For the Lord your God is in your Midst

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

James 2:21–25

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.