Deuteronomy 11:26-32 Bible Study | Episode 886

March 3, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 11:26-32  Bible Study | Episode #886

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 where we are in Deuteronomy 11:26 32, finishing out the chapter, a passage, a verse at the very beginning that is going to continue to be a theme in scripture. And it's an interesting equation in my opinion, and it's an interesting offer that God makes. Oftentimes when we read the offer, we, we see it from the wrong perspective. We look at it in a way that makes it seem like God is in some way playing with us or messing with us and, and that we're some part of a. Part of some evil plan. I, I've had people, I've seen people argue that, you know, God's just up there like, much like the pagan gods of Rome or, or Greece, that he's. He's putting us in positions just to see how react and things like that. But the truth is is that is not, that's not the case. And that's not the case from eon back, from millennia back. It's not the case that God is doing that. What it is the case of and, and when you look at it is that God is good to us and loves us and gives us his grace, and otherwise we would be nothing and perishing. The verse is, see, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I'm giving you today the curse. If you disobey the commandments of the Lord your God and turn from the way I command you today by following the other gods which you have not known. When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessing and on Mount Ebol the curses. As you know, these mountains are across the Jordan, westward toward the setting of the sun, near the great, great trees of Mora. In the territory of those Canaanites living in the Arabah in the vicinity of Gilgal, you're about to cross the Jordan and enter in and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you have taken it over and are living there, be sure that you obey all the decrees and the laws I have set before you today. Now, as we read that, we look at it and we go, well, God is. God is giving, putting them in a dichotomy. He's putting them in a bind. He's putting them in a position where it's either blessing or curse. And then he's given an opportunity to choose. But remember this, and this is important. God did not have to deliver those people out of Egypt. God did not have to make promises to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were not owed the opportunity to enter into the land of Egypt, neither their parents nor them. In fact, their parents had chosen not to go in. Their parents had rejected God. Their parents in many ways had chosen not to have relationship with him which he desired from them. They had chosen all those things. And yet God continually, over and over again, all the time is forbearing. He is. He is. He. He is patient. He is kind. He is gentle. He is waiting for an opportunity to be a blessing and to give a blessing to, to these people and to his people. That's who he is. That's who God is. Without God in this equation, all you would have is the curse. That's all there would be. Because going back all the way to our father Adam, when man sinned. And through that one man, Adam, our forefather, our original, original grandparent, through that one man. Hebrews says sin entered the world through Adam and death through that sin. So all there is is cursing. And that that sin's passed on, generation to generation, father to child, father to child, father to child, over and over and over again. And those curses mount up and those curses continue and they remain in families and in lives. And that curse brings about pain. That curse brings about suffering. That curse brings about death. It is. It is the curse of sin. It is. It is the wages of sin. The wages of sin is death. The wages of sin. The penalty for sin is the loss of a relationship with God. It's a loss of God's best. It's the loss of God's plan for your life that is the penalty or the wage of his sin. And that's what we owe. We're owed. That's all that we have. That's all that we bring to the table each and every day. All we bring to the table is cursings. And yet our God is a God of blessing. Our God is a God of hope. Our God is a God of opportunity. Our God is a God who is willing to take our curse upon himself and bear it to its ultimate end, which is death on a cross. Our God is a God who's willing to suffer the indignity of our sin. Even though he is a holy God and a righteous God and a good God. He's willing to endure the unendurable, the terrible, the awful and become sin itself so that we can have a blessing, so that we might be blessed. And so each and every day, whether you're the children of Israel out there on the eastern side of the Jordan river, waiting for God to say, go in, or whether you're going to work this morning, or whether you're dealing with an issue, a life or death issue with a family member or a struggle with friends, whether you're sitting there waiting and wondering what's going to happen to you or what's going to happen to someone you love. He sets blessings before you. He says, today I'm setting. He says, see, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. Notice the blessings. What he's setting. The curse is what always is. I'm setting for you today a blessing and a curse. Now the curse is just. It's just continuing on and where you were at continuing on and who you are continuing on and what's been going on for years and years and years. The blessing is a new way, a new opportunity, a new way to live. And that way to live is God. That way to live is his ways. That way to live is his character. That way to live is a new thought in your heart, a new way of looking at life. That way to live is hope. It's hope where there's no hope. It's purpose where there's no purpose. It's blessing where without God, there would be no blessing. And what he's saying is, you need to. You need to. As you're considering these things, as you think through these things, you need to realize that the curse is always there. The curse is me without God. The blessing is when God steps in, when God chooses to change the course of my life, when God chooses to give me a new direction, a new. A new way. Now, you can continue on in that old way and you can do it in a, in, in, in, in maybe even new and more terrible ways. But it's really Just the same. It's just the curse of. Of the sin of this world. It might be in a new place, Canaan. It might be with the new people, the Canaanites. It might be involves some worse and terrible things than anything you've ever experienced before. By the way, you can keep going downhill. Going downhill is the curse. You. You just. You're being. Going downhill and you're heading toward death. But the blessing is that I don't have to. That it's not necessary. That God says, I've given you today opportunity. I've given you a blessing. Which will you choose today? This is every day. Shall I look for God in the small things and the big things? Shall I look for God in His will and in his way? Shall I. Shall I seek him out in his word and his commandments and his in his judgments and his precepts and his in his ideas and his understandings, in his heart, in his. In his life? Shall I search him out and find what he's doing in my life and around me each and every day? Or shall I just continue on in my cursings? I would say to you that you have more and more opportunities to see God's plan and God's will than you ever really realize. You have more opportunities each day to be a part of God's best rather than be be death and his worst. I would pray to you. I would pray for you today that you would seek out his best. That you seek out his blessing because he does set today before you blessing a blessing. Or you can just remain in the curse. He's given you a land of promise. Will you walk in 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.