Deuteronomy 10:6-10 Bible Study | Episode 879

February 20, 2025

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

Deuteronomy  10:6-10   Bible Study | Episode #879

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, chapter 10, verses 6 through 10. And there's several things about this, actually.

I think there's a section of this.

That is, I mean, it's stark and it's a little bit, it's a little bit hard hitting. But in, in the course of going through things, it could be read as being a little bit hilarious, a little bit dry humor, snarky hilarious.

And so as I read through this, it reminds me of, of when I was in the military and especially right after college and doing military things on the weekend. Spent about five or six months on active duty.

But one of the things that is very, very important and common to the military is what they called after action reviews.

I don't know if they call them that now, but they called it then. And basically whenever you did something, did an exercise or something, like you would come in and do a after action review, just look at what happened and, and see if there were things that can be improved on.

Is just an opportunity to learn. That's what it was.

Opportunity to learn from mistakes and to maybe, maybe strengthen some of your weaknesses and maybe even identify the strengths that you had and supplement those things. And so it was just a, you know, opportunity to learn.

And in many ways, the whole book of Deuteronomy is an after action review. It's review of what happened for the people who are going into the promised land, who were the children of those who were delivered out of Egypt.

And so it really is an after action review in every possible way. But sometimes in life we need to do after action reviews about things that are really, really important that have gone on with us.

And I call them internal after action reviews. They're after action reviews really between you and God and really for you.

So many times in life we go through things that are so difficult and so hard. They're so painful.

They may be failures, they may be struggles. And while we're going through them, and maybe right after, after we go through them, they're so painful that we really can't even.

We really can't even focus our heart or mind on them. We just get to the. Where we are, just.

We just can't, in our own thoughts, take ourselves back to those things. They're so.

It's like touching the electric fence. We just don't want to go back and touch it again. We don't want to. We don't want to deal with it anymore. We want to just put it in the past and bury it away somewhere.

And I'm going to say this to you because this is not just pop psychology that's not usually helpful.

I understand that there are some things that probably don't need to be brought up.

But the truth is, most things, especially things that are very difficult for you, that involve failures on your part, that involve struggles for you, oftentimes those things, maybe they do need to be brought up.

Maybe they do need to be thought about and dealt with. Because we learn from our mistakes and we sure enough learn from our failures. And if anything, athletics and the military and life has taught me my greatest lessons oftentimes are from my failures.

And so it would be detrimental not to go through those things. And sometimes going through those things, you remember the little things that happened during the struggle that really were a sign of the hand of God being at work in your life, or also, or, and also it might be that you remember some of the people that were actively involved in that time period and they were the ones that were sustaining you in the midst of them.

So that remembrance, that time of remembering those days and those things as you go through life, that's very healthy. It's very healthy to remember those who loved you and helped you in the midst of the worst and the most difficult times of your life.

And so going through, not the incident, not the, I guess the ignition point, the point that everything blew up, but really going through the little things that were around it, the times right before and the times right after, would be very helpful because you might actually see the hand of God at work in those things.

You might actually see God using other people and stepping in and in maybe even supernatural ways to provide for you in the midst of what was such a terrible, terrible experience for you.

And so I think doing an after action review of the big stuff is important, but it might also be great to do the after Action review and just see the little things, understand the little things that God is doing in your life and begin to really, really identify the quiet, strong hand of God at work each and every day in who you are and what you do.

It says now the children, verse 6. Now the children of Israel journey from the well of Bne Jacon in Mosera. And you know, I'm terrible with names. Where Aaron died and where there was, where he was buried.

Now that would not have been a shocking, appalling thing. By the way, as we, as we pass through the valley of the shadow of death, as we live in this world, we're going to lose people in our lives.

We are. And the older you get, the more cognizant of that you actually are.

When you're younger, you don't think, think everybody's going to live forever. And then you come to the realization that your grandparents pass away and then your parents pass away, and then you begin to realize that, you know, you're the next on the list.

You're, you're, you're going to pass away and your mortality becomes more and more real for you. And just a reminder of, you know, that's when so and so passed away.

We. I was having lunch yesterday with a few people and, and this year been a little bit of a tough year in the profession that I have, other than being a pastor of being an attorney in the area that I practice law.

And when I mean the area, I mean the physical area, the, the county that I practice law in, there have been a couple of lawyers pass away this year and they were good friends and they were guys that I just really, really enjoyed their company.

They were hilarious. Both of them were just absolutely hilarious human beings and a lot of fun. And older, but not super old, really died kind of young, both of them.

And you know, as I think back on them, it brings a little joy in my heart to think about them. Well, you know, that's kind of the type of stuff that you want to think that's the type of stuff that you want to.

As you do your After Action review. Maybe over last year, you remember, you know, those are, those were those times of joy that God gives you that you don't even know is going to happen.

During the day, somebody walks in, they tell a joke, they say something hilarious. They have a reaction to an event that is unexpected. Before you know it, you're laughing, you're giggling, you're in joy, and God has given you that and you didn't even realize it.

And you didn't even count how valuable that actually was for your day and how valuable it was for your life. And as I think about that, I think about, you know, them passing away.

Well, I'm gonna miss out on that. We'll miss out on that. And then, you know, I think about, there's been some other folks pass away in my pastoral ministry and, and they definitely were people that brought great joy to my life.

And, and those times were great fun and great entertainment. And so remembering things in your life, remember going through those times also, also, also remind you of the great investment other people have made in your life.

Well, that's a, that's a. Not only is that a, a good thing, a healthy thing, but it's a glorifying thing. It glorifies God. That shows the hand of God and at work in the things that are going on in your life.

And so, you know, obviously Aaron was a great figure in the life of the children of Israel, in the life of Israel itself. His name is a great name. Was he a perfect man?

No. We saw in the last chapter that God was very angry with him over the, the golden calf issue, the golden calf incident. But also Aaron was a great, great leader for Israel and he was a man of mistakes.

He was a man that was definitely flawed. But aren't we all? And if, if, if being flawed is, is a disqualifier for doing big things for God, well, we're all gonna, well, none of us are gonna experience big things for God, but we, we all do.

And so that means that being flawed's not a disqualifier for us. And so as I, as I just think about this, he says, and Eleazar, his son ministered as priest in his stead, meaning and somebody stepped up and took his place.

And you know, that happens in life. And it's always fun to see people grow into those roles, see people step up and become, become something that they didn't maybe even know they could.

And then all of a sudden they are. And that's exciting.

It shows that God is God over history and time. And even though we have great loss, he progresses us forward even in the midst of maybe the greatest struggles of life.

He said, from there we journeyed to good, good.

And this is one of those places.

If you look at it, it's G U D G O D. So in Alabama, Gud would be the same as Go O D. It'd be good, right? So, and then, ah, at the end, so they journey to good Godda now that's funny.

I don't care who you are.

And from good, good Godda, they got to. They got to Jot Batha. And if you read that, that's jot with a bath in the middle and.

An ah on the end. So they went from good Goddard to.

Jot Batha, a land of rivers, of water. You know, when you read scripture, it.

Ought to be fun too, sometimes. And it is.

They went from good Goddard to Jot Batha.

And at that time, the Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister to him, and to bless his name to this day.

And so they had a big change. They decided, okay, we need a whole tribe to take care of ministering to the Lord, ministering to the Lor and serving as spiritual leaders.

And so we chose that tribe.

If you think about it, sometimes during life you do really big things that have big effects down the road, and that's one of those things. When they separated the tribe of Levi out to do the ministering before the Lord, that was a big move.

And it's had great effect in human history and in the history of Israel. And so sometimes as you're going through life, you make decisions that seem like at the time they're just necessary decisions.

And all of a sudden God uses them and does really big things with them. That's what happened here with the. With the tribe of Levi. Therefore, Levi has no portion for inheritance with his brethren.

The Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord God promised him.

So God's explaining that they're not going to get an actual area of land that theirs. They're going to have land outside the towns and within the towns, but they're not going to have an actual large inheritance because God is their inheritance.

That's a. That's something great to remember. Now we get to the one that's. That's kind of funny to me.

And looking back on it, you know, sometimes looking back on the worst and most terrible things of our lives actually at some point in time is funny. You know, something happened in your family, and then 10 years later you're at Christmas and you're joking about it.

Well, I mean, it seems terrible. And then it's just eventually it's just funny.

And I hope for every person that they experience that with the worst things in their lives, that eventually you look back on it and you say, I see the hand of God, I can get past my flaws and weaknesses and realize that God sustained me in it.

And the Truth is, the whole situation was absolutely hilarious. I pray that for you every day that you'll be able to do that one day.

As the first time, I stayed in the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. So they. They went to these places and. And Moses for the first time, stayed in the mountain 40 days and 40 nights.

And the Lord also heard me at that time. And the Lord chose not to destroy you.

It's just kind of a passing remark. And Moses said, you know, and the.

Lord heard me in the mountain that time, and he decided not to take y'all out.

That is funny if you think about it. It's real funny. Then the Lord said to me, arise. Begin your journey before the people, and they may go in the.

And. And in. And possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. And so what. What is he saying? Well, the overall plan of God is still at work.

God's still moving in this plan. And so if God's moving in this plan, the overall plan of God is still in effect, then we have his best. We have his plan, we have his best.

And sometimes in life, it doesn't seem like it's ever heading in that direction. But I can guarantee you this. God is glorifying Himself with you. He is using your life and as.

As an example of his power to take a broken thing and fix it, make. Take a dead thing and make it alive, take a sick thing and make it well.

And he's doing that with you today. And so I pray that as you go through life that you will see the great hand of God at work in your life.

And you will.

As you see how he has done in the past, you will trust in him more and more 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.