Deuteronomy 20:1-4 Bible Study | Episode 917

 April 15, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 20:1-4 Bible Study | Episode #917

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 20. And for me this is one of the most,

I guess, exciting. It is. It is a powerful chapter. It is a. It is. It is. It's got so much direct correlation with the Christian life. It is. It is.

It is God's explanation of a mindset that he wants the children of Israel to have when they enter into the promised land. And remember, the promised land is the picture of the fullness of the Spirit filled life.

It is battling the enemy.

And when we define the enemy in this matter,

when we define the enemy in a spiritual sense, we're talking about the forces of darkness which control that which God made, which was given to them by Adam in the garden and which Jesus delivered back to us, meaning he delivered the authority to, to have God's promises, the promised land,

God's promises back to us. And so when we're studying and when we're looking through Scripture,

the passages that talk about the mindset, the understandings, the way you have to look at of the world and, and, and view yourself in light of God's finished work. I'm not viewing myself in light of my, My failures.

I'm not viewing myself in, in light of my inadequacies. I'm not viewing myself in light of my shame. I'm not lo. I'm not viewing myself in light of. Of. Of how people have have treated me and how I feel.

I am viewing myself in light of, of what God has done for me through Jesus Christ so that I might be his child and how he views his children and how I should act in regards to that, how I should be as well as his child.

And so when we run across those passages, one of my favorite ones is, is when Joshua meets the angel of the, the. The commander of the Lord's host, which is the pre incarnate Jesus,

as the commander of the angelic armies, he meets him outside the gates of Jericho,

not far from the city of Jericho, which he's going to have to go and take a stronghold which he has no siege equipment to tear down, which he has no large weapons to defeat.

And the thing that the angel of the Lord says to him are many. The things that he says to him are many. But the main idea he gives him is a understanding of how his mindset should be.

And that is, do not be afraid. And so that is a powerful passage. It is a powerful passage for the Old Testament believers. It's a powerful passage for the Jewish people.

It's a powerful passage for the New Testament believer who is taking the spiritual promises of God. It's a powerful passage in all possible ways. So understanding that is very, very important.

And so when we're going through life and when we're seeking those things,

when we study scripture and we come across a passage where God gives us a mindset checkup, and chapter 20 is a full passage of that. Okay, when we get that, we need to probably sit down and really, really review it intently.

And that's what I'm going to do.

That's what I see here as powerful for us. He says, when you go out to battle against your enemies and remember, battle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and authorities in this dark age.

And you go, what are powers, principalities and authorities? Well, those are ranks of angels. They're angelic ranks and they represent the higher ranks of the fallen angels. The highest rank being the archangel and he being Lucifer.

Okay, so the highest ranking enemy, the highest ranking force of darkness is Lucifer. And then he has an angelic army, a third of the angelic host under him. And he says, we battle not against flesh and blood, meaning human beings, but against powers, principalities and rulers of this dark age.

And so we understand that that's what our battle is against. He says when you go out to battle against those enemies, and what are the. What. How are they our enemies?

Are they, are they enemies in their. In that they're always attacking us? Well, in some ways, yes. But they're really our enemies in there. They're holding, they, they have control over the best that got the promises that God has given us.

Okay, Which Jesus paid for. And so we see says when we go out to battle, meaning go out and take the promises of God. That is the Sozo process. That's the salvation process.

You becoming like your, your savior Christ, you taking Ground like your Savior Christ. He says, when you go out there and you see horses and chariots. Now, for the Jewish people, that would have been horrific because they didn' Horses.

Well, they may have some horses, but they didn't have chariots.

They definitely didn't have a giant herd of horses. They didn't have thousands of horses to go to battle with. And they sure didn't have chariots to ride in behind them.

When they went out to battle against chariots and horses, it would seem as if they would be destroyed. It would be easy to destroy them. And not only that, they were always going to battle against a people that was as many of them, if not more numerous than they are.

Okay. Especially in the Promised Land. The Promised Land had people more numerous than them.

Even in modern times, the Jewish state is a state of 8,9 million people surrounded by 200 million people who don't want them to be there.

We understand in physical terms what it is to be outnumbered and to be outgunned. By the way that happened in the American Revolution, we were outnumbered and outgunned by the soldiers of the British Army.

But that does not mean you're defeated when you're outnumbered. Now. Gun. When they're more powerful than you,

that does not mean you're defeated. Now, they aren't more powerful than us when we operate in the full power of God. But, you know, we have to learn how to do that, and that's not always easy.

And the way we learn how to do that is to do battle. So that there. There's just all those struggles that go along with that. He says. But when you see that and they're more numerous than you, do not be afraid of them.

Notice it's a mindset. I'm not afraid. I am going to become. I'm going to walk in God's promises. I'm not going to allow the enemy to make me afraid and step back from the promises God has given me.

I refuse to allow that to happen. I'm not going to let that happen in my life. I am going to walk in the promises of God.

Very difficult. I know.

It's a learning process. I know. That's why God spends time in several passages of Scripture going through it. Why? Because it is hard to learn how to walk in his promises, to learn how to do battle, to learn how not to allow the enemy to.

To. To scare you off it. I see it all the time in the Christian life as a pastor. I see it all the time. My job is to lead people to the Promised land.

That's my job. My job is to make disciples, disciples who follow Jesus. My job is to lead them to Jesus, to lead them into the promised land. My job is not just to get em born again.

My job, by the way, I can't do that anyway. My job is to lead those who are born again to find them, to teach them the word of God, to lead them to repentance, which means to turn to his will and to lead them to walk into the promised lands.

That's my job. And really I'm not even leading them. I'm just kind of pointing in the right direction. God's leading them. Jesus is leading them. I'm under shepherd, I'm pointing to the shepherd for them to go into the promised land.

That's, that's my job as a pastor, okay? And when I'm pointing them to do that, I'm not going to slow up or stop and I'm not going to coddle you and pet you.

You need to go. Because the very best come from that. Your very very best come from that. If you do not chase after God powerfully and, and directly and, and, and, and wholeheartedly, if you don't do that with all that, you,

you're going to miss out. You're going to miss out on the promised land. He says,

do not be afraid of them. For the Lord your God is with you who brought you out of the land of Egypt. What he's saying is I'm the same God who delivered you from one of the most powerful nations in the world as a slave, I delivered you from the world.

Now for the Jews, that would have been Egypt. For us, that means he's delivered us from sin and darkness and death. He's given us newness of life. In his son Jesus Christ, he's victorious.

He has become victorious over sin and death. Death. Where is your victory?

He put to power. He put to death he who had the power of death. He is life. In fact, John says it over and over again. I love it. In him was life and that life was light to men.

We are victorious over this. He says, I, I brought you out of Egypt. I'm going to bring you into the promised land. So it shall be. Notice that's a legal, let's take legal terminology.

It shall it so it shall be. Meaning it's going to happen. When you are on the verge of battle, the priest shall approach and speak to the people. Remember, the preacher priests are the one who have direct access to God.

Who, who is that in the New Testament Us, all of us, all of us, we all have, we're a kingdom of priests. We all have access to God. Some of us walk with God better.

Some of them have been more, more mature. Some of them know, know better. Some of us walk that path farther and longer. But that doesn't mean you don't have access to God.

You are king. You are king and a priest. You're, you're a royal priesthood. You, you have royal power. You're, you're a part of the family. You're, you're a co heir with Christ and you have direct access to God.

He says so it bel, so it will be.

The priest shall approach and speak to the people and he shall say to them, hear, O Israel. And now we're talking, we're transition it to the New Testament. Hear O Chad.

Put your name in there. Today you on the verge of battle. And you are every day, every day you're on verge of battle. This is your day with your enemies.

Who are my enemies, Powers and principalities and rulers of this dark age who are holding back the promises of God are trying to keep me from not taking, from taking the, the promises of God.

Fear causing me to fear and to run away in, in fright from, from the promises of God. Do not let your heart faint so I can speak this to myself because I'm a priest.

Do not let your heart faint. Don't, don't, don't. Don't shrink away from the battle.

Engage the battle. Do not be afraid.

I think he already said that, didn't he? I want you to notice whenever you come across a passage where he says do not be afraid, he never says it once.

Rarely does he ever say it once. Okay. Why? Because, you know, we pretty much need to be said a lot.

We do. I mean, we do. Don't be afraid. He already said, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, he says, and do not tremble or be terrified because of them.

Don't look at them. If you look at them, you're going to tremble. If you look at God, you're going to realize they don't have that power.

But you got, but you got, you got to do that. It's not easy. I'm not telling you. I've already told you this is a process and I told you, I'm a pastor and I kind of point to you to follow Christ so that he can lead you into the promised land.

You don't start out in the promised land. It's a process to get there. I know it's hard, but the mindset matters at the outset.

The mindset matters at the outset, by the, by the way. The mindset matters during the battle and the mindset matters at the end. But the mindset is ultimately important at the outset.

You must walk in freedom. You must walk in joy, you must walk in power. And you must not walk in fear.

It says, do not tremble or to be terrified because of them. For the Lord your God is he who goes with you. Notice he's always saying, I'm with you.

He is always saying, I'm with you.

He says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. He's always saying that you know and he is God.

He's not a man that he should lie.

He is always with you.

That's why we got to keep our eyes on him. We got to keep our heart tuned into him.

We got to keep our mind focused on his will and his way.

And then we can not be afraid. Otherwise you're going to be afraid because you're weak.

We are.

He is strong. He has made us to be strong, but we're not yet. And until we walk in it, you're not.

So he says, do not be afraid. I'm with you.

He goes with you to fight,

to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.

Notice who's the one doing, really doing the fight?

He is.

He is. He's doing the fight. You're just doing the.

Well, you are doing the fighting but not being effective.

He's doing the fight.

You're battling alongside of him so that you might learn to act as he acts and to be as he is. But the truth is, is that he's the winner of the battle.

You just get to wear the uniform.

I like the uniform.

I'd like to wear it.

I love to be a part of the children of God. I love to be a part of the kingdom of God. I love to see other people in my family and my kingdom being victorious from all walks of life,

from all backgrounds who trust in Jesus and walk victorious before Him.

That's available for us all.

Spirit filled Christian life taking the promises of God is available for us all requires a mindset.

We're going to talk about that mindset in a lot of detail over the next.

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 Jesu