Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests to faithhopegodlove@aol.com In Christ, Mark
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
They have acted corruptly toward him; to their shame they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation.
Is this the way you repay the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?
Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind, He set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.
For the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. In a desert land, He found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; He guarded him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag, with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats, with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat. You drank the foaming blood of the grape.
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior. They made Him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God — gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
The Lord saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. "I will hide my face from them," he said, "and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap calamities upon them and spend my arrows against them. I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust. In the street the sword will make them childless; in their homes terror will reign. Young men and young women will perish, infants and gray-haired men. I said I would scatter them and blot out their memory from mankind, but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, 'Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.'
They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them. If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!
How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up? For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede. Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness. Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras. "Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vaults?
It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them." The Lord will judge his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free. He will say: "Now where are their gods, the rock they took refuge in, the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up to help you! Let them give you shelter!”
"See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever, when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders."
Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for He will avenge the blood of his servants; He will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.
Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
Deuteronomy 32:5-47
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The first 43 verses of Deuteronomy, Chapter 32, make up the song that God gave to Moses to recite to Israel. While the first four verses offer positive words about God’s greatness and Moses’ desire that Israel would heed his teaching, the remainder of the song is a firm and stern indictment about what Israel would soon do as they entered the Promised Land. As they became a “warped and crooked generation”…a “perverse generation” of “children who (were) unfaithful”… “a nation without sense”…with “no discernment in them”, their transgressions would include:
1. Corruption (“They have acted corruptly toward him.”)
2. Abandonment (“…abandoned the God who made him”)
3. Rejection (“…rejected the Rock his Savior.”)
4. Improper worship (“They made Him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God — gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear.”)
5. Desertion (“You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.”)
In turn for all this, Israel would find themselves without the One who watched over them and provided for their needs. As they turned from God, God turned on them and from them, leaving Israel to learn the hard way that life is rough and dangerous without the strength, power and presence of the Lord.
Indeed, God’s wrath would be upon them and His actions would include:
1. Devouring the earth and its harvests.
2. Setting fire to the foundations of the mountains.
3. Heaping calamities on His people.
4. Spending His arrows against Israel.
5. Causing wasting famine.
6. Sending consuming pestilence and deadly plague.
7. Making His people vulnerable to fangs of wild beasts and venom of vipers.
8. Bringing sword against them and their children.
9. Terrorizing them in their own homes.
And although we sense that God would have liked to just completely blot out His people, He did not want Israel’s enemies to take credit for their annihilation and say, “Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.” No…the Lord said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay.” Israel’s punishment came from no one else but Him. And given this, only He could restore them. Any attempt by Israel to call on a false god would be met with silence and inaction.
For we see God mocking any false god in His song saying, "Now where are their gods, the rock they took refuge in, the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up to help you! Let them give you shelter!” God said this knowing the answer already. The false gods could not be found because they didn’t exist. He and He alone was God over all. He had no rival. If Israel were to be restored, it would have to be through Him.
Question: Where would you stand if God assessed you and your life? What would your list of transgressions include? Would they match any that Israel was soon to commit and, indeed, had already committed?
Friends, take a look at what God was going to bring on Israel as a result of their choice to sin instead of obey. Do we not realize and appreciate the power of God…the very power that created everything, including you and me? Do we think that God will not correct and punish us, just as He did Israel? If not, we had better think again.
For Israel was expected (and so are we) to take all of God’s words to heart and teach them to our children so both we and they can carefully obey God’s will and way. The Lord tells us that His words are not “just idle words” but are our life. In other words, our very lives depend on how well we know and follow God’s guidance.
How well do you show your honor, respect and reverence for your almighty, all powerful, all knowing God? We would all do well to assess ourselves right this very minute and fix anything that’s broken. God stands ready to hear your repentance and restore you from the inside out. His word and Holy Spirit stand ready to keep you on the narrow path of righteousness…now and forever. Trust in that. Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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