Deuteronomy 11
1 So love God, your God; guard well his rules and regulations; obey his commandments for the rest of time.
2-7 Today it’s very clear that it isn’t your children who are front and center here: They weren’t in on what God did, didn’t see the acts, didn’t experience the discipline, didn’t marvel at his greatness, the way he displayed his power in the miracle-signs and deeds that he let loose in Egypt on Pharaoh king of Egypt and all his land, the way he took care of the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, burying them in the waters of the Red Sea as they pursued you. God drowned them. And you’re standing here today alive. Nor was it your children who saw how God took care of you in the wilderness up until the time you arrived here, what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab son of Reuben, how the Earth opened its jaws and swallowed them with their families—their tents, and everything around them—right out of the middle of Israel. Yes, it was you—your eyes—that saw every great thing that God did.
God is trying to remind the Israelites of how miraculously He has delivered and protected them. Repeatedly, God tells the Israelites that THEY are the ones who have witnessed all these things. THEY are the ones who must keep these memories alive and teach them to their children. THEY are the ones who must remember the horrible price Dathan and Abiram paid for their rebellion.
As we’re watching the Israelites get reminded, we must ask ourselves how many times God has helped us and spared us, while we have failed to thank and praise Him. We should be teaching these things to our children also. My mother grew up during the Depression, and she told me this story: One summer she desperately wanted to attend a Methodist summer church camp for kids, but money was tight and the deadline for registration was drawing near. Just as Mom was in complete despair, somebody left an envelope with $5 in the family mailbox. That $5 bill allowed Mom to attend the camp and forget the family’s struggles for survival for awhile. My dad also had a story of God’s guidance. Dad was slated to attend a Lutheran college in his home area when he traveled to another college further south in Illinois to help a close friend move to school. Dad was so impressed with his friend’s college that he came home and convinced his parents to allow him to change schools. That new school was where Dad met Mom. Incidentally, Dad had been praying for God to give him the right wife since he was in his early teens.
8-9 So it’s you who are in charge of keeping the entire commandment that I command you today so that you’ll have the strength to invade and possess the land that you are crossing the river to make your own. Your obedience will give you a long life on the soil that God promised to give your ancestors and their children, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Now God is laying things on the line. “YOU are in charge of keeping the ENTIRE COMMANDMENT THAT I COMMAND YOU.” Why? “..so that you’ll have the strength to invade and possess the land that you are crossing the river to make your own.” While the Israelites think they can handle these challenges, unless they obey God completely, they will not have long lives, nor will they possess the land God wants to give them. Only total obedience will work.
10-12 The land you are entering to take up ownership isn’t like Egypt, the land you left, where you had to plant your own seed and water it yourselves as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are about to cross the river and take for your own is a land of mountains and valleys; it drinks water that rains from the sky. It’s a land that God, your God, personally tends—he’s the gardener—he alone keeps his eye on it all year long.
Once more, God sings a love song to the land He is giving the Israelites. I weep each time I read these verses for the passion God has for that land, a land God personally tends. Many times we feel God is far away from us; yet, here God promises to personally tend a land. If God personally tends that land, won’t He also tend the inhabitants?
13-15 From now on if you listen obediently to the commandments that I am commanding you today, love God, your God, and serve him with everything you have within you, he’ll take charge of sending the rain at the right time, both autumn and spring rains, so that you’ll be able to harvest your grain, your grapes, your olives. He’ll make sure there’s plenty of grass for your animals. You’ll have plenty to eat.
Fantastic! God is promising favorable weather, wonderful growing conditions, and magnificent crops. But there’s a condition: “if you listen obediently to the commandments that I am commanding you today, love God, your God, and serve him with everything you have within you..” God isn’t merely handing out freebies; it’s obedience that earns rewards.
16-17 But be vigilant, lest you be seduced away and end up serving and worshiping other gods and God erupts in anger and shuts down Heaven so there’s no rain and nothing grows in the fields, and in no time at all you’re starved out—not a trace of you left on the good land that God is giving you.
People are so easily distracted! God knows that the Israelites are going to be entranced by gaudy fertility rites and ritual prostitution. Once more, God is issuing a warning that rebellion against Him will result in the heavens being shut, causing drought, starvation, and death. One question for us is how much of the climate change we are seeing is due to people’s sin?
18-21 Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder. Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night. Inscribe them on the doorposts and gates of your cities so that you’ll live a long time, and your children with you, on the soil that God promised to give your ancestors for as long as there is a sky over the Earth.
22-25 That’s right. If you diligently keep all this commandment that I command you to obey—love God, your God, do what he tells you, stick close to him—God on his part will drive out all these nations that stand in your way. Yes, he’ll drive out nations much bigger and stronger than you. Every square inch on which you place your foot will be yours. Your borders will stretch from the wilderness to the mountains of Lebanon, from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. No one will be able to stand in your way. Everywhere you go, God-sent fear and trembling will precede you, just as he promised.
26 I’ve brought you today to the crossroads of Blessing and Curse.
27 The Blessing: if you listen obediently to the commandments of God, your God, which I command you today.
28 The Curse: if you don’t pay attention to the commandments of God, your God, but leave the road that I command you today, following other gods of which you know nothing.
29-30 Here’s what comes next: When God, your God, brings you into the land you are going into to make your own, you are to give out the Blessing from Mount Gerizim and the Curse from Mount Ebal. After you cross the Jordan River, follow the road to the west through Canaanite settlements in the valley near Gilgal and the Oaks of Moreh.
31-32 You are crossing the Jordan River to invade and take the land that God, your God, is giving you. Be vigilant. Observe all the regulations and rules I am setting before you today.
Blessings and curses! All the Israelites have to do is to obey God and they will own every single piece of land on which they set their feet. Their armies will always be successful, and all their enemies will fear them. BUT there’s a catch! If the Israelites do not follow God, they will fail miserably and many of them will die horrible deaths.
Partial obedience is complete rebellion. The famous Christian writer Oswald Chambers has observed that many of us have “spiritual measles.” We look all right in spots, but don’t look at our other spots, the places where we are refusing to obey God. As we continue to study Deuteronomy, it will become obvious that God is giving all these warnings for a reason. We must examine our hearts. Are we wholly obedient, or do we have spiritual measles?
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, help us to be completely obedient with undivided hearts, so that we might obtain Your richest blessings. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
Burunche's Blog 
Leave a comment