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In Christ, Mark
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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 our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The first forty-three verses
of Deuteronomy, chapter 32, make up the song that God gave to Moses to pass on to
Israel. And 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 after
entering the Promised Land. For the Lord makes it clear that they would become
a “warped and crooked generation”…a “perverse generation” of “children who
(were) unfaithful”… “a nation without sense”…with “no discernment in them”.
Specifically, 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.”)
As a penalty for these
sins, Israel would find themselves without their God, the One who watched over
them and provided for their needs. As they turned from Him, He would then turn from
them and this would lead the nation of Israel to learn the hard way about
trying to live without their Lord, an existence that would be rough and
dangerous minus His presence, strength, and power.
What would God’s wrath
look like?
He detailed it for Him
as His acts of judgment 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 a 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.
Note here that the Lord
didn’t say He would completely wipe His people off the face of the earth, even
though they probably deserved it.
Why?
Because He didn’t want
Israel’s enemies to claim some kind of ultimate victory saying:
“Our hand has
triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.”
God wasn’t interested in
that happening, but He did want it to be clear that He and He alone would be
the One who would correct His people for their iniquities.
“It is mine to
avenge; I will repay.”
The bottom line was Israel’s
punishment would come from no one else but Him. Further, no one else would be
able to restore them except Him. If the Israelites tried to call on a false
god, their efforts would be wasted and result in silence and inaction. God even
mocks the idea of calling on anyone but Him 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 already knowing
the answer to His question. The false gods couldn’t be found because they
didn’t exist. There was only one God (capital “G”) and He was it, the Lord of
all who had no rival. If Israel hoped to get back to being the kind of people
who pleased the Lord, they would first have to come back to Him and recommit
their loyalty and faithfulness.
This leads us to some
thought-provoking questions to help us tie our lives to this Old Testament
passage.
First, where would you
stand if God assessed you and your life right now?
What would His list of
your sins look like? Would they match any that the Israelites would soon commit
and, indeed, had already committed?
Friends, we had better
take note of the penalties that God was going to bring on His people in
response to their sinful disobedience. For sometimes, I think we fail to fully
realize and appreciate the true power of God…the very power that created
everything, including you and me. This leads us to underestimate the potential
for Him to correct and punish us as He did Israel.
In Old Testament times,
the Israelites were expected to take all of God’s words to heart and teach them
to their children so they could carefully obey God’s Word, will, and way
themselves. Nothing has changed some 3,400 years later. The Lord tells us just
as He did the people of Israel that His words are not “just idle words” but are
central to life. A person’s very existence depends on how well they know and
follow God’s guidance.
As I close, let us all
show the highest level of honor, respect, and reverence to our Almighty, all-powerful,
all-knowing God. To that end, let’s make sure we assess ourselves with absolute
honesty then be dedicated to fix anything that’s spiritually broken, knowing
that our Lord stands ready to hear our prayers of repentance and restore us
from the inside out. Then through His Word and Holy Spirit, He will work to
keep us on the narrow path of righteousness, now and forevermore.
We can absolutely trust
in that.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you
feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
