Burunche’s Blog

Deuteronomy 9:1 – 6 “Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens. The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?” But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the LORD has promised you.

When the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” Rather, the LORD is driving out these nations before you because of their wickedness.

It is not because of your righteousness or uprightness of heart that you are going in to possess their land, but it is because of their wickedness that the LORD your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

God is promising to destroy the nations living across the Jordan, to go ahead of the Israelites “like a consuming fire.” Sounds fantastic, right? At this point, the Israelites are probably puffing up their chests and preening themselves; obviously, they are God’s favorites. But God isn’t finished yet. God is making it crystal clear that He is not destroying these powerful nations with their walled cities because the Israelites are such a wonderful bunch, but because these nations are truly wicked and must be destroyed for their wickedness.

As far as God is concerned, the Israelites need to back up and take another look at themselves. In God’s eyes, the Israelites are NOT righteous, nor are they upright in heart; in fact, they are a “stiff – necked people.” God has made a promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and God always keeps His promises. God has promised to give the land of Canaan to the Israelites and He will do so. But the Israelites must understand that they too are far from perfect and if they descend further into wickedness, they can lose everything that God is giving to them.

God knows that once the Israelites have celebrated a few victories, they might begin taking all the credit, not realizing that without God’s help, they would have suffered embarrassing defeats. One wonders how much of this warning has registered in the minds of the Israelites. Have they listened carefully to the entire statement, or have they stopped at the part where God is a consuming fire?

APPLICATION: It’s an all too – common problem in sporting circles: the star who begins believing all his/her publicity and fails to remember that winning games takes team work. Such people can become “legends in their own minds.” Coaches know that unless they can somehow halt that process, the poor attitude of the star performer will poison the relationships within the team.

The late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was a master teacher of life lessons. One of his favorite sayings was this: “Talent is God – given. Be humble. Fame is man – given. Be grateful. Conceit is self – given. Be careful.”

Many times, we need God to deliver us from the results of our own stupidity and over – confidence. But as soon as God gets out of one mess, we are likely to wave good – bye to Him, forgetting that He is the reason we have been delivered from that problem. Given a little time, we begin to take all the credit ourselves… and march confidently out right into another disaster.

God wants good things for all His children. But we must be careful not to assume that God has helped us because we are especially good or righteous. It’s possible that as soon as the Israelites heard God telling them that they were stiff – necked, they just conveniently quit listening. Bad mistake. God wants us to realize our shortcomings so that we will depend on Him and not on ourselves. Don’t become a legend in your own mind.

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to be willing to listen when Your Holy Spirit shows us our faults. Thank You that Your Grace and Mercy come to us because You are good and because our sins have been paid for by the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.

This entry was posted on November 10, 2021 at 12:01 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.