JANUARY 28, 2023 Deuteronomy 7:1-2 When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, … seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. Though the inhabitants were greater in number and mightier in […]
FEBRUARY 1, 2023 Deuteronomy 7:7-8 The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the Lord loves you. The Hebrew word that is typically translated as “love” is ahavah. However, that is not the word used when the text says […]
JANUARY 30, 2023 Deuteronomy 7:2-3 You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. If Israel was not to make covenant with the nations in the land, it only stands […]
JANUARY 29, 2023 Deuteronomy 7:2-3 You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them. Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. There is a passage in Isaiah addressing the fact that certain members of God’s people decided […]
I once knew a young man who felt called to ministry. He wanted to become a pastor. He was so certain of this calling on his life, he felt he did not have time to finish Bible school.
Despite warnings to the contrary, he dropped out of school and started looking for an open pulpit. Though he was only twenty-two years old or so, he was a gifted teacher, and he quickly found a position in a small church. His immaturity, however, began to cause problems with the congregation. He was disrespectful to the elders, tyrannical with the people, and heedless with his words. In less than a year he found himself forced out of the ministry, depressed and dejected.
The children of Israel had a quick lesson to learn about following God. They knew they were heading to the land of Canaan. They would have assumed that they would simply follow the coastal route up out of Egypt, along the Mediterranean, and be back in Canaan in a few days. God does not take shortcuts.
Now when Pharaoh had let the people go, God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, even though it was near; for God said, “The people might change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.” (Exodus 13:17)
JANUARY 27, 2023 Deuteronomy 6:24-25 And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us. In this verse Moses stressed that everything God […]
JANUARY 26, 2023 Deuteronomy 6:20-21 When your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?” then you shall say to your son: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.” Remember […]
JANUARY 25, 2023 Deuteronomy 6:18 And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you, and that you may go in and possess the good land of which the Lord swore to your fathers. There are several instances in the Scripture where it is recorded that Israel did “evil […]
JANUARY 24, 2023 Deuteronomy 6:8-9 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. In continuing with the theme of internalizing God’s Word for ourselves and teaching it to our children, Moses […]
JANUARY 22, 2023 Deuteronomy 6:6 And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. In Jewish thinking, the statement above alludes to the notion that God’s Words are to be upon our heart just as certainly as His Words were inscribed by His finger upon the two tablets of stone. Interestingly, the […]
