Transcript

Podcast Introduction

Being  Monday, we’ll read from the Law. Deuteronomy 7-9. I’m calling today’s episode “Remember.”

Comments on Deuteronomy 7-9

As we often read here in Deuteronomy and other places in the Old Testament, God tells the people what He will do, and then He reminds them…many times. And He tells them what He did, and then He reminds them what He did, many times. 

Why does He do that? Why does God repeat Himself so much? Because they forget. Over and over again, they forget. And when it isn’t forgetfulness, they simply choose to ignore Him. They go their own way willingly. They rebel.

Crazy, right? 

No, not crazy. Just sinful. Why are they sinful? Because they are human beings. And being human, they have a sin nature. 

Which makes them…just like you and me. We, too need to be reminded repeatedly what the Lord said, what He did, and what He will do. We are no different than the children of Israel of the Old Testament. At least as far as our basic nature is concerned.

But those of us who have become followers of Jesus, those of us who have a real relationship with Him, those of us who are Christians have something that they did not. We have the Holy Spirit living in us. And we are no longer slaves to sin, as Paul said in Romans. 

But, as God said through Moses in Deuteronomy chapter nine, verse four, “…do not say in your heart, ‘The Lord has brought me in to take this land because I am right and good.’” That, beloved, is the sin of pride, which gets us into all kinds of trouble.

We are not saved because of anything we did, or because we deserved it. We are recipients of God’s grace only because of His goodness and His love. He did not call us because He needs us, He called us because we need Him.

Which is why we must stay close to Him. We are like the children of Israel in that we have to be reminded over and over again who God is, what He said, what He did, and what He will do. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He gave His Son, that we might live. He gave us His Word, that we might know Him. He has made it possible to live lives that are pleasing to Him, that He might bless us if we follow Him and determine in our hearts that we *will* follow Him. Not that we will never stumble, because we will. But we must quickly seek is forgiveness. And we know from 1 John 1:9 that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Not because we deserve it, but because of His grace.

Today’s Bible Translation

Bible translation used in today’s episode: Ch. 7 NASB; Ch. 8 NET; Ch. 9 NLV

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Transcript

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STEVE WEBB – 0:00
Just like you and me.

INTRO S12E306 – 0:09
Coming to you from Riverside, California, this is the Lifespring Family Audio Bible, and podcasting since 2004, I’m your OG Godcaster, Steve Webb. This is the daily show where we’re reading through the entire Bible in a year. And if you’re in the United States, Happy Independence Day. This is the day that we celebrate the birth of our country and independence from the tyranny of the British crown. And today, sadly, there’s a growing push by many in our country to establish more tyranny within our borders. Pray that those efforts will be defeated, and that we can hold on to the freedoms given to us by Almighty God. Well, being Monday we’ll read from the Law, Deuteronomy 7 through 9. I’m calling today’s episode, “Remember”. The show notes page for today is at lifespringmedia.com/s12e306. If you’d like to email me, I’d like to get your email. Send it to: st***@*************ia.com. Let’s begin.

DEUTERONOMY 7 (NASB) – 1:04
Deuteronomy, chapter 7. (1) “When the Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and stronger than you, (2) and when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. (3) Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. (4) For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods; then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and He will quickly destroy you. (5) But thus you shall do to them: you shall tear down their altars, and smash their sacred pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire. (6) For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

(7) “The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, (8) but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (9) Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments; (10) but repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. (11) Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today, to do them.

(12) “Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. (13) He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. (14) You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. (15) The Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you. (16) You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you.

(17) “If you should say in your heart, ‘These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them?’ (18) you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: (19) the great trials which your eyes saw and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out. So shall the Lord your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. (20) Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet against them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish. (21) You shall not dread them, for the Lord your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God. (22) The Lord your God will clear away these nations before you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to them quickly, for the wild beasts would grow too numerous for you. (23) But the Lord your God will deliver them before you, and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. (24) He will deliver their kings into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven; no man will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them. (25) The graven images of their gods you are to burn with fire; you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, nor take it for yourselves, or you will be snared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God. (26) You shall not bring an abomination into your house, and like it come under the ban; you shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned.

DEUTERONOMY 8 (NET) – 5:33
Deuteronomy chapter 8. (1) You must keep carefully all these commandments I am giving you today so that you may live, increase in number, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord has promised to your ancestors. (2) Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these forty years through the desert so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. (3) So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. (4) Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years. (5) Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, the Lord your God disciplines you. (6) So you must keep his commandments, live according to his standards, and revere him. (7) For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills, (8) a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey, (9) a land where you may eat food in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. (10) You will eat your fill and then praise the Lord your God because of the good land he has given you.

(11) Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. (12) When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses, (13) when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything, (14) be sure you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, (15) and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow from a flint rock and (16) fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you and eventually bring good to you. (17) Be careful not to say, “My own ability and skill have gotten me this wealth.” (18) You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, even as he has to this day. (19) Now if you forget the Lord your God at all and follow other gods, worshiping and prostrating yourselves before them, I testify to you today that you will surely be annihilated. (20) Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you because you would not obey him.

DEUTERONOMY 9 (NLV) – 8:20
Deuteronomy, chapter 9, (1) “Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to take the land that belongs to nations greater and stronger than you, with big cities with walls as high as heaven. (2) The people there are strong and tall, the sons of Anakim. You know of them and have heard it said, ‘Who can stand in front of the sons of Anak?’ (3) But know today that it is the Lord your God Who is crossing over before you as a fire that destroys everything. He will destroy them and bring them down before you. So you may drive them out and be quick to destroy them, just as the Lord has told you. (4) But after the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, ‘The Lord has brought me in to take this land because I am right and good.’ It is because of the sin of these nations that the Lord is driving them out in front of you. (5) It is not because of your being right with God that you are going to take their land. But it is because of the sin of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out in front of you. By this the Lord is proving that He keeps the promise He made to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. (6) Understand that it is not because you are right with God that the Lord your God is giving you this good land for your own, for you are a strong-willed people.

(7) “Remember and do not forget how you made the Lord your God angry in the desert. You have gone against the Lord from the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place. (8) Even at Mount Sinai you made the Lord angry. The Lord was so angry with you that He would have destroyed you. (9) I went up the mountain to receive the pieces of stone, the Laws of the agreement which the Lord had made with you. I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. (10) Then the Lord gave me the two pieces of stone written by the finger of God. On them were all the words the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain from the fire on the day of the meeting. (11) At the end of forty days and nights the Lord gave me the two pieces of stone, the Laws of the agreement. (12) Then the Lord said to me, ‘Get up. Hurry and go down from here. For your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become very sinful. They have been quick to turn away from what I told them. They have made a false god for themselves.’ (13) And the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen these people. See, they are strong-willed. (14) Let Me alone, so I may destroy them and destroy their name from under heaven. I will make you into a nation that will be greater and stronger than they.’ (15) So I turned and came down from the mountain while the mountain was burning with fire. The two pieces of the stone of the agreement were in my two hands. (16) And I saw that it was true that you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made for yourselves a calf out of gold. You had been quick to turn away from what the Lord had told you. (17) So I took the two pieces of stone and threw them from my hands, and broke them in front of your eyes. (18) Then again I fell down before the Lord for forty days and nights. I did not eat bread or drink water, because of all the sin you had done. You did what was sinful in the eyes of the Lord and made Him angry. (19) I was afraid of the anger of the Lord which was burning against you to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me again. (20) The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. So I prayed for Aaron at the same time also. (21) Then I took your sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it. I ground it into pieces until it was as fine as dust. And I threw its dust into the river that flowed down from the mountain.

(22) “You made the Lord angry again at Taberah, Massah and Kibroth-hattaavah. (23) The Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, ‘Go and take for your own the land I have given you.’ But you went against what the Lord your God told you to do. You did not believe Him or listen to His voice. (24) You have gone against the Lord from the day I first knew you.

(25) “So I fell down before the Lord and lay forty days and nights, because the Lord had said He would destroy you. (26) I prayed to the Lord, saying, ‘O Lord God, do not destroy Your people, Your chosen nation, whom You have set free by Your power and brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. (27) Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Do not look at the strong will or sin or wrong-doing of these people. (28) Or the land You brought us from may say, “The Lord was not able to bring them into the land He promised them. Because He hated them, He brought them out to kill them in the desert.” (29) Yet they are Your people, Your chosen nation, whom You have brought out by Your great power and Your long arm.’

COMMENTS – 12:58
As we often read here in Deuteronomy, and many other places in the Old Testament, God tells the people what he will do, and then he reminds them…many times. And he tells them what he did, and then he reminds them what he did, many times.

Why does he do that? Why does God repeat himself so much? Because they were forgetful. Over and over again they forget. And when it isn’t forgetfulness, they simply choose to ignore him. They go their own way willingly. They rebel.

That’s crazy, right?

Well, no, not really, not crazy, just sinful. Why are they sinful? Well, because they’re human beings. And because they’re human, they have a sin nature.

Which makes them…just like you and me. We too need to be reminded repeatedly what the Lord said, what he did and what he will do. We’re no different than the children of Israel of the Old Testament, at least as far as our basic nature is concerned.

But those of us who have become believers of Jesus, those of us who have a real relationship with him, those of us who are Christians, well, we have something that they did not. We have the Holy Spirit living within us, and we’re no longer slaves to sin, as Paul said in Romans.

But God said through Moses in Deuteronomy, chapter 9, verse 4, “…do not say in your heart, ‘The Lord has brought me in to take this land, because I am right in good.’” That, beloved, is the sin of pride which gets us into all kinds of trouble.

We aren’t saved because of anything we did or because we deserved it. We are the recipients of God’s grace only because of His goodness and His love. He didn’t call us because he needs us. He calls us because we need him.

Which is why we have to stay close to Him. We are like the children of Israel in that we have to be reminded over and over and over and over and over again who God is, what he said, what he did and what he’ll do. He is the same yesterday, today and forever, and he gave his son that we might live. He gave us his word that we might know him. He’s made it possible to live lives that are pleasing to Him, that he might bless us if we follow Him and determine in our hearts, that we will follow him. Not that we’ll never stumble, because we will, but we must quickly seek forgiveness. And then we know from 1 John 1:9 that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Not because we deserve it, but because of his grace.

Let me know what you think. Go to lifespringmedia.com/s12e306. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and tell me your thoughts. Tomorrow’s History Tuesday, and we’ll read 2 Chronicles 29 through 32.

Boost!

VALUE-FOR-VALUE – 15:58
Beloved, the Lifespring Family Audio Bible is here for you every day to help keep you on track to read through the entire Bible. If you appreciate that, if you’re glad the Lifespring Family Audio Bible is here for you, then please support the show. Go to lifespringmedia.com/support, and donate what you feel is equal to the value you receive from the show. Maybe it’s $5. Maybe it’s $50. Maybe it’s something else. Pray about what you think God would have you do and then do it, lifespringmedia.com/support.

CLOSING PRAYER – 16:36
Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the fact that you are the same yesterday, today and forever. Thank you that you’re never-changing. You’ve told us who you are and what is necessary to have a relationship with you. And since you created us, you know our frailties. You know that we need to be reminded of even the most important things, but even then we fall short. So we thank you for giving us your son, so that when we put our faith and trust in Him, you see us as righteous, without sin. Hallelujah, Lord. We praise You. Lord, I ask that you’d bless us today. May we rejoice in you and know that you’re with us. I pray this in Jesus name, amen.

If you’ve got a praise or a prayer request that you’d like to share with the family, please go to prayer.lifespringmedia.com.

OUTRO S12E306 – 17:32
Comment on the show at lifespringmedia.com/s12e306. Email me at st***@*************ia.com. Thank you to Kirsty, thank you to Sean of San Pedro and thank you to Denise.

And last but certainly not least, thank you for inviting me into your life today. Support the show at lifespringmedia.com/support.

And until tomorrow, may God bless you richly. My name is Steve Webb.

Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Corrected by Denise