Deuteronomy 20:5-7 Bible Study | Episode 918

 April 16, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 20:5-7  Bible Study | Episode #918

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 verses 5 through 7.

It is a really, it's a lot of fun chat. It's a fun chapter and it is a very interesting chapter, as I said yesterday, because it does have a direct correlation in the sense of entering into the promises of God, entering into God's best,

having the Spirit filled life, having the fullness of what God's plan is for us in the Spirit filled life. It has a direct, and when I say direct, I'm talking about dead on direct correlation with the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of the New Testament about how to live the Christian life,

how it is done the best way. And when I say that, I'm not talking about the practicalities of what you do each day. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the actual mindset required for you to live out the Christian life in a powerful,

productive, joyful,

restful, peaceful way.

And so when you're studying through this, it is really, really important that you know that,

that you understand it, that you see it, that it makes sense to you. And so we get to this passage where it says, then the officer shall speak to the people, saying, what man is there who has built a new house and has not dedicated it?

Let him go and return to his house lest he die in battle. And another man dedicated also, what man is there who has planted a vineyard and has not eaten of it?

Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man eat of it. And what man is there who is betrothed to a woman and has not married her?

Let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another man marry her. Now this has some really good practical purposes as far as just pure military.

Military, well, understanding how to lead soldiers into battle. And what that means is if you have someone whose thoughts and mind and heart or somewhere else, meaning they're back at home because of their house, their vineyard, their, their fiance, if you have someone like that, they are not going to be useful to you in battle.

They're not going to. They're going to. They're going to. They're going to not fight in such a way that's going to be victorious. They're going to be focused on the things they're tied to back at home.

Now, if you move that and listen,

that's a reasonable instruction for God to say, look, if you're too tied to your own business to be about my business, then you don't need to go because you're probably going to die in battle.

Because if you're focused on protecting yourself, you won't fight hard enough to win. And I remember being taught that, you know, even in football, which is so strange. But if you're worried about when you're playing football, if you're worried about not getting hurt, that's the best way to get hurt.

You've got to play with reckless abandon. Because your body takes those blows that come when you're playing with reckless abandon and without fear takes it a lot better because you're not always tensed up trying to protect yourself.

Well, the same true of battle. If you're always trying to make sure you don't die, what you do is you cause you're a impediment to your unit and you're more likely to cause them to die and for you to die.

So God says, don't do that. Now, how does this relate to, how does this relate to the Christian life? Well, it has a direct correlation to the Christian life.

Jesus twice spoke to the multitudes who are coming to follow him,

and they were coming after him.

And when they came to follow him,

he told him, and this is in Matthew, chapter 8, he says in verse 18. And when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, meaning they were coming to follow him, that's a picture of being a disciple.

And he's going to address being a follower of his. He says, then a certain scribe came to him and said, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. What he's saying is, you're not going to find a home here in the earth, a true home here in the earth, if you're a follower of mine.

What he's saying is for those People at that time, if you were going to be a follower of his, you needed to understand that they were going to be on the move all the time and they weren't going to have a permanent place of home because being a follower of his meant going to the people all the time.

See what he said is you can't be tied to a home here because if you're going to be my follower in this time, in this age, if you're going to be my follower here, you've got to, you've got to be, you've got to be wholly kingdom minded.

Then another of his disciples said to him, lord, let me first go bury my father, meaning I've got some business back at home with my family.

Jesus said to him,

Jesus said, lord, let me go bury my father. But Jesus said to him, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Which seems very, very harsh. It seems very, very harsh for Jesus to say that.

But it's not harsh because he understood it that if you were going to be a follower of his, you got, you had to, you had to give everything.

And, and, and the mindset of a believer who is living out the spirit filled Christian life can't be tied to the world. You can't tie your heart to the world or anything in the world.

And you go, well that, that's, that's, that's a pretty tough teaching, Pastor. Well, it is a pretty tough teaching, but In Luke chapter 14, Jesus says even more than that.

Again, it says now great multitudes went with him and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brother and sister, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

And whoever does not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Now notice that's even harsher and it would seem to be against his teaching. But you need to understand this word for hate does not mean, does not mean the word that you want them dead.

It's not the idea of wanting, having, wanting to have nothing to do with them. It has the idea of placing them in a secondary position.

I love, I, I love my wife and I hate my children. It doesn't mean that I hate my children. It just means my wife comes first.

I love, I love,

I love my, my family and I hate my pastor. Well,

I'm, I'm a husband and a father and, and so I don't hate my pastor. I just, he's not as important as my, as my family is. Well, that Makes perfect sense.

Well, Jesus said, you know, no relationship in this world can be more important than my relationship with you. You've, you've got to place your, your father and mother, your wife and children, your brothers and sisters, even your own life in a secondary position.

You can't love yourself more than you love me,

he says, and whoever, if you're not willing to take up your cross, meaning if you're not willing to place your own life on the line to follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

That's a, that is, that is the New Testament ideal. You can't be worldly focused, you can't be tied to the world and tied to the kingdom. You've got to choose one of the other and in order to experience spirit filled Christian life, that's the way it's gotta be.

It can't be any other way. Your mindset has to be God and his kingdom and what he's doing comes first and everything else comes second. Nothing else is, nothing else is more important than what God is doing in my life and what God is leading me to do.

And I, I will, I'll tell you this, it is, it is the key, the, the beginning key to understanding how to live the Christian life. You've got to place God and you've got to place him over all things.

Which means, you know, for some people to say, they'll say, you know, well, you know, I know I need to be here because God's leading me here. But you know, my family's over there, my fam, you know, my mom and dad go to this, this church over here.

You know, it's been this way for, it's a, you know, it's a family church. And you know, I know we really don't do anything for the kingdom, but you know, I just can't leave.

I've heard that so many, so many, so many times. And then, then, then, then, you know, 10 years later they're more miserable than they were before. And you have the same conversation with them and they're tied to it even great, greater.

I hear people all the time say, well, you know, my kids got this ball game. They've got, you know, they're part of this league. We joined this group and now we're, now we're, we're not going to be able to make church for,

you know, five or six Sundays this spring or this fall or, or whenever, this summer,

but we'll be back. Okay, well that's, that's fine. You can do that. But here's the Day. Here's the deal. You're, you're, you're choosing your children over your God, and by the way, you're teaching them to do the same.

All these things matter. Your mindset matters.

I know for sure that the mindset of my parents when I was growing up changed. It did when we were very, very small children and they were young, young and I was the smallest and they were young adults and they were trying to figure out their lives and they'd been married for a couple of years when I was born and,

and they didn't really, you know, they were young, they were young people.

I think of them as old people, but they were young people. At one point in time when I was a child and, you know, church wasn't super important to them.

I can remember many times we would be getting ready to go to church and something would happen or that it wouldn't work out or things weren't going well and, and we would just stay home and watch TV and I'd sit there in my church clothes and we wouldn't go.

But then I remember when I was an older child and on into my early teenage years,

things changed. My parents figured it out. They figured out how to chase after God. They went from being a cultural Christian, a Christian who is tied to church, to a, to a sold out Christians, to their minds and hearts, realized that they need to focus, they need to place Christ as the focus in the center of their lives.

And you know what happened then? I never missed church. I was at church all the time. I was at church, at prayer, event, everything that was going on.

And that wasn't me going to church, that was them going to church. But you know what? It helped me a whole, whole lot, helped me a whole, whole lot with my life because anytime I got in a place in my life where God was at first, that he wasn't the most important thing,

things didn't seem right. They didn't seem like they were in the right place. And let me say this, this happens for every believer where you have a, you have, you have this present world and then you have the kingdom of God and, and you have to choose, and you have to choose how you're gonna walk in that.

It reminds me of a man in scripture named Demas. And he's interesting because he's mentioned three times in the Bible. He's mentioned by the apostle Paul because he was someone who was a missionary like Paul was.

He went and spread the gospel around the world.

And the first time he's mentioned is Actually, in the book of Philemon. And he is greeting different people at the end of the book. And he says that Demas is his fellow laborer in the faith, meaning he's sending them a greeting.

Him and Demas and a few others,

Aristarchus and Luke and Mark. He says, all these people greet you.

A really cool group of people. Mark, the writer of the book of Mark,

meaning Paul's Gospel,

John. Mark, he's the writer of the book of Mark,

Peter's Gospel. Aristarchus, who is mentioned several times in Scripture. Luke, who is the writer of the Gospel of Luke, and Demas are mentioned as Paul's fellow laborer in the faith.

Then he's mentioned, just as in passing, he says, luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you. Meaning he doesn't say they're fellow laborers. He just says, you know, they greet you.

Then the last time he's mentioned is this. This way. It's found in 2 Timothy 4:10. It says, For Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. And it's departed for Thessalonica,

Crescent's for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.

And what he's saying is, these three men have decided to leave,

but Demas for sure has left me because he loved this present world.

And Jesus says, you can't love me and love the world.

And that is a heavy theme in first John, that you can't love God and love the world. You've got to love God first, and everything else has to come second.

And so, just as in Deuteronomy, where it says, you know, you can't be tied to things in this world and go off to battle. Well, you can't take God's promises, and you can't take the promised land.

If your first and foremost thought is something that's in this world, you can't. You've got to. Your first thought has to be for God,

love of him and love of his kingdom and love of his purposes. And if you live your life out that way,

you'll get all the. All the blessings of God. You'll have all the good things. My. My parents didn't miss out on their children. Their children. They had a relationship with all their children.

They didn't lose anything by selling out to God. As young, young,

you know, people in their early, late 20s, early 30s, they didn't lose anything from that.

They. They got great blessing and great peace from it.

But certain things, they. They set aside in order to do kingdom things.

And that has to be that way. You have to. You have to get the mindset of this is the most important thing. By the way,

all three of their sons played college football. All of us did.

So we didn't miss out because we didn't play sports on Sunday or Wednesday night even. We didn't miss out on anything.

You understand that God's the author of your future,

and you're far better off investing your life and your family's life in the kingdom than investing in anything else.

Because the kingdom is eternal.

Everything else passes away 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.