Deuteronomy 4:15-24 Bible Study | Episode 847

January 7, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 4:15-24 Bible Study | Episode #847

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 Numbers, chapter four, verse 15. And it's a really good passage here, something that we need to remind ourselves of all the time and something that was an instruction that God gave Israel that is applicable for everyone. And it not only this passage, but the passage to follow deals with something that we, we need to recognize in every possible way because we are made to worship. And what I mean by that? Well, God created man to glorify himself. In fact, he made him in his image so that man might be able to glorify him. And so innately in our nature, part of how we were made and an important part of how we were made, we were made to worship and glorify. We were made to worship and glorify. And so we do that. We do that every day. Every human being worships and glorifies. And we, we see that in our culture. You know, people are seeking glory, people are wanting glory, people are glorifying others. We see that all the time in our culture. We see that in our religious practice, even when we're not glorifying God, sometimes we're glorifying somebody else, we're glorifying something else. And we see that in history. Deification of people, deification of creative things, deification of institutions or organizations made by human hands, deification of everything. And the old saying that there are no atheists in foxholes is absolutely true. People in their innate being seek to glorify and worship something. Now, that's important understanding because there's going to be worship that is done in three major categories. And these sum up all the categories in all actuality, and I say this all the time, that human beings either worship one of three things, three categories, they either worship the one true God. And that's very possible. That's that. That is, that is what we Call Christianity. They. They worship the God who made all things. God in three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. They worship one true God. Or they worship something that God created. Now, that could be angels, that could be something in the earth, something. Something that is a part of the earth. It could be the earth itself. It could be creation itself. It could be something that you took from creation and fashioned in such a way that you made it into your God. That. That would be something that we'd call idols in the Old Testament and the New Testament or something that was created by human beings, some kind of technology. And human beings worship technology also. And so. And what is technology? Technology is something that's useful to progress you forward, either economically or forward in some. In some way that makes your life better. These. These things. These things all are worshiped. And then the third category is. Is a category that's a subpart of the second category, meaning you either worship the God who created everything or something that he created. But this is an important category because it's the category that most human beings fall into. Most human beings worship themselves, okay? They are their God. And in fact, you know, there's a lot of cultural desire to do that. You be your own person. You can do anything. You can. You can become anything. And there's a lot of ideology and teaching and, well, just cultural influence that tells us that we can be our own God, that we. We can do for ourselves what nobody else can. Now, there's a lot of doing that in Scripture in the sense of God making us into his likeness and into his image. But that's different. That's God making us right before him. But human beings love to worship themselves. And as Terrell Owens, another Tallapoosa county from my area, he says, I love me some me. And that's true. That is a. That's a. That's a true statement for most human beings. They love them from them. And notice I can. I can use pronouns properly. They. They. People love themselves and they act accordingly. And. And that is. That is idolatry also. So. So really, when it gets down to it, if you think about it, when you're dealing with this, are you worshiping God? Are you worshiping something he made? Are you placing that in a high position where you are glorifying, it's of the utmost importance to you. It affects your emotional. It affects your mental state. Are you worshiping something that was made? Or are you worshiping yourself? Are you trying to make yourself feel good? Are you. Are you feeding yourself? And if you are you're involved in idolatry. If you're worshiping anything that was made or you're worshiping yourself, you're involved in idolatry. And God gives us. Gives the Israelites some specific warnings about that. And that's found here in this passage. It says, therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Meaning, you know, you need. This is something you need to recognize and take note of. You need to actually watch this. You need to be careful how you live. You need to be circumspect. Think about, how do I live? Should I. I need to inspect the circumstances and see what they reveal. That's what circumspect means. I therefore, watch yourselves very carefully since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Meaning. Now, what he's saying here is, is that we're physical beings, and we. And we physically, as physical beings, we tend to worship that which is physical. Now, interestingly, in John chapter six, where we've been on Sunday morning, the Spirit is everything, Jesus says, and the flesh counts for nothing. And he says that quite clearly in John. Jesus tells us that the spirit's what matters and the flesh is irrelevant. Now, that being said, you. You will. You will worship the physical because you have difficulty comprehending and understanding the spiritual. You're going to do that. That's. That's the way it's going to be. And so when you're. When you're worshiping God, you're worshiping a spirit. And so it's difficult. It requires, you know, whole reorienting of the way I think and what I do and how I act. I mean, it's. It does cause you to reorient your. Your thought pattern, your. Your life, lifestyle, all right? And so when you're, when you, when. When God appeared to them on Mount Horeb, he appeared to them in the fire, but they didn't see an actual physical form. Beware, he says in verse 16, lest you act corruptly by making carved images for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of a male or female, the likeness of any animal that's on the earth, the likeness of winged birds that fly in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of the fish that is under the water or under the earth. And beware, lest you raise up. And. And so what he's saying here is, is don't worship created things. Don't make an idol to them. Don't worship them. Don't worship the Earth itself. Don't worship that which I made you to live in. Don't worship created things. And he. And then he says, verse 19 and beware, lest you raise up your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun and the moon and stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them. Things that the Lord your God has allotted to all people under, under the whole heaven. Meaning he says, don't worship. Don't worship the stars, don't worship the planets, don't worship the solar system. And that is a form of worship that's been ancient from a long way back. And the effort to predict the future by reading the stars. Now, I will say this. I think that there's some aspect of the future in the stars. Why? Because God created them and he's the author of the future in the past and the present, and so he's a creator of those things. Why does God not want us then to look at them and see if we can find out things about the future? Well, if he wants you to know things about the future, he'll tell us. And he has. He's given us lots of prediction. In fact, that's one of his signatures in scripture. It's one of the ways, you know that scripture is written by God is because he tells us things that haven't happened that are going to happen, and then they happen. So his prophecies is a way of him telling us that he is the author of the future. Now, the problem with looking in the stars and trying to figure it out is you don't have a roadmap. God didn't give us a roadmap for astrology. He didn't tell us. Now, there's difference between studying the stars astronomy and worshiping the stars and looking for the stars to give us answers. Astrology, God told us clearly, do not engage in astrology. Why? Well, first of all, if God. God wants us to know things, it's quite clear he does. He wrote a whole book here and he's revealing himself all the time in those things. God wants us to know those things, but he wants to tell us. He doesn't want us to look in his creation and find out. He wants to tell us himself. And by the way, exactly how are you going to figure that out? I mean, that's, that's a roadmap for disaster. How are you going to look in the stars and know what's going to happen in the stars? At best, you're making a guess. And most of the Time, a terrible guess. And then you live your life based on it because you're glorifying the stars and the, and the sun and the moon and the planets and you're beginning to, to put yourself in a position where you're, you're, you are guessing at the future and resting your whole hope and life on that. God said, don't do that. What's your hope in me? Rest on me. Watch me. Let me tell you. Come, sit with me. Counsel with me. Why? Because God wants to reveal and God does reveal. He does reveal by his spirit. Now he's a spiritual being like he said in this passage. You know, that's kind of tough and difficult because, you know, when we, when we're, when we're worshiping God, he's spirit. And it does require, you know, us to reorient ourselves. It does. But you know, that's how it works. And he actually has the answers and is willing to release the information. He's really willing to tell us. He says, but the Lord is taking you out and brought you out of the iron furnace out of Egypt to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. What he's saying is, you're my people. I'm going to tell you what's going on. You don't have to worship created things. You don't have to worship the stars in the heavens. You don't have to worship angels. He'll later on in scripture, he talks about not worshiping angels. You don't have to worship those things. I have the answers and I'm willing to give you those answers. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you. And he swore that I should not cross the Jordan and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. For I must die in this land. I must go over the Jordan, but I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of the good land. What he said is, I'm not getting to go. I'm not getting to go because I didn't do what God said. But you are. So don't mess this up. Don't mess this up. Take care. Verse 23. Lest you forget the covenant. The Lord your God with your. The Lord your God, which he made with you and make carved images that form anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. Meaning don't make idols, don't worship creation. I'm not going to get to go over with you. You've got to do it yourself. You Got to take care. You got to be watchful. Notice there's three phrases here. Verse 13, therefore watch, verse 19, and beware, lest you raise your eyes to heaven. And then verse 23, take care. So therefore watch yourselves, beware, take care. Make sure that you don't worship what you were not intended to worship. And that's the key to this. You were not intended to worship the creation and you were not intended to worship yourself. You were intended to worship God. And in fact, that's how Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the garden. He said. He said, when you eat of this fruit, you will be as God. What he's saying is you can be God yourself and you can't. You can't be God yourself and you can't worship what God made and expect to be to. To receive anything that's good. You've got to worship God himself. He says. He says, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire and a jealous God. And he is. And by the way, that's a good thing that he's consuming fire. He takes everything. He. He fills up everything he gives. It gives you full hope, full life, full credit, all that stuff. He is a consuming fire. He's an awesome God and you ought to worship him. And he deserves to be worshiped. And anything else is very destructive. Very destructive. Now, it's common for us to do that. That's, that's what we tend to do in our sin nature is not to worship the one true God, but to worship ourselves. So what's the answer? Well, you got to work at it. You got to seek out that form on the mountain. You gotta, you gotta say, okay, he's not in a form that I, that I innately understand. I've got to seek him out. I've got to seek the spiritual out. And by the way, he's given you the Holy Spirit to live inside of you. He's created in you a new spirit, a pneuma in the New Testament, a ruha in the Old Testament. He is. He's made you a new. He's made you into a spiritual creature yourself. And so you have that capability. You just gotta engage it and work it. And when we do that well, we really figure out how to worship God and how to order our lives in a good way. And that's good for everyone. It's good for you. It's good for the people around you. It's good for the world that you live in. And you don't have to worship yourself, and you don't have to worship others. And you don't have to worship the world to make it happen. You can just be as God has made you to be and change the world. Because you are the life.

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.