Deuteronomy 2:26-37 Bible Study | Episode 842

December 31, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy  2:26-37  Bible Study | Episode #842

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison and you're listening to Hope Alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God will open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are In Deuteronomy chapter 2, going to finish this chapter this morning. Uh, we're dealing with Moses. While he's explaining to the children of Israel how they got where they're at. And so this process of getting there, he's telling them the story. And you know, that's a powerful thing to do, is to tell the story, tell the story of what's going on. And oftentimes, especially when we're teaching children scriptural things, we, what do we do? We tell the story. Generally speaking, children's church Bible studies that are designed for children tell the stories of scripture. And there's lots of stories of scripture. In fact, scripture is full of narrative. It's full of Bible stories. Why? Well, because interestingly enough, most people learn best by stories. And we know that historically in that culturally, the main thing that are handed down, if they're, if a culture, hands down, things that are not written, but also most of the time when they hand something down that's written for the, for posterity, for those who are coming later, when, when those things are handed down, they're generally stories, they're generally their tales, their, their yarns that they have spun, the stories of, of their civilization, the stories that motivated them, the stories that, that made them who they are. And so these, these stories that Moses is telling the children of Israel is to explain what's going on. And for us in the New Testament, because it is a picture of going into the promised Land, we have to, we have to read the stories and you know, know those things, those things are fun, but we also have to take them and apply them, make application to the New Testament and, and entering the promised land, as I've said many times, is, is the Spirit filled Christian life. And when, so, so when you're studying and when you're looking into the spirit filled Christian life. When you're trying to figure that out and find that out in your life, we go to this, these stories of taking the promised land. And taking the promised land means battling against the world. It means battling against the enemy, which would be pictures of the fallen angels, the demonic, the, the evil realm of spirits that do ex. And oftentimes people want to act as if those things don't exist. They do. And when I say people, I'm talking about believers. They want to step aside and say, you know, the spiritual is not, is not spiritual. But, you know, as we've been studying on Sunday morning, you come to a realization that, yeah, the spiritual is real. And you know, the truth is that the spiritual is active and going on around us all the time. And the spiritual is actually the genesis of the universe. It's the beginning of the universe because the Father is spirit, God is spirit. And so the truth is, spiritual things are in many ways far more real than the physical world. And why do I say that? Well, because the physical world was created to give glory or to reveal or unveil God's character in nature. The universe was made to glorify God or to reveal him him in a created thing. Well, if I make something to reveal myself, then the thing that I make is, is less solid, less real, less important than, than what it is symbolizing, what it is made to symbolize. And so when we're dealing with the spiritual world, you have a spirit. You're bor. You that. That reality, that, that anchor that God has placed in you, that, that safe, that safe spot where God has taken hold of you, which is in your spirit. Even though the flesh may pass away in the physical world, may pass away, the spiritual remains. That which God has made in you is permanent. And it's, it's a good, the Bible calls it a good deposit. Okay, well, if that's the case, then obviously God thinks that your, your spirit is very important. And so what are the, what are the people that they're battling against in the Promised Land? What do they represent? Well, they represent a spiritual force that is against God, that is arrayed against God. And remember, God said that he waited until the sin or, or the rebellion of the Canaanites had reached its fullness. Well, what does that mean? Well, they, they had become so decadent and so terrible that God could not allow them to remain on the earth anyway. Just like he did with, in the days of Noah, just like he's done many, many other times that nations have become so terrible in their slaughter of the innocent, really, and that's what they did, that their sin comes before God, and God has to destroy those societies. And let me tell you, though, that. That the story of that is a historical story that goes throughout time. Societies rise, they grow in strength, and they get so involved in decadence that their value of human life becomes so small, the value of the life that God made becomes so little and less and nothing that God has to destroy that society. We've had it happen in the last century that we've lived in. It happened 3,500 years ago when we're talking about the children of Israel entering into the promised land. The people of Canaan practiced human sacrifice and child sacrifice. And so just on that point, that those societies needed to be wiped out. They needed to be removed. Because that you. We just cannot have that, cannot have that in humanity. Well, there will be no humanity if you continue to have that going on in the world. And so God removed it. And so these pictures are pictures of these leaders and the people that are in here are pictures of this evil, the evil of the spiritual world. And you say, that's harsh, Pastor. I know it is. It is harsh. But I'm going to show you that the Bible is giving you a picture to let you know that. That that is actually true. He says, so I sent messengers from the wilderness to Ketamoth, to Sihon, king of Heshbon. The words of peace say. And notice, he sent words of peace to them. This group of people that are ruled by this king, Sihon of Heshbon. He sent them words of peace. Now notice, he said, let us pass through your land. I will go only by the road. I will turn aside neither to the right nor the left. You shall sell me food for money, meaning you're going to make profit off of this so that I may eat and give me water for money that I may drink. Only let me pass through on foot as the sons of Esau who live in Seer and the Moabites who live in are did for me until I go over to the Jordan, into the land. And the Lord our God is giving in a to us. What he's saying is, let us pass through just like we did with the Moabites, just like we did with Esau's children. You let us pass through and you're going to be able to make money off us because you're going to sell your. You're going to be able to sell your food and your water to us. Sell the water to us and. And make. Make a profit. And we're not going to touch anything. We're just going to pass by the road and we're going to go buy you. Now remember, Zion is not part of the line of Abraham. He's not. He's not akin to Abraham. He is a Canaanite. Okay? But Sion, the king of Heshbon, would not let us pass by him. For the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate. Now, the word for spirit here is the word that we always think of when we're thinking of spirit in. In the Old Testament. It is the word ruha. It is the word that is used to. In verse two, when the Spirit of God hovered over the depths of the water. It is the. Is the word used with. With. That is also translated breath. When. When the Lord God breathed into Adam the breath of life, he Ruha into Adam, the ruha of life. It is the word for spirit. It is a spiritual thing. Now, there's a difference between spirit and soul. And so many times people just don't get that idea. They don't get that understanding. There's a difference between a spirit and a soul. Your spirit is the part of you that is eternal. The spirit is the part of you that exists outside of space and time. It is the power of God residing inside of you. And you have your own spirit which communes with the Holy Spirit, which is the part of God's nature, his personality, the Holy Spirit, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, which is eternal. It's his power. It's the power of God, the presence of God, the eternality of God. That is what your spirit is. So when you have. You have a spirit in you because it's born again, as we talked about in John chapter three, in worship months ago. When you have a new spirit, you have eternal life. That's where that eternal life resides in, because it's the eternal part of who you are. Now, your soul is really, in many ways, the best way for me to describe it. Your soul really is you. And when we think about that, when we think of ourselves, we think of our flesh, what we look like, how people see us out in the world, the physical world. But really, that's not you. You are your. Your personality, your. Your passions and your emotions and your intellect and your thoughts that makes you who you are. And you, when people talk about, I really want to know that their heart. Well, what they're saying is, I really want to know their soul. And those words mean something. And so in the Old Testament, ruha meant spirit, meant wind or spirit. And then the word libab or l is really the way we spell it's L, E, B, a, b. And both E and a are long vowels. So libabe is, I guess the best way to say it stands for a heart. It is the word for soul in the Old Testament. And it also can be translated mind, because your soul is a. Is. Is. Is dual in nature. Your soul is your passions and your emotions, and then also your intellect. And so as you think about that, in the New Testament, it actually has broken up. You know, cardiac stands for your emotions and your. And your heart. And sukho is your mind or your thoughts. And both of those words are translated soul. And so what happened here is God hardened this. This person's spirit. Well, how did he have a spirit? Well, if you go back to understanding what was going on when Noah was in the world, you had. You had these. You know, the angels came and had relations with men. You need to go back to that Bible study. If you're on a podcast, you can just scroll back. If you're. If you're on Facebook, the podcast is Hope Alive. And so it's Hope Alive with Chad Harrison. If you go on that podcast and go back to Genesis and find. I explained how that. How that happened. Well, my dad always said that he thought there were Nephilim after the flood because the Bible actually says they were Nephilim after the flood, and it says that the people that were in Canaan were Nephilim. And I don't know how that works. I don't know really how that came to be or came about, but my father, who was a deep Bible study or he believed that there were still Nephilim in the world. And, you know, I don't really have any logical reason or biblical reason to say that's not true. In fact, I probably have more biblical reason to say that that is true and that this king was probably a Nephilim because he had a body, because he was human, he had a soul, which every human being has since Adam, but he also had a spirit. And any being that has a body, a soul, and a spirit, but that spirit is evil. And quite clearly this spirit had the capability of being evil. That is a Nephilim that can only be a Nephilim. And so God hardened the heart of the Nephilim here or this king, and he also hardened his soul. I mean, his spirit. And what does that mean? Well, his spirit was inclined to let him go through. Why because it's self preservation. And by the way, Nephilim act in self preservation. Preservation, Easy for me to say. They act in self anyway. They take care of their own, they take care of themselves. They act that way. They want to preserve their lives. And so this scion might have been inclined to let them pass by because he didn't want to go to war against them. But I want you to notice. But God made sure that he did go to war with them. And you go. Why would God do that? Well, because one of the purposes for the children of Israel is to wipe out the evil in the land. And so you need to understand when we're dealing with the world, one of the things God's trying to do is wipe out the evil in the world that we live in and that in the life that we live, he is trying to remove that evil from us. And he told the children of Israel to get rid of them, don't leave any of them. Because if you leave something so pernicious that these societies had that they would take up their practices and eventually become like them. And by the way, the Northern Kingdom did do that. They began to worship those gods and they began to practice the human sacrifice that the Canaanites had practiced before them. And God told them to get rid of them. Because you cannot allow those things to be around you. You can't allow those things to continue to exist. We didn't place the Nazis back in power in Germany. We, we, we tried the Nazis and we removed them from power. We didn't, we didn't allow the Emperor of Japan to stay as emperor. We removed that from them. And, and by the way, they're over and over and over again you go, the Khmer Rouge. Well, the Vietnamese who were godless Communists could not allow the Khmer Rouge to stay in power on their border. They came in and wiped the Khmer Rouge out. They removed them for power. They just totally wiped them out. Why? Because you can't leave that kind of evil even on your border, even if you're a godless communist. That the Vietnamese government was. Why? Because if you leave that there, that evil will slowly. It'll slowly slip into your society and destroy you. And so God said, he hardened his heart. He said he would not let them pass by. For the Lord your God had hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate that he may not give him into your hand as he is this day. And the Lord said to me, behold, I've begun to give Zion and his land over to you. Begin to take possession that you may occupy his land. Then Zion came out against us, he and all his people to battle at Jazz. And the Lord our God gave him over to us and we defeated him and, and his sons and all his people. And we captured all his cities at the, at the, at that time and, and devoted to destruction every city. Men, women, children left, no survivors, only the livestock. We took his full for ourselves with the plunder of the city that we may capture. From Aror, which is on the edge of the Valley of Arnon, and from the city that is the. Is in the valley as far as Gilead, there was not a city too high for us. The Lord our God gave all into our hands only to the land of the sons of Amon. You do not draw near, that is to all the banks of the river Jbok and, and the cities in the hill country, whatever the Lord God had forbidden us. What he's saying is we took all of it. We destroyed them all. Now that's a picture for the Christian life is you've got to take hold of the victory God's given you and, and become masters of your. Your life as God has given you power to do that. Take control of your life and, and don't give in to the evil of your heart, which is really, really hard. It is really hard. But the enemy has been bound up and, and given you. When you're trying to walk spiritually filled, the enemy's bound up and God is doing big stuff for your heart, being big stuff for your life. And you ought to see that. You'll see that you have the power to be an overcomer. We're more than overcomers in Christ Jesus. And that's what God's given us a picture of here. Even though it's a very difficult picture, it's got all kinds of things in it that make us, in our modern way of thinking about things, uncomfortable. But if you live back then and you saw what they were doing back then, you might have a whole different point of view. You know, it doesn't take long to get for your point of view about things to change and for your realization of how things really are to take place. And so I would say to you, as we're dealing with entering into the promised land, which is what Deuteronomy and then ultimately Joshua is about, you've got to realize that this is a real battle, a spiritual battle and a spiritual victory that God desires for you to have. And you ought to have it as you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless.

You and keep you that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.