Deuteronomy 9:1-6 Bible Study | Episode 876

 February 17, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 9:1-6   Bible Study | Episode #876

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 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 would 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 9. And I think, I think as we, many of us are coming out of the holiday season, really the first Monday of a full week of work for a few weeks, coming out of the Christmas and New Year's holidays and heading toward the new Year especially, I think we're going to have a full week of work this week.

It is a really good passage for those who, rolling out of bed and oh my goodness, I'm going back in for those of you who are struggling.

And by the way, that that's not uncommon. And especially considering, and I know we have a long Bible study or podcast, Hope Alive, that this is on, but especially considering today as we wake up, it's 54 degrees and that's the warmest it's going to be.

It's going to dip down into the 30s as we go through the day. So winter is here, seems dark and cold and it's just one of those times, times a year where people are struggling and you think, I don't know how I can do seek out, be walk in the will of God.

I don't know how I'm going to do this. Well, this passage is God speaking to the, the children of. The children of Israel who came out of Egypt. The, the children of those who God delivered out of Egypt and would not go into the promised land.

It's a warning about not doing what God has told him to do. But the first part of it is, I think, not a warning at all. It's a message of encouragement.

It's a, it's really a, a let's get this, let's get this understanding in place before we get started. And what a great morning to get this understanding in place. What a great morning to come in and say, I, I hear you, God.

I know you do that he says, he says in verse one, Hero Israel. Now he's, you know, that's a. That is a. That is a. A call for everyone to hear this.

This is, this is one of those phrases that you see in the Old Testament where, where God is, is saying, listen up, hero Israel. You are to cross over the Jordan today and going to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven.

What he's saying is, I got a big task for you. You're going in and you're going to go up against people that are stronger than you. They are stronger than you.

Really they are.

They're physically stronger than you. And their cities are, as far as you're concerned and pregnant. Impregnable.

Easy for me to say.

You're. You're facing 20, 25, and, and it's going to be difficult.

You're facing a new year and, and the things that you're up against are bigger than you. Now. That's always been true. That's always been true. Everything that you've overcome in your life was bigger than you.

Everything that, that God has given you victory over is in your life has been stronger than you.

Everything that you've ever taken as far as taken by faith and walked through so that God could place it in your hand was. Was. Was.

Impregnable. Impregnable.

Easy for me to say again.

As far as you're concerned, it is. It's been impregnable. You. You. You can't do it.

But God. But God does it. And so God is telling them they're great. Verse 2 A people, great and tall, descendants of Anakin, meaning the descendants of the Nephilim. These are giants whom you know and whom you heard.

It said, who can stand before the descendants of Anak, meaning that who can. Who can defeat them?

You've heard all the rumors. There's. There's nothing hidden here. I'm not hiding anything from you. God's not hiding the ball. They're greater than you. They're stronger than you. You're. It's impossible for you to take them out.

That's what he's saying. That's what God's saying.

Therefore, understand today, verse three, that the Lord your God is he who goes over before you as a consuming fire. What he's saying is, you're not doing this. I'm doing it.

What you're doing is walking by faith behind me. What you're doing is you are reaping the benefit of our relationship. What you're doing is you're seeing me do it. And you are learning to walk as I walk.

Therefore, understand today that the Lord your God is he who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you.

You shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. What he's saying is, you're going to win. This is, this is a, this is one of those things in the south we call a cod lock.

It's, it's, it's a done deal. It's, it's, it's done. You're going to win this. I'm going before you and you're going to win this. Moses is saying, God says you're winning.

And listen, that's one of the, that's. Even though sometimes we don't want to go through the. We don't want to go through the walk to, to receive it.

God is, he is always going before us. He is. He went before the their parents. He did. He went before them in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

He had been there all the time. Nothing really has happened that God has not already foreordained and already put in place and already empowered and planned out and then has carried out in front of you and then taught you to walk in it.

Nothing has happened that God has not been right there in the middle of making sure that it happens by his mighty right hand. He. He has done it all. He's always been doing it.

Verse 4. Do not think in your heart after the Lord. Your God has cast them out before you, saying. Now he's saying this is a warning. Because when we sit, we.

When we have great victories from God and God gives us really great victories, doesn't He. Doesn't God give us big, big, big victories? He gives us great victories. Do not think in your heart as the Lord.

Your God has cast them out before you, saying, because of my righteousness, the Lord has brought me into the, into possess the land. What he's saying is don't think it.

It be it's because of your, your. Your something that derives from you. A righteousness that is born of you. Remember, righteousness in, in, in the Old Testament is righteousness that's born of faith, not righteousness that is innate to the being.

It's not innate to us. It's not natural to us. Okay?

He says, do not think that as they're being cast out that it's your righteousness that the Lord has used to possess the land. But it is because of the wickedness of the nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you.

Now this is a great explanation of God's thought process and really of what's going on in the Old Testament. Oftentimes, you know, in our modern culture we think, well, they're going in and dispossessing these people of their land.

It's their land. No, it's not their land. It wasn't their land at the start.

It was always Abraham's land. And these people are being driven out not because God wants to give it to the Jewish people in its, in its entirety. That's not the entirety of the reason.

The reason they're being driven out is because they're wicked. It, it's not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out before you and that he may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

What he's saying is I'm driving them out first of all because of their great wickedness and second of all because of my promise to your forefathers.

Don't leave either one of them off the table. Don't, don't, don't miss either one of them. God is using you in your life to take possession of what is his, his promises, his the good things that come for you.

He's doing that first of all, first of all because of the wickedness of the world and to prove that he is more powerful than the wickedness of the world. And then second of all because of his promises to you, first of all it's his holiness and righteousness that have to be upheld.

Okay. And then second of all, he has promised it to the weak and the least us to take it.

And so understanding that is important. Remember God is doing this for his namesake and we are the inheritance of that. We're in the inheritance of his namesake. He says, therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because you are right, because of your righteousness.

For you are stiff necked people.

Well, you know, sometimes and, and that is not a nice thing to say about them.

But you know, sometimes the truth is important.

And aren't we a stiff neck people? We really are.

We harden our hearts when we shouldn't.

We refuse to listen to God when we should.

We choose our own will in our own way and chase after our own things rather than chase After God's things, God's not wrong. God's right about saying that. And in fact, a lot of times we need to be reminded of that.

And, and that reminder leads us not to despair or depression. It leads us to God. It leads us to realize it.

God's the one that's got to handle these things. God's the one that's got to walk us through these things. God's got. God's got to do the things that are necessary and are important in our lives.

And, and without him doing them, we would. We would. We would never experience them at all.

And so these things are ideas that we know.

We know because God by His Spirit has taught us those things over time and over the years.

We know he's in charge. We know he takes his promises and gives them to us. We know that he upholds his own holiness and righteousness.

And we know that all that he does, he does well. We know them. But, but we, we do have to still walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

That's what we do each day. And, and it's, it's a bit. It. It is. It is not innately easy to, to walk with God through those things. It's not natural to us because we are naturally broken.

We're naturally sick, we're naturally sinful.

And so God knows that. And remember that. Remember, always remember that God knows that. And sometimes he's going to be.

Well, he's going to be a good father. He's going to be. He's going to be hard.

He's going to. He's going to put us in a position where we have to trust him, where we really don't have any choice.

If, if he hadn't put us in those positions, we would.

Well, we would ultimately be destroyed. And so I would just say to you this morning as you head into what is really the new year, the new year with the.

All the holidays and all the things behind us of, of.

Of December and all the coldness of winter ahead. I would just say to you today that our God is an awesome God.

He is a loving God. He's an upright God. He's a righteous God.

And he has big things for us. Big, big things for us to do as, as. As his people, as a community, as. As as a nation.

He has big things for us to do, and we need to be doing those things. We need to be doing those things as churches and, and communities. We. We need to be getting up and getting to business each and every day and looking for the hand of God at work.

And so I pray that that'll be the case for you as you head out this morning, that you will begin beginning your day knowing God is God and knowing that you can trust in him.

And knowing that he's driving out the sons of Anak, the Anakites, the Anakins, the. The. Those people.

Because there is wickedness in this world. But. But he's driving them out before us. And he's going to bring about his kingdom best for us also as we trust him and as we walk behind him in his victory.

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.