Deuteronomy 06 Journey Through the Bible Deuteronomy 08
King James Version
The Book of Deuteronomy
Chapter 07
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Commentary
by G. Neil Armstrong
Deuteronomy 7
This chapter is an encouragement from
God, just before sending the People in unto the Land, the Promised Land.
God also reminded the People of their responsibilities to the statutes
and commandments that He had taught them, both by lecture and by
example, during their 40 years of training. During all of those years,
on many counts, the People have rebelled. It wasn't as if they really
were trying, but simply fell short sometimes. It's more accurate to say
that they were all the way in God's will sometimes and all the way out
of God's will sometimes.
It is clear that each time the People
rebelled, they done so with a clear and sound mind, knowing exactly what
they were doing. It was as if they, for the time, simply didn't care at
all what the rules were. It seemed as if they did not fear this God
that had done the impossible, where a natural occurrence would have been
enough. The thing is, any explainable, natural occurrence could have
easily been denied. The People, or any other of the nations could have
credited these occurrences as the "luck" of the People, and NOT the
power of God's outstretched hand.
It is the pattern of God that He would
allow or provoke such impossible odds and circumstances to come about
and then to accomplish from it that which is impossible, even under
normal circumstances. He seems to prefer to work from both points of
extreme. He accomplishes these completely impossible events, or
occurrences as if these things were a common, every-day occurrence.
Science has developed throughout the
years, and every now and then they go public with a "scientific
breakthrough" that will effort to discredit the work of the Lord in a
thing, and credit nature with a believable, and often times provable
explanation. This don't and can't discredit the validity of scripture.
It only proves to us the frailty of human wisdom. Even when the
scientists happen to be accurate, it will always be a discovery that God
has revealed to us personally, in a Christian perspective. We didn't
see it because of our unbelief. Yet, when the scientists declare the
very same thing that God has already revealed to us, we believe it.
It is not good that man won't believe
God, and so often are ready and willing to take the most ridiculous
suggestions from the enemy. The enemy might even tell you exactly the
same thing that God has told you, only you are instantly susceptible to
the enemy. God is not pleased with this. Maybe we don't believe because
we are so far from God that we didn't even recognize this as Divine
Revelation. Why do we ignore God's voice in our heart, but so easily
heed to the enemies voice. Do you think that if we were constantly in
the face of danger, we could learn to trust and obey God? That is an
awful way to live. God wants to deliver us from danger, but we won't
listen to Him until our back is on the ground and the fiery darts are
piercing our necks. Even then, we won't listen until we ask Him to show
us the way to deliverance. We tend to want to play guessing games with
God because we don't hear His voice in our heart.
All of our learning is from trial and
error, but we don't always have to try the error first. It can be enough
sometimes to simply take God's word for it and see where it takes us.
Sound easy? It is not easy to simply do that which God has asked of us
because it always leads to the painful process of reform. God wants us
to be a reformed People, that will be a shining example of the blessing
of God, for all nations in the earth to see. The only way we are ever
going to yield to the will of God is if we deliberately ignore the
alternative, as if there is NO alternative.
We have a free will of choice, and if
we use this free will to serve God, not as a choice exactly, but as a surrender,
and that without an alternate choice, then we will see God's leading
cloud by day and fire by night. God wants to be seen in the lives of His
Chosen People. He works in contrasts of extreme. A cloud of smoke by
day will be noticed in every land. A pillar of fire at night will be
seen in all the world. If God can be seen in our lives, and can be seen
leading us, He will lead us in places along our journeys that will the
world with awe.
I think at one point or another we
have all secretly wished that God will do something in our lives that
will "awe the crowds". Such a thing is exhilarating. The fact is, God is
and always has been doing awesome things in our lives, but because we
so often don't associate one thing to another, we miss God's hand in the
situation. This causes us to become discouraged. God don't have a long
"to-do" list, and He'll get to you when He gets time. God hears your
request and sets in motion His answer immediately. Sometimes we miss it
because we were still in request mode. We need to get into yes mode. We
need to line up our lives to receive that which we desire. If our
desires are Godly, we will line ourselves up with Godliness so that we
can receive our hearts' desires. If our desires are not Godly, we will
line ourselves up with Ungodliness, and our lives will become a
wandering wilderness of reform. At that point, the reformation don't
stand in the way of our answered prayers, it IS our answered prayers.
Sunday, January 10, 2010 8:58pm
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