If you haven't been here. We've been studying the book of
Deuteronomy, which is amazing. We've got to see over these last
few weeks some of the mountaintop passages of the
Bible, these legendary passages of Deuteronomy 5.
We got to see the the rehearsing of the 10 commandments for the
next generation. How glorious that was on Easter
morning. And then we got to go to
Deuteronomy 6 with the Shema. Here, O Israel, the the Lord
your God, the Lord is 1. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your, and with all your.
Mind, we got to see that legendary passage about passing
on this faith to the next generation, and I want you to
see that This is why we go. Book by book, if we were just to
topically address these, we might miss these subtle themes
that that run through this. As we've gone through
Deuteronomy 4 and 5:00 and 6:00, there's been a theme and as I
read to you these verses, you're going to perceive it for
yourself. We saw as we came into
Deuteronomy 4, stepping into the next sermon of Moses, he said,
for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, and he says a
jealous God. We came into Deuteronomy 5 and
he said in verse 9, you shall not bow down to other gods or
serve them. For I the Lord your God, am a
jealous God. Visiting the iniquity of the
fathers on the children to the third and 4th generation of
those who hate me, we came into Deuteronomy 6, the Shema, he
said in verse 15. For the Lord your God in your
midst is a jealous God. Lest the anger of the Lord be
kindled against. You and he destroy you from the
face of the earth. So here you see the theme
clearly progressing and it it's helpful to see as God declares
who he is, as he reveals himself and names himself, that when God
speaks in the Scriptures, it's a weighty thing.
When God reveals himself to his church and to his people and to
the world, it's a weighty thing. There's a we, we would call her,
I would call it an elocutionary force in God's words.
When God as creator speaks, we're we're bound to those words
that it demands something of us. He speaks and we respond.
We're bound by what we hear. God as creator speaks and we are
obligated to his words. And so when God says something
like I am the King of glory, Jesus is Lord, His kingship is
not a suggestion. He doesn't say that.
So you can file it away and say yes Jesus is King, sure Jesus is
Lord, and then we go and live however we want illocutionary.
Force to his words as. King, this is what it means that
he's going to exercise his sovereignty in the world, and he
does it continually by his Providence.
There's consequences to his revelation.
And like any king, if you follow his leadership, there will be
consequences. If you don't follow his
leadership, there will be consequences.
And when God names himself, he's not offering sentiment or
suggestion. He says things in Scripture.
He reveals himself as the Lord of hosts.
And that's not information for you to catalog in your mind
saying, OK, God is the God of 10,000 * 10,000 burning seraphim
and they're armed and trained for war.
He's saying when he says that and I'm in command of them and I
have used them and I will use them.
As they're trained and armed for war, he's their commander.
And so again, there's elocutionary force to his words
when God says. He is king, it means he's going
to exercise his lordship, and when he says he is holy, it
means he is going to set himself against your sin and the
wickedness of the world. And when he says he's the Lord
of hosts, it means he's going to mobilize his Seraphim.
Deuteronomy 456 God says he is a consuming fire and he names
himself as a jealous God and helpfulness.
It's the original word. And in Hebrew envy and jealousy
are the same word, but they're two very different concepts even
in the Old Testament. This isn't envy.
This isn't petty jealousy. God is saying he's jealous for
exclusive relationship with his people.
He's jealous like a a marriage relationship, like a husband is
jealous for his wife, for that purity, so he is jealous for us.
Ji Packer, holy righteous love. I love this.
Holy righteous love without jealousy is an oxymoron, he
says. It's preservation of what is
valuable and beautiful, and so God names himself, and so we're
obligated. There's no clear statement on
this doctrine of the jealousy of God.
Then Exodus 34 write this down. Exodus 3414.
The Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God.
He names himself. The Lord's name is jealous.
It's not sentiment. God is jealous.
For his people, God is jealous for his name, He's jealous for
his glory, and he's jealous for your good.
And so when he says this. If you turn in your Bible to
Deuteronomy 7, you can, you can have kind of a concrete case for
the implications of what that means.
This isn't to be filed away. There's implications in this
world for God's jealousy. And we get to see it as a test
case here, what God's jealousy means for his people and what
God's jealousy means for his enemies.
And when you come to Deuteronomy 7, it's it's famous if you've
studied it, if you've read it, it's famous for three reasons.
Because there's three themes that are kind of legendary
themes that run through the book #1 It's famous because it has
one of the most explicit statements in all the Old
Testament on the election of. Israel as God's people.
So Deuteronomy 76, God says. For you are a people holy to the
Lord your God. For the Lord your God has chosen
you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all
the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
The election of his people. And that's even more nuanced
because when you come to the New Testament, Peter.
Filters that and he says through the blood of Jesus Christ you
have been bought and he now he quotes Deuteronomy 76 in that
context saying now. You, the Church or His treasured
possession, His people. The second theme that you'll see
kind of worked out here is it's famous because it elaborates on
the theme of harem. I want you to say it with me.
I want to use this word as it go through, say harem.
Haram is the Hebrew word for complete destruction, total
destruction of the enemies of God.
This comes in Deuteronomy 72. If we ever go through the book
of Joshua, you'll see it much more clearly and thoroughly.
But he says, And when the Lord your God gives them over to you,
and you defeat them. Then you must devote them to
harem, devote them to complete destruction.
And he clarifies what that means.
He says you go to their places of child sacrifice, you go to
their altars, they're disgusting pillars.
And he says and you break them, you dash them, you chop them and
you burn them. And then he says, and you will
consume the peoples with the sword.
The third theme, Deuteronomy 7, is famous for its unqualified
statements of prosperity for God's people.
And so every time we talk about biblical prosperity.
Because of the cultural moment we live in, we think prosperity
goes to the prosperity gospel. 17% of all confessing
evangelicals are part of this Word of Faith theology.
And we're right here by Tulsa where there's all these major
denominations and, and we're, we're so quick to qualify where
we say, yes, God wants to prosper his people, but you
know, don't forget about Job, don't forget about the trials.
You know, it's a general prosperity, but don't you know,
sometimes there's exceptions. There are no exceptions in
Deuteronomy 7. The focus is on the unqualified
prosperity of God's people and you see it all come together.
Let's read verses 1 to 16. I want you to see these themes
working out as we read the text together.
Kind of a long portion, Chapter 7, verse one, when the Lord your
God brings you into the land that you're entering to take
possession of it and clears away many nations before you, the
Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the
Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 7 nations more
numerous and mightier than you. And when the Lord your God gives
them over to you and you defeat them, then you must devote them
to harem. You shall make no covenant with
them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with
them, giving your daughters to their sons, or taking away your
sons or their daughters for your sons.
For they would turn away your sons from following Me to serve
other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would
be kindled against you when He would destroy you quickly.
Verse 5 Then you shall thus you shall deal with them.
You shall break down their altars, dash in pieces their
pillars, chop down their ashram, and burn their carved images
with fire. For you are a people holy to the
Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you
to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the
peoples who are on the face of the earth.
It was not because you were more in number than any other people
that the Lord has set His love on you and chose you.
For you are the fewest of all peoples, that is all peoples in
Canaan. But it is because the Lord loves
you, and is keeping the oath that He swore to your Father's,
that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and
redeemed you from the House of slavery.
From the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God the faithful
God. Who keeps covenant and steadfast
love with those who love him and keep his commandments to 1000
generations and repays to their face those who hate him by
destroying them? He will not be slack with one
who hates him. He will repay him to his face.
You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the
statutes and the rules that I command to you today.
And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the
Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast
love that He swore to your Father's, and He will love you,
bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of
your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine
and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your
flock, and the land that He swore to your Father's to give
you. You shall be blessed above all
peoples. There shall not be male or
female bearing among you or among your livestock.
And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of
the evil diseases of Egypt which you knew will He inflict on you,
but He will lay them on all those who.
Hate you and. You shall consume all the
peoples that the Lord your God will give over to you.
Your eyes shall not pity them, neither shall you serve their
gods, for that would be a snare to you.
So we said 3 themes running through Deuteronomy, election,
harem and prosperity and I want to visit these one by one.
Then I want to do it by asking simple question of each of these
concepts. The the simple question why?
Why prosperity? Why harem?
Why election? And I want to.
Answer all of them through this doctrine of God's jealousy, and
we'll start with this this first theme.
Why election? The answer is because God is
jealous. For his people, Samuel Wells
said beautifully and devotionally.
A jealous God is part of the wonder of grace.
God doesn't want 100 other things, He wants us.
That's so beautiful and so devotional.
This needs to stay with us, so I'm going to read it again.
A jealous God is part of the wonder of grace.
God doesn't want 100 other things, He wants us.
You can see it. I'm going to read again verses 6
to 9 with that in mind. He says this, for you are a
people holy to the Lord your God.
The Lord your God has. Chosen you to be a people.
For His treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on
the face of the earth, not because you were more in number
than other people. That He set his love on you and
chose you. For you were the fewest of all
the peoples. But it's because he loves you
and is keeping the oath that he swore to your father's, that the
Lord has brought to you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you
from the House of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of
Egypt. Know, therefore, that the Lord
your God is God the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast
love with those who. Love him and keep his
commandments to 1000 generations.
Just teaching you. God says that you are his
treasured possession. His people are his treasured
possession. I read three times in those
verses that he loves you and he says that he he looks you in the
face and says I love you, I love you, I love you.
And so because of that, he has set his exclusive covenantal
love on them, and he doesn't share them with other gods and
so all. Lines begin with a point.
That's what this election passage is about.
All lines begin with a point. And here's the point, He enters
into this exclusive particular electing love and relationship
and he says to these people that he made, that he chose, that he
redeemed. He says verse 6, I have chosen
you to be my people out of all the people in verse 7, he got us
so gracious and loving. He doesn't just say I chose you,
he tells you why he chose you. And he says it wasn't because
you were more in number than all the rest of the people.
It's not that. Because you were particularly
beautiful or particularly talented or particularly
handsome, which praise God, you chose them because they were
none of those things. They were the fewest in number.
And so this is contrary to all the Pagan religions, you could
say even contrary to a lot of the evangelical religions today
where the they're geared toward the senator and the
representative and the wealthy and the powerful, because they
have the means of creating the more beautiful temples and more
comfortable sanctuaries. And we say, praise God, He's not
interested in those things. He doesn't want the thousand
other things. He wants you.
He wants your heart. He wants your allegiance.
Why did he elect his people verse 8 we continue this line of
thought it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the
oath that he. Swore to your father's and this
kind of language we read about it in the Bible.
God showers this language on us so much that we kind of lose the
the force that it. Has but how off putting is it if
you as a husband to your wife or a wife to your husband were to
take their hand and and look him in the eye and say you above all
people in this world. God has given to me and I
cherish you and I love you. We would our eyes would look
away and we make a joke, right? We diminish it.
That's what God's doing here. It's it's off putting, it's
uncomfortable when he looks you, he says I've chosen you above
all people. I've put you in this
relationship. I love you.
And the marriage relationship is the metaphor used of God's
jealousy because he's he uses this above all.
This is the only covenant relationship we're given on the
earth. And so it's a picture of God's
love, and it's also a picture of this healthy jealousy, this
exclusive. Relationship.
There's a healthy jealousy, even in marriage, that says I don't
have to. Compete with other things or
other people in this relationship, and God's name is
jealous. And that perfection, that
attribute matters. Because he's saying don't.
Make me compete for your loyalty.
Don't make me compete with other things or other people for your
love. It's covenant loyalty.
Springing out of a covenant to love and his election is
manifesting his nature. That God is love.
And now Israel is this beautiful living proof that there's a God
in heaven and he loves his people.
So how would they know that without Israel?
How would they know that if God had no people?
And the same is true of you today.
God has set his love on you and you're there's going to be this
blessing and there's going to be this peace and this joy and this
holiness so that when the world looks at you, they can say
there's a God in heaven and he loves his people.
And he's also using this theme, as you can see here in in
Deuteronomy 7, to remove any pride from their hearts.
That's why he says I didn't. Choose you because you were
somebody, he actually says. I chose you because you were the
least of the nations. And Canaan and he, he lists here
seven of them, like the Gurgashites and the Hittites and
the Termites and the Stalactites, and he goes through
all of them and. He says you are the you are the
least of all of them. It's purely an expression of
love. Verse 9.
Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is God, the faithful
God who keeps covenant and steadfast.
Love with those who loves him and keeps his commandments again
to 1000 generations. How do you enter the covenant?
You enter the covenant. Israel entered the covenant by
election, he chose them and shortly following.
You can draw a circle around verse 1111 is the hinge that
this whole. Passage turns on.
You'll see that soon. It's the focus of the whole
chapter. It says.
You shall therefore be careful to do the commandment and the
statutes that I command you today.
And about that? Woods.
The commentator points out obedience to the law is not the
means of gaining the covenant, listen, but the means of
maintaining and enjoying the covenant.
The Lord your God will keep His covenant with you.
You can even test your own heart subconsciously.
Am I? Am I being obedient to God and
His commandments? Am I doing all the things?
To try and earn God's favor? Or am I doing it to enjoy the
relationship that He's established with me and there's
a rest and there's an easy yoke that Jesus puts on us.
We enjoy God's relationship. We enjoy the covenant by
participating in His will. And even when you go back to the
covenant of Abraham. It had a negative side to it
where he says if you. If you follow and you're, then
he promises this blessing, but he also promises curses to
everyone who. Would despise Israel and you see
this working out RJ and John preached Deuteronomy one to
three that first sermon that showed you know they've kind of
come around if I guess I'm near they've come around to the.
East side of of the Jordan River, and they're kind of camp
there and they're waiting to go into the promised land, but
there's a little bit of land there. 2 1/2 of the tribes, that
was where their inheritance was. And they've already seen some
measure of success as God's given them.
Sihan and Ogg into their hand because they oppose God.
And what happened? Except they were conquered, and
that's what's going to happen. To the rest of the promised
land, there's this negative side and this negative side brings us
to the second question that we have to ask of.
Deuteronomy 7 The second theme is why harem?
Why complete and total destruction?
And the answer is because God is jealous for his name.
He originally his election. The theme of election is because
God is jealous for his people. Harem is because God is jealous
for his name. Read with me verses 2 to 5 again
and you'll see this concept. He says.
And when the Lord your God gives them over to you, when you
defeat them, then you must devote them to complete
destruction. You shall make no covenant with
them and show no mercy to them. You shall not enter, marry with
them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their
daughters for your sons. For they would turn away your
sons from following Me to serve other gods.
Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he
would destroy you quickly. But thus you shall deal with
them. You shall break down their
altars, dash in pieces their pillars, chop down their ashram,
and burn their carved images with fire.
If you skip down to verse 16, he says it again.
And you shall consume all the peoples that the Lord your God
will give over to you. Your eyes shall not pity them,
neither shall you serve their gods, for that would be.
A snare to you. He's he's making a contrast here
again, the the wickedness and the judgment and the prosperity
of of these two groups, we'll call the first group Canaan and
company. For them comes suffering and
judgment and harem. And for the other group, we'll
call it Israel and company, because it's not all Israel.
God will bring others into their midst.
To them come joy and blessing and prosperity.
And God wants to. He separates prosperity and
judgment with one verse, verse 11.
And so he's doing that because he wants to make this contrast.
And I think he's, he's also trying to paint a picture for
you saying that God is sovereign and God dispenses both.
He dispenses judgment and he dispenses mercy.
He dispenses suffering and he dispenses prosperity.
And we have to ask, could can any of the Canaanites enjoy the
prosperity of God? And on the other side, could any
of the Israelites experience the judgment of God?
And the answer is yes. This is not an an ethnic issue.
It's an ethical issue. And the dividing line between
the two is allegiance. It's the line of allegiance to
the heart. That's what verse 11 is about.
And so the the warning we have to say.
Is as as bluntly as he puts it here.
The warning to the Canaanites has an exception, and the
warning to the Israelites has an exception.
The blessing and the judgment were conditional.
And what is the condition we've already seen in Deuteronomy 6?
It's the Shema. You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength. And anybody who aligns
themselves with Jesus Christ or with Yahweh and His
righteousness will experience His blessing and His peace.
And this is evidenced. This is why verse 11 is
important. That alignment of the heart is
evidenced in verse 11 by the keeping of His commandments over
and over and over. John 14, John 15, Deuteronomy 6.
If you love God, you will keep His commandments.
If His, if you've had a supernatural regeneration and
His Holy Spirit has come on you, it will manifest itself.
There's consequences to these doctrines.
It will be seen in your life and as you read the the history of
the Bible story and in time and in history.
It teaches us that the Canaanites who feared the Lord
were grafted. Into his salvation.
And the Canaanites would would. Share in the blessing by faith.
And so we see that Karam was against the wicked culture in
the Pagan practices, not individual repentance sinners.
That's so important to understand the premier example
left for us. Was Rahab, which shows that the
dividing line between right judgement and blessing was not
ethnic because Rahab was an A Canaanite and it wasn't about
good works because she was a prostitute.
You can compare Abraham to Rahab.
This is what James does in James. 2 verses 21 to 25, and I
encourage you to do this in your own quiet time if you ever need
to lead a devotional, if you ever want a devotional activity
to do in your own bed as you're getting ready for bed.
This is it. James makes this contrast
because he says Abraham is a rich, faithful Jewish man, and
then in the very next verse he compares.
To Rahab, and it says of her that she's a poor foreign woman
and a prostitute. And the fruit of that study is
to recognize they both inherit the same covenant and the same
blessing. It's a beautiful thought.
And the the. Dividing line is the line of
allegiance. And verse 11 is where our our
text takes a breath from all of the judgment and all of the
harem and it it points out that God is jealous for your
undivided loyalty and the rest of the Torah, the rest of the
Old Testament, this or this, these five books of the Old
Testament, kind of. Brings the context for why God's
so severe. Why why complete destruction of
these nations and he makes it clear he kind of there's this
apologetic for it. The answer is because their.
Wickedness is legendary. The whole world knew of the
wickedness of the Canaanites, and he's patient with them for
so long. The New Testament says that
God's kindness is meant to lead us toward repentance.
And so God is kind to them, and he's patient toward them, and
he's gracious toward them. And they they never turn.
Actually, the Old Testament says that their iniquities is filling
up. And as they're sinning and
sinning and sinning, God is there and he's long-suffering
and he's patient. And the Scripture says their
iniquity is not yet complete. And then the Bible.
Teaches us what they were doing while God waited.
Deuteronomy teaches us 12/31. It says every abominable thing
that the Lord hates they have done in service to their gods.
And the same verse goes on to say they're sacrificing their
children to Molech for they even burn their sons and their
daughters and the. Fire to their gods is what it
says. Deuteronomy 18 calls it passing
children through the fire. And you come to Leviticus and it
says that sexual immorality was rampant homosexuality.
And bestiality. Jeremiah 19 Four.
They filled the places with the blood of the innocent.
Unless we start with to feel compassion for him and we say,
oh, they're, they're just ignorant.
They're just lost in their sin. That's not what it says.
It says that they hated God, they knew of Yahweh and they
hated him. Our passage, verse 10 says that.
And so harem is not just arbitrary judgment.
It's not just a clearing out of the way.
So that these people can move into this promised land.
This is a time when God's patience had reached its end.
And it's significant because this is a type of the final
judgement where God's. Patience will reach its end.
His kindness is here and His mercy is available now and we're
filling up iniquity and the day is coming where His patience.
Will come to an end and final judgement.
Will come, Eugene Merrill says of this of this text.
And this time, he says, this drastic action was taken as a
form of immediate divine judgement upon those who had.
Send away their day of grace. Leviticus 1825 puts it this way.
The land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the
land vomited out. Its own inhabitants.
So remember, this is a foretaste of divine judgment.
He devotes Canaan to destruction.
The seven nations. Verse 5 he gives the marching
orders to Israel. What are they to do when they
come into the land? He says break, dash, chop and
burn all of the all of the the. Ashram the altars they're
disgusting sexual devices that were were phallic and their
nature 1 was fertility gods of the women and and of the men and
he says you're you're the of the instruments for child sacrifice.
He says there's there's going to be nothing left, burn it and
then in. Verse 16 consume them.
This is God's judgment for his people doesn't continue to
today. This is a once.
For all act that God gave to the Israelites.
And we ask of it did did God show no grace to any Canaanite
as they were coming into the land?
No, no, by no means. What if?
What if a Molech worshipper repented?
What if a foreign Pagan prostitute repented?
Scripture says God welcomed. Them in And we ask again, did
God show no judgment? To the Israelites when they fell
into the sexual practices of the pagans, this was such a timely
verse because you remember just a few weeks before was that
disgusting passage we read in, in Numbers 25 just a few weeks
ago where 24,000 Israelites go and they they participate in all
this Pagan practice and they go and serve foreign gods and God
brings a plague on them and he kills Israel.
It's not an ethnic issue, it's an allegiance issue.
It says God is a jealous God and that means something.
It's not just a theoretical doctrine.
The line is the line of allegiance.
He judges the sexually immoral of Israel, and he spares the
Pagan Rahab. And another important note to
see if you. Skip all the way down to verse
22. We didn't read it, but I want
you to to see it. God doesn't bring judgment on
them all at once. He doesn't just conquer Canaan
in a second it. Says that he does it little by
little. There's kind of a a teachers or
something about God that there's a progression.
To his will. He doesn't sanctify you all at
once, right? There's.
He does his work little by little.
It says, The Lord your God will clear away these nations before
you little by little. You may not make an end of them
all at once. What does this mean in US
accomplishing the will of God, except that there will be
progress, And to do that it's going to require prayer and
faith and fear and dependence and strategy on behalf of God's
people. To accomplish the will of the.
Lord, so remember Jesus says the Kingdom of God is going to
expand like a mustard seed. This is going to be this little
tiny thing and it's going to grow and it's going to grow into
this great tree. He says in the same way the
Kingdom of God is going to advance like like 11, there's
just this little bit of leaven and it's going to work its way
out into. The the whole earth.
He says the same thing of your sanctification.
As much as we want it to happen. A new believer comes into the
church and we say, why aren't you sanctified?
All at once? They could look at you and say,
why aren't you sanctified? All at once.
Right, this these things. Take time.
It's the slow and often imperceptible growth of
sanctification as counselors come and discipleship comes and
the preaching of the word does it's perfect work.
And sometimes we go backwards before we go forwards.
And there's dry seasons and there's prayer and there's
strategy. And when you read the book of
Joshua, you see that it takes years to fully enter the
promised land, Actually takes centuries for Israel to fully
enter the promised land. And that little tiny bit of
distance, just a few miles between Jericho and Jerusalem,
from Jericho to conquering. When David conquers the
Jebusites, it's centuries for them to go those few miles.
But we say the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises as some
count slowness. He's sovereign, so he's jealous
for the glory of his name. He commands harem.
But says that it's. He gives some reasons why he
commands this. This is #1 comes in verse 4.
He says he commands. Harem to keep the hearts of his
people from turning away. This is part of the reason he
does this is to clear out all the rivals, to remove all
temptations, so that the world can see his pure holy.
People he has another argument in verse 10 he says his intent
is to. Destroy those who hate.
Him and we can see that even in this picture of coming into
Canaan. And another kind of a third
reason that he commands harem is to bring a just end.
To the horrible things that they've been doing in the land
God is is merciful on these children.
You say the same thing. Some people look back at history
and they say of Bloody Mary Mary Tudor she was only 155515561557
and 1558 a four year reign. You know what?
Why did she die so quickly? You know it.
Her death, any death, is a travesty.
But some would look at that and say it was a mercy as she.
Burned men, women and children at the stake.
Over 400 Christians. She was burning.
And you say her reign came to an end quickly because because
God's merciful. You could just say the same of
Canaan, that he put an end to these horrible things and so he
says of the to the Israelites, of the Canaanites politically.
Don't make any treaties with them and socially don't
intermarry with them. And religiously break down their
altars. What's the implication for you
all these years later? You got to turn away from
anything that would provoke him to jealousy.
Create that separation of what draws your heart away from God.
He doesn't compete and his his love and his commitment to you
that we're about to read about ought to fuel your commitment to
him. He.
Loved you, He chose you, He bought you, and so your life
should now be enraptured by this desire to please him.
And you should be passionately committed to.
Him And finally now we come to verse 11 and all the
commentators say after all that you get to catch your breath.
We can do that. Just take a breath.
After all the judgment and all the harem that we've seen.
And there's a transition in verse 12 to the prosperity of
God's people. And remember, they're both
sovereignly dispensed by God. He's the author of prosperity.
He's the author of Calamity. And we ask now this third
question of our text, this third theme, Why prosperity?
The answer here is because God is jealous.
For his glory and for your good. And so we could say that this
one is a positive consequence of his jealousy.
And the positive consequence? Is.
Prosperity, there's a a flourishing that comes when you
are loyal to God. When you put away all of all of
those idols, you can sit, look up your life and say there's no
gambling addiction and there's no sexual addiction and there's
no there's. Nothing.
And then you add to that the positive.
I'm taking care of my marriage and I'm taking care of my
health, taking care of my body. Then you say this is human
flourishing, this is life as it was meant to be lived, this is
life as God designed for us, and there's a certain prosperity
that comes from this. You can read it in verses 12 to
15. Remind yourself of these verses
with me after the transition verse.
He says, And because you listen to these rules and keep and do
them, the Lord will. God will keep with you the
covenant and the steadfast love that He swore to your Father's.
He will love you, bless you, multiply you.
You will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your
ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of
your herds and the young of your flock, and the land that He
swore to your Father's to give you.
You shall be blessed above all peoples.
There shall not be male or female, barren among you or
among your livestock. And the Lord will take away from
you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt which
you knew will He inflict on you. So this passage is famous for
its unqualified prosperity and Doctor Tremper Longman the third
that famous rhetorical critic. Of the New Testament says that
this is a dramatic passage in its extravagance and in the
absence of. All.
Qualification or limitation So again, we want to to qualify the
excesses of the prosperity gospel.
So we hear, we hear passages like this about prosperity and
we. Minimize it.
We're at risk of minimizing it to try and, you know, curb the
excesses of that movement. And so you see passages like
this one that bring into this doctrine the doctrine of
blessing and of flourishing and of prosperity and of
stewardship. And so we are quick to add the
exceptions where he says I'm going to prosper you.
And we're like, yes, but don't forget Job, right?
You know he might. He might bring Job.
'S suffering on you or? We say yes, he'll prosper you,
but. There's exception sometimes
there's trials and there's tribulations and there's sin and
there's infirmity or or we'll say you know, he prospers you
generally, generally speaking, God.
Will prosper you, but you know sometimes he doesn't.
He can curb those in specific circumstances.
But the context here is your covenant faithfulness to God,
your exclusive allegiance to Him.
Deuteronomy 6 loving the Lord with all your heart, with all
your soul. And there is here no
qualification to the blessings that follow, none in Deuteronomy
7. I think that what Moses is
doing. Is emphasizing prosperity.
He's setting up an expectation of his people in God's
disposition. Toward his people saying a good
and righteous. King wants his people to
prosper. True, a good and righteous
father wants his family and his children to prosper.
God knows how to give good gifts to his children.
Which one? Asking for a piece of bread?
Will they give a scorpion? God wants or will you say what?
Husband doesn't want his wife to prosper?
And so a husband knows how to prepare a wedding feast for his
bride. And God knows how to give good
gifts to his children and he knows how to prosper his people
as their king. You can look at verse 13.
He will love you, He will bless you, He will multiply you.
If you want to know a blessing looks like go down to the kids
area. I think 90% of our church is
children at this point. There's the whole.
Generation of kids in there. And Longman gets again at what
the hearts of being with the heart of what's being
communicated. He says in the most literal
sense, these words, the promise of blessing for covenant
faithfulness, are true. They're true in the most literal
sense. The fact of the matter is, as a
general rule, those who live godly lives by a living faith in
the Lord and by careful and scrupulous obedience to His
commandments, do prosper in the kinds of ways that are mentioned
here in Deuteronomy. 7 And he goes on most amazingly.
A faithful member of God's covenant community who has, by
the grace of God, come to trust the Lord and commit himself to
the Word of God. We'll be an honest and hard
working man, a kind and generous man, and a man who sees life as
rich with opportunity and possibility because it is under
the role of his Father in heaven.
Such a man does well in the world and finds great reward in
it. So God's prosperity does require
limitation. We know that the the Bible does
bring limitation on prosperity, but not here.
Deuteronomy shows that the exceptions are not the emphasis.
The emphasis is that God loves you.
And he's jealous for your good. And so a life aligned with God's
will tends toward real, observable, literal blessings
that set us apart from the world.
And in Scripture, there's a link between your faithfulness and
God's blessing, and one of the greatest places that you see it
is in verses 11 and 12 and 13. And you see the verses 11 and 12
talk about our faithfulness, and then verse 13 begins to yield
all of the blessings. It's right there, unqualified
before your eyes. And so just briefly, I wanted to
share with you, there are tenants of prosperity to guard
against the excesses. There are some tenants
theologically in Scripture of prosperity.
I'll give them to you briefly. Number one, in a theology of
prosperity, you have to remember that God is sovereign over all
prosperity. He's also sovereign over all
calamity, but he's sovereign over all prosperity.
First Samuel 27, the Lord makes poor and the Lord makes rich.
He brings low and he exalts. That's the first one because
it's the most important. Another second, prosperity is
primarily spiritual. There is material prosperity.
We'll come to that, but. It's it's spiritual union with
Christ justification. Sanctification, assurance of
your salvation, the hope of eternal life, peace with God are
those blessings blessing in my at the forefront of a definition
of God's blessing in in my mind is that.
You get to live a life knowing that you are fully pleasing to
God in all your actions and everything you do.
You are a treasured possession of Yahweh and.
You get to live. That's what Blessing is.
When you're obedient to His commands, you put off all your
vices. You put on the new man.
You live your life knowing that you are pleasing.
To God the Father, what a blessing your eternity secure
the third tenet. Generosity must follow
prosperity. If God has made you prosperous,
the consequences Generosity. You are a blessing to others.
2nd Corinthians 9 Whoever sow sparingly will reap sparingly.
Whoever sows bountifully will reap bountifully.
We say it this way, You are blessed to be a blessing.
Fourthly, bringing in this idea of stewardship, you are a
steward of God's prosperity. He brings us in Deuteronomy.
Your treasure is really God's, and it's meant to be a means to
bless others and support Kingdom work.
You are a steward of resources. He has brought His resources
from His heavenly treasury into your bank and you are required
to use them wisely. They are his and not your own.
And 5th And finally, this is the one that is so controversial,
but it need not be. If you follow God's design, it
will typically lead to monetary blessing.
Psalm 112. Speaking to the man who fears
the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the
Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.
Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness
endures forever To the woman who fears the Lord.
Proverbs 31. She's clothed in fine linen and
purple, her household is clothed in scarlet, and she has no lack
of gain. Proverbs 1322 A good man leaves
an inheritance to his children's.
Children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the
righteous. Proverbs 39 to 10 Honor the Lord
with your wealth and your barns. Will be filled with plenty.
It will generally lead to monetary increase when you
follow the guidebook of scripture in life.
So we say finally, praise God that his Bible is an honest book
that tells how the world really is.
That it it's got before verse 11, It's got after verse 11.
This is a real book, a sobering book, an honest book.
Deuteronomy 15 says that. If you strictly obey the voice
of the Lord your God and do all his.
Commandments there's going to be no poor in the land and then a
few verses later he says there's always going to be poor in the
land because we're never going to follow it perfectly.
This is a real and honest book. Says the same thing and.
Moses just taught about the responsibility.
To to faithfully proclaim the gospel to the next generation so
that they can live out this faith.
And then he says in the chapters that come the the the future
generations are going to fall away and.
It's it's honest about that. There's going to be an exile.
There's blessing for the righteous, but there's also
destruction for the wicked. It's honest about that.
And there's rulers in the world, like Pharaoh, whose rule is
harsh and cruel, but. Scriptures also say.
There's a ruler over all the earth.
Who is a savior when he says, take my yoke upon you and learn
from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will
find rest for your souls. Remember what Jesus says in the
New Testament, that if you seek first the Kingdom of God and his
righteousness, all these things will be added to you.
So Christ's. Rule against Pharaoh's is one of
peace and prosperity. This is the very passage of of
First Peter 2. We already read it.
He quotes Deuteronomy 7-6, and that's so significant because he
takes Israel as God's elect nation.
Remembering that it was it was once an ethnicity.
It was once a. People, we've transcended now
ethic ethnic boundaries and salvation has come to every
tribe, tongue and nation. We've been bought by Jesus
Christ. He takes this Old Testament
verse. He puts it and qualifies it
through Christ in this New Testament context.
Now he says, you, Heritage Church, are his treasured
possession. Because of Jesus Christ and he
tells us how to live after understanding this chapter and
and and Peter, he says, so that you may proclaim the
excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his
marvelous light. And because God is jealous, he
says, I urge you. To abstain from the passions of
the flesh which wage war against your soul.
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so when they
speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and
glorify God. He made you, He loved you, He
chose you. He's a jealous God.
He's jealous for his people, He's jealous for his name, He's
jealous for his glory. He's also jealous for your good.
And let's pray in response to that.
Lord God, your name is jealous. And we are floored by passages
like Deuteronomy 7. There are no words to say that
we were like the Canaanites, following after whatever our
heart desired, lost. And sick in mind and God, you
redeemed us and you brought us. You gave us a new nature, a new
heart, a new mind. And now you say that we are a
treasured. Possession.
And there's nothing we can say, Lord.
But thank you, we align our hearts so far as we are able,
Lord, we need your help to align our hearts so that there would
be nothing competing with your jealousy.
Lord I, I asked, even as we sing the song of response, that You
would help us to search our own souls, to find any competing
idols and to resolve in this moment to put them away.
And if we need to, Lord, to come into the green room and to
respond and to say I need the church's help and accountability
to help me so that we can be. Pleasing to you, we can
experience your prosperity and your joy and your.
Peace and participation and your covenant, Lord, and we can
experience and enjoy you through obedience.
God be with us now. Help us to purge this
wickedness. From our heart, thank you for
this Bible which is honest about our estate.
We love you. Thank you for Christ.
In his name we pray. Amen.
Thanks for listening. To learn more about Heritage
Church or if you'd like to respond to this sermon, visit
our website at www.heritageshawnee.org.