Deuteronomy 7:1-11

[0:00] If you all take your Bibles and you can be turning them to the Old Testament in the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy in chapter 7.

[0:17] I said Sunday evening. Been an Old Testament type of day that day because we was in Ruth Sunday morning. It was the second King Sunday night and I guess we can say it's been an Old Testament week now because we're going to be in Deuteronomy.

[0:32] Deuteronomy is actually a wonderful book. There's people out there that say that Deuteronomy really shouldn't be in the canon of Scripture because it's so repetitive.

[0:47] And there isn't a lot of repetition in the book of Deuteronomy, but it should absolutely be in the canon of Scripture. If you're one because God ordained it that way. But if you read the book of Deuteronomy, really the entire book is about covenant and it's about a renewal of a covenant that God made with the Israelites.

[1:08] At this point, Moses was in his last days. Literally Moses was, death was creeping up upon Moses and the Israelites, they were right at the threshold of the promised land getting ready to enter in.

[1:27] And God relays messages to Moses and Moses relays these messages to the Israelites through his man, Moses. And that's where the repetition kind of comes in. But it is God through Moses reminding his people, his chosen people all throughout the book of Deuteronomy about the promise that he made to Abraham.

[1:50] Way over in the book of Genesis that he would make a great nation out of Abraham. Of course that promise was extended in the Isaac and from Isaac to Jacob. And Jacob had the 12 sons which became the tribes of Israel and God indeed made a great nation out of them.

[2:09] And again, the book of Deuteronomy it can be seen as a book of covenant and renewal. And that's precisely what it is. If you read through it and see all this repetition, much of its repetition of the laws that God had already given, but that was to the first generation that came out of Egypt.

[2:32] And we know that only two of those that were over the age of 20 years old made it into the promised land. That was Joshua and Caleb. So it is God renewing his covenant with his chosen people.

[2:51] So that being said, Deuteronomy chapter 7 will begin at verse 1. Read through the first several verses here. Deuteronomy 7 of 1 says, When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Gurgashots, and the Amorots, and the Canaanites, and the Parasites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou.

[3:20] And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them. Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shoo mercy unto them.

[3:33] Neither shalt thou make marriages with them, thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter, shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods.

[3:48] So will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them, ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

[4:04] For thou art in holy people unto the Lord thy God. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people.

[4:25] But because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

[4:39] Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them, that love him, and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, and repayeth them that hate him to their face to destroy them.

[4:56] He will not be slack to him that hateeth him, he will repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command thee this day to do then.

[5:10] We'll stop our reading right there at the end of verse 11. Back to verse 1 in Deuteronomy in chapter 7 says, When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, I want you to notice the wording that is used there, it says, When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land, whether thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, and down down in verse 2, When the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smother them, and let them be destroyed then, thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shoo any mercy unto them.

[5:48] And again, these verses, I understand that there's context here, and I understand that the context is the Lord God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, the Lord delivering the Israelites into this land which he promised to their fathers. I understand that's the context here, but I've said many times that if we read something in the Old Testament and we can't find a way to apply it to New Testament Christianity, then chances are our interpretation of it is incorrect.

[6:27] We see this here, we see that God has told them, he says, When the Lord thy God, when he shall bring you into the land, and when he shall deliver these nations, and he lists these nations here, and he says that all these nations are greater in number than the Israelites, all these nations are greater in power than the Israelites, they are all greater than they are, but God says that he will deliver these nations before the Israelites, he will deliver them up unto them, folks in our own lives, in our Christian lives, there are times that we will face challenges that are much greater and much bigger and much mightier than what you and I are, but folks it is not us that fights those battles, and it is the Lord our God which fights those battles for us, just as God was telling the Israelites here that he would deliver them into the land which he had promised, and he would be the one to cast out these nations, and he would bring them before them, and he gives them instruction on Father and what we read here, he gives them instruction that they are to destroy the nations, folks I'm not telling you that we are to go out here and we are to destroy the heathen and we are to destroy the pagan, but folks as far as our Christian lives go, we are to destroy them, are we not to crucify the flesh, are we not to mortify the deeds of the flesh, these are some of the challenges that we see in our own lives, these are some of the things that we face in many times, it seems like they are so much bigger than what we are and so much stronger than what we are when we look at, when we are tempted, when temptation comes our way and we think about our past life before God, redeemed our unworthy souls and we think about what we thought was a good time, we think about some of the things that we used to do when temptation rolls our way and it becomes so big and so mighty and so strong, but God has redeemed the people and God has promised to deliver us into a land,

[8:32] God has already begun his own kingdom, the kingdom of God is alive and well and God is making that kingdom for his people, for a chosen people, for you and I, for everyone that is repented of their own sin and has believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, but as I said just as these Israelites would have seen these people, would have seen these other countries and these other tribes as bigger and stronger than they were, God was reminding them here that it was not them that would be fighting those battles, it would not be them that would win the war, but it would be God and God alone and God himself that would fight the battle and that would win the war for behalf of his people, hallelujah.

[9:21] Hallelujah, that's the same God that saved my soul, the same God that's talking about delivering these Israelites physically into the promised land and delivering them physically from these enemies, he has promised to deliver me spiritually into a land and to deliver me spiritually from my enemies, hallelujah to the Lamb of God for the deliverance that He provides for his people, in verse 3 we read in verse 2, I'm sorry, we read, for they will turn away their son from following me, that they may serve other gods, so the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy thee suddenly, thus shall ye deal with them, ye shall destroy their altars and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire, here in these verses, in particular verses 3 through 5 here we see God giving instructions, but he again tells them he is going to be the deliverer, he's going to be the conqueror, but he tells them neither shall they make marriages with them, with who, with these countries that he's listed here, in verse 1 with these outside tribes, with the people that were not, that he was not in a covenant relationship with folks that, when God told them you shouldn't make marriages with people outside of your own people, you shouldn't make marriages or have intimate relations with people, he wasn't talking about skin color, he wasn't talking about ethnicity, he plainly tells them here, wow this was, he says, for they will turn away their son from following me, this is the exact reason why we have the words in the New Testament that we do, that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth when he said, when he said that we should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, had nothing to do with ethnicity, had nothing to do with cultural background, nothing to do with skin color, we should not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, and he goes on to say, what concord hath crossed with the lie, what communion hath lied with darkness, folks these things do not get along, they do not, they do not go together, they are just as different as all in water, they should separate just as all in water do.

[12:02] God tells us to come out from among them and be ye separate, does he not, does he not? Now this doesn't mean, this doesn't mean that if you've got an unsafe spouse or unsafe children that you should have no relationship with them, that's not what I'm saying here at all, the folks we have no business going to the places that the world goes to, we have no places and no business doing the things that the world does, talking the way that the world talks and acting the way that the world acts.

[12:35] We have been called out of God's, out of the darkness into God's marvelous light, God has redeemed our souls, we are to act like we are redeemed people, we are to act like we are saved people, we are to act like we are children of the most high God and we are not to affiliate, we are not to have intimate relations, we are not to have close relations with the people of the world.

[13:01] Why? For the same reason that God gives them here, that gives these Israelites for they will turn away thy son from following me. The world will influence you, you hang around with the world long enough, you go to the places that the world goes to and you start doing the things that the world does that will influence you.

[13:23] I don't care how saved you are, I don't care how born again you are, I don't care how thoroughly you've been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ, I'm not saying that you go out and you sin, I'm not saying that if you go to a place where the world goes one time the God's going to reach down and he's going to take that salvation and make it right off you.

[13:48] I'm not saying that at all, but what I am saying is that the world will influence you to where you have no influence toward the world, the world will influence you to be like it and to act like it and to talk like it and folks we are to be a peculiar people per the word of God.

[14:06] And with that being said, we don't make ourselves peculiar, we don't make ourselves stand out, God makes us a peculiar people and God is the very one that causes us to stand out.

[14:23] And when we are living our lives according to the commandments and the judgments and the statutes of Almighty God, when we are living our lives according to the word of God, I promise you you will stand out in the world if you do that.

[14:38] You will be different out in the world if you do that, your life will shine. Jesus not say let your life so shine before a man that they should see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Our life will shine if we are living as per the word of God instructs us to, but it is God and God alone who can and who does make his people a peculiar people.

[15:01] There's a lot of folks out there, a lot of professing Christians out there that try to make themselves peculiar, that try to make themselves different than the world.

[15:13] If we are living by this word, that will make us different from the world. God, God through his spirit, through his word and through his power will make us different from the world.

[15:25] They will turn away thy Son from following me, that they may serve other God so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you and destroy thee suddenly. Folks, the anger of God is something I don't want any part of.

[15:39] It shudders me to think that at one time the wrath of God abode upon me. At one time the wrath of God stayed upon me, it lived upon me.

[15:54] And this is according to how the Scripture describes it, and I shudder to think that thought, but the day that God saved my soul, the day that he washed me clean and made me his own, the day that he redeemed me and bought me in to his family, the wrath of God no longer abode on me.

[16:13] At that point in time I was saved, I was redeemed, I was born again, and I am part of the family of God. I am one of the children of God, and he has promised to deliver me into his kingdom.

[16:29] He has promised to deliver me unto himself. He has promised me life and life everlasting, and I praise the name of the Lord for that. In verse 5 again, but thus shall ye deal with them. He shall destroy their altars and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire.

[16:50] What is God commanding them to do here? He's already commanded that they should be completely destroyed just a few verses before this. The folks that's not good enough, that's not good enough. I used the example then of destroying the sin in our life, and I understand that Jesus crosses the destroyer of sin. His blood is what washes away sin.

[17:11] I understand that, but we are given instructions to mortify the deeds of the flesh ourselves. We are given instructions to crucify the flesh within the word of God. We are given instructions to stay away from idols, are we not?

[17:29] At the very last verse in 1 John, John tells him, he says, little children, keep away from the idols. And folks, that's what God is getting at here in this verse when he tells them, you shall cut down their groves. He says, you'll destroy their altars, break down their images and cut down their groves.

[17:48] He's saying, okay, you've destroyed the nations. Now get rid of every inkling, every little spot, every hint of what religion they had, for it was a dead religion, and they worship dead gods.

[18:00] And folks, God is telling them to get rid of their idols so that the Israelites will not tempt them to turn unto those idols, to turn unto those altars, and to turn unto those images.

[18:13] Folks, I will encourage you now that whatever idols you may have in your life, whatever it is that you place above God at times in your life, and we've all been guilty over it. If we were born again, children of God, we have all placed something at some point above God in our life, but whatever that is, or whatever it may be in the future, I urge you to get rid of it, to cast it out, to burn it, to drown it, to do something to kill that idol getting out of your life so that you can be in good and right relationship with your Redeemer.

[18:47] That's why God's given these instructions here to the Israelites. Kill off, kill off the sin, and kill off the idols. Verse 6, He tells us the why for all of this.

[19:05] He tells us the why you don't marry. He's already given us a why because they'll drag them away from their walk with God. He's given the why to destroy these nations that were greater than they were.

[19:18] And it goes into this list of idolatrous things. When He says, He says, destroy their altars, break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

[19:31] And He gives them the why for Thou are in holy people. That's why we do it. That's why we do these things in our own lives. That's why we do these things from our own hearts and out of our own hearts.

[19:45] It's not to merit anything with God. Folks, we cannot merit salvation. I think everybody in here is well aware of that, but that cannot be emphasized enough that we cannot merit salvation.

[19:58] We cannot work for salvation. We cannot be good enough for salvation. We cannot impress God enough for salvation. You know what impresses God for salvation? Jesus Christ.

[20:11] That's who impresses God. And that is the only thing that impresses God as far as salvation is concerned. But He tells them why they are to do away with these houses as for Thou are in holy people under the Lord Thou God.

[20:24] The Lord Thou God has chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth. And folks, I can encourage you with the Scripture now that you and I, we are chosen vessels.

[20:40] We are chosen people. We are the elect of God. He has redeemed us. He has saved us from Himself, from His own wrath, from His own fury. He has saved us from ourselves and from our sin. He has saved us from a place called hell and because He has saved us, we should show forth our praises unto Him because He has called us out of darkness and end to His marvelous light there in 1 Peter and chapter 2 at the first part of that verse that I just quoted.

[21:08] He says, for you are a chosen generation. You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation, a peculiar people. And this is the reason that we should show forth our praise unto the one that called us out of darkness. Folks, He called you out of the darkness.

[21:26] You didn't get up and walk out on your own. God called you out of that darkness into His life. Hallelujah. That makes me excited. I don't know about you, but to think that I was who I was and to think that I had done the things that I had done and to think that I had thought the things that I had thought.

[21:44] And God still called me out of darkness. God still looked down on me in compassion and He still looked down on me in mercy and He said, I can redeem that. I can do something with that.

[21:56] And here I am, I'm born again, child of God. I give praise unto the God that saved my soul. The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any people.

[22:12] For you were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord loved you and because He would keep the oath that you had sworn unto your fathers, that the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you out of the house of the bombings from the hand of Pharaoh, King of Egypt.

[22:32] God telling His people here in plain black and white as we have it. He's telling them though very plainly, it is not because of anything that you did.

[22:44] And it's not because of anything that you are or that you were that I have done this thing. It is not anything that you could do. Why I brought you up out of Egypt? Why I brought your ancestors up out of Egypt, out from underneath the foot and the hand of King Pharaoh? It is nothing that you've done.

[23:01] Option is nothing that we have done that God brought us out from underneath the bondage of sin that He did, but it's because of His love. It's because He is the covenant keeping God and the covenant of the scripture, the covenant of the New Testament is the blood of Jesus Christ and the promise made in the New Testament.

[23:21] The New Testament is that anyone that repents of their sin and believes in the gospel, which is the power of God under salvation shall receive that salvation. He's a covenant keeping God and I praise God for that. I thank God that He keeps this covenant. I thank God that when He redeemed my soul and I repent of my ways and I trust it and I believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the covenant that God had came my way and it landed on me and in me and landed in my heart and I am now forever a child of the one true King.

[24:03] I am forever a child of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am a child of God. I am His redeemed. He bought me. He laid down His life for me. He shed His blood for me and for that reason and for that reason alone, He deserves my praise. Hallelujah.

[24:22] It wasn't anything to Israel I had done. God makes it very plain to them in this passage of scripture that we've read here. How few of people that they had, it's not that they were many and it's not that they were mighty.

[24:36] God did not bring them out because of who they were. God brought them out because of who He is. The same reason He brought me out of sin and He brought me out of darkness and He brought me out of the gloom and out of the muck and the mire.

[24:51] It is not because of who I am. It's not because of who I was for that matter. It's not because I was that good or I was that deserving. It's because of whom God is. That's why I stand here before you as a saved individual right now. Hallelujah.

[25:08] And we have verse 9. You can actually preach an entire sermon just from verse 9. Know therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God. The faithful God which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.

[25:28] Here is God through Moses telling the Israelites, Know, Know, Know, therefore that the Lord thy God, He is God. And not only is He God, but He is a God and He is the God that keeps his covenants.

[25:48] Know this, and Christians I'll encourage you now. Know that this same God speaking to these Israelites through his man Moses is the same God that redeemed our souls.

[26:00] And we can know that he has brought us out of darkness into his life. We can know that we have been redeemed. And we should know part of the scriptural account that we have been redeemed. We've been born again. And we indeed belong to him.

[26:15] Know these things. Don't doubt these things. Fear like me. Sometimes you've doubted your own faith. Sometimes you've doubted salvation. Sometimes you've doubted. And sometimes it's the demons that whisper in our ears that cause us to doubt these things. But I praise God. I can go back to a place in time and in my mind. And I can go to where I hit my knees.

[26:38] And I believed in God and God redeemed my soul. And I know when I went down I was a lost man. I know when I got back up I was a born again child of the one true king. I can go to this place in my mind and many trips have I had to make there over the years just to remind myself of who I belong to.

[26:58] I know I belong to God. I know that the Lord, the Lord my God, he is God. But not only that he is the faithful God.

[27:12] These gods and these idols that these other nations had, they were false. They were dead. Something false and something dead cannot be faithful.

[27:24] But my God is alive. My God is eternally alive. He has always been alive. He has always been there. He's there. He is the ancient of days. He's been there from the beginning. He is there right now in the present and he will be there in the future. There is nothing that can stop my God.

[27:42] There is nothing that can stop his plan. There is nothing that can stop his gospel and praise God. There is nothing that can stop the church of Almighty God.

[27:54] The world has tried to cross the church. The world has tried to silence the church. The world has tried to silence the gospel. It cannot be done. Let them shut our lips. Let them shut, let them eternally shut our physical eyes. Let them do what the gospel will go forth. God will make sure.

[28:12] And Isaiah says that his word will not go out and return void unto him. It will accomplish that which he has set it out to do. Hallelujah. That's my God. Praise God. Verse 10. And Repayeth them that hate him. Now remember, in verse 9 we're talking about a covenant keeping God.

[28:33] We've been talking about that through this whole passage here. He says in verse 9 again, the Lord thy God, he is God the faithful God which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.

[28:45] Then we get to verse 10. And Repayeth them that hate him to their face to destroy them. He will not be slack to him that hateeth them. He will repay him to his face.

[28:57] And folks, that is just as much a promise of God as the promise of redemption for those that repent and believe. It is a promise of God that he will repay them which hateeth him. He will recompense upon their own heads their own reward to those that hate him.

[29:17] He will reward those openly and reward those graciously that are his. Those which he is in covenant with through Jesus Christ. Those he will reward graciously.

[29:29] But these, he repays them to their face. God is not afraid of them. Not God is not afraid of this world. God is not afraid of the heathens. He is not afraid of the pagans. And he is not afraid to repay them for their own deeds and their own actions to their face.

[29:50] But folks, what would the real recompense come from? It comes from the rejection of God. It comes from the rejection of a covenant that he has put forth for all of mankind.

[30:07] But if that covenant is rejected, if Jesus Christ is rejected, God will repay them for rejecting this shame. Verse 11, thou shalt therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command thee this day to do them.

[30:28] So we've gone from verse 9 that the Lord thy God, he is God. He is a covenant keeping God, the faithful God which keepeth covenant. We've gone to verse 10 and repayeth them to hate them to their face in verse 11. Thou, who is Thou? That's his chosen people.

[30:49] That he is addressing through Moses here. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments and the statutes. Thou shalt therefore, because I will repay them that hateeth me, you will therefore keep my commandments.

[31:04] You'll keep my commandments. You'll keep my judgments. You'll keep my statutes. You will walk by my laws. You will do what I tell you to do through my word.

[31:16] Folks, what are we to do? I mean, if you look in the Old Testament, if you look in the book of Micah, what did Micah say about the Lord? He said, he hath shooed thee, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God?

[31:38] That's just going by Micah. But folks, we as New Testament scriptures, what is the law that we must follow? What is the commandment that we must follow? And we can say to love the Lord thy God with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength and all of our soul.

[31:52] We can say that and to love our neighbors, ourselves. But folks, there are lost people out there that can love their neighbors. There are lost people out there that show more love to their neighbors than the church does.

[32:05] What is the law that we must follow? Not that Jesus Christ is a law. But folks, that's the way that we must follow. That is the way that has been laid down in the scripture by God Himself. And if it is in the Bible, if it is in the Bible, it is a commandment of God.

[32:27] So if we follow Jesus Christ, we take up our cross daily and we follow Him. We deny ourselves daily and we follow Him. We go the way that He is going. And we do the things that He would have us to do.

[32:42] Folks, this is following the commandment of God. Therefore keep the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which I command you this day to do them.

[32:54] That word therefore puts us to the verse preceding this. Otherwise, we hate God and God will repay us to our face.

[33:05] He's not going to blink an eye and He won't be ashamed of what He does to those that have rejected Jesus Christ and rejected the gospel. For the Bible has given the warning of God. And that is the message for this evening. God bless y'all. I appreciate your attention.