble that we’re in. The Bible says that righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is a reproach to any people. Our problem is that we have forgotten God as a nation, we have misinterpreted our own history. Anybody that can read, at a second grade reading level, can go back and look at our founding fathers, that can go look at the beginnings of Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, they can read about the Log College, they can understand our foundations and our beginnings, and the blessings that were on our nation. But we have forgotten God, we have lost our way. We don’t even know what a marriage is anymore, let alone up and down, right and wrong, backwards and forwards. If the Lord tarries, what will our children and grandchildren inherit? if we don’t get to our knees now [it’s pretty bad in this year of 2024], and remember that he said ‘If my people, that’s us,’ the problem is not legislators, the problem is not just the Supreme Court, the problem is not that they took prayer out of schools. The problem is not that there is no prayer in the schools, there will always be prayer in the schools as long as there’s Algebra tests. The problem is there’s not prayer in the Church, that’s the problem [see https://unityinchrist.com/prayer/prayer-teamessentials.htm ]. ‘If my people, called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and heal their land.’ I’m as guilty as anybody. How much time do I spend bent knees, broken heart, wet eyes, seeking God? I think about it more, as I look at my kids, my grandkids. I believe that God can alter natural law and human government, when the name of Jesus is lifted consistently before his throne. And I believe that we are on the verge of the Rapture of the Church or a Revival, either way that’s going to be fairly exciting I would say. We must be headed for either one. I’m going to have the musicians come, we’ll sing a last song. But read ahead, chapter 12 next week. Hopefully we’ll be around the Throne, if we’re not, we’re in chapter 12 and 13, read ahead, some remarkable things. But we’re going to lift our voices, our hearts, we’re going to sing his praises. If you don’t know Christ this evening, choose. When I grew up, my dad was Catholic, my mom was Lutheran, I grew up in the Church, I did not know Jesus, I did not know Jesus, I knew about him, it didn’t know him. It wasn’t until I was 22 years old that I met the risen Christ, he changed my life, changed my life. And if you haven’t met him, and you want to do that tonight, when the service is over, or during the last song if it’s on your heart, you can walk up here, we’d love to pray with you, give you a Bible, some literature to read. Let’s stand together, let’s pray. And for the rest of us, just, as we go through these things, certainly the first historical application is to the nation of Israel. But the spiritual applications are ours. It says in Romans 15, ‘the things that were written aforetime were written for our learning, an exhortation unto us.’ 1st Corinthians 10 tells us the same thing, so certainly lessons in here for all of us…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on Deuteronomy 10:14-22 and Deuteronomy 11:1-32, given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116]