DEUTERONOMY 11 REMEMBER WHY YOU SHOULD OBEY GOD2021 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Deuteronomy 11 Remember Why You Should Obey God

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2021. As we look at Deuteronomy chapter 11 this morning, I've titled the message, Remember Why You Should Obey.

And I want to encourage you to begin in your mind to think back and start to consider, as we've been thinking back over the past 30 years as a church, great memories and many things that are important to remember. But also thinking back in your life, the times that God has worked and the things that he has done.

As we've talked about Deuteronomy the past couple weeks, we've been reminded that Deuteronomy is really a book that is a reminder in and of itself, where it is the second telling of the law, the recounting of the things that God has done by Moses to the children of Israel as they're on the verge of heading into the promised land.

They're right on the verge of so many things that God is going to do for them and so many promises that will be fulfilled in their lives. So many battles and victories, so many great things that God is going to do. They're right on the verge of that. Now Moses is handing off the baton with the book of Deuteronomy. He is communicating these things once again, things that have been also recorded in the prior books, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. But

But he's recounting them and reminding them to the current generation. If you remember the first generation, they got to the edge of the promised land and they said, we will not obey. We're not going to enter in. We don't trust God to protect us and provide for us in that land. And so the result was they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and that whole generation died out in the wilderness. But now there's the next generation. It's their kids.

When they first were about to enter into the promised land and refused, this generation, the oldest, was 20 years old. And so now it's 40 years later.

38 years later technically, but it's about 40 years later, and so this generation has now grown up. They were part of the initial things coming out of Egypt, but also it was a long time ago, and they were mostly young children or teenagers when those things took place. And so Moses says, you know, it's important for you to kind of go back

over the last 40 years of your life, if you have that much time to review in your life, and reflect on the things that God has done. And specifically, this is why you should obey God, as you think about all the things that He has done in your life over the past 40 years.

And so we're going to walk our way through Deuteronomy chapter 11 and look at four reasons to obey God as we remember some of their history and it causes us to remember some of our history as well. And so the first thing to remind us of is found in verses 1 through 8. Here's why we should obey God because you have seen him work.

Obey God because you have seen him work. And again, Moses is pointing them back to the work that God has done in their lives. Look at verse 1 and 2. It says, Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his judgments, and his commandments always. Know today that I do not speak with your children...

who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the Lord your God, his greatness and his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. Moses here begins with the word, therefore, which tells us this is not really a brand new subject that is being introduced here in chapter 11, but it's tied to the chapters that come before it. These chapters are really one long speech, one long address of Moses to the people of Israel.

And so backing up a few verses back into chapter 10, we find the reason for the therefore. And it's always that great principle. When you see the therefore, find out what it's there for, right? What thought is being connected?

Well, as you go back to chapter 10, you can kind of read verse 17 through the end of the chapter and see that what Moses is saying is that God is a great God. He is a big God. He is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is mighty. He is awesome. He is compassionate and merciful. He is loving. He is provided. And so he is powerful.

reviewing these attributes of God. In chapter 10, verse 21, he says, He is your praise and he is your God who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. He's telling the children of Israel, look, God is great. He is big. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. And he has done great things in your midst. He reminds them in verse 22 of Deuteronomy 10, you guys went to Egypt as a family of just 70 people.

But now you have come out as a nation, a great multitude, because of God's amazing work in your life. And it's on that thought that he says, therefore, you shall love the Lord your God. Therefore, because God is big, because God is great, and because God has worked greatly in your life, you shall love the Lord your God and keep his charge.

And here Moses is tying together two very important things, love and obedience. Love and obedience go hand in hand. They are really inseparable when it comes to our understanding of and our relationship with God. You know, sometimes as believers, we make the mistake of thinking of the Old Testament as legalism.

We make too much of a distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament. We make too much of a distinction between the way that they would approach God and the way that we approach God. Now, of course, we know a lot through the ministry of Jesus and his relationship with the religious leaders that the people of God turned God's law into legalism in a way that was not at all God's intention or design. But we must also remember that

Really, things have not changed. Here's what I'm trying to say. Righteousness has always been by faith. And Paul makes that point in the book of Romans that it was not legalism that made people right with God in the Old Testament. It's always been by faith. Now, faith has always been expressed by obedience.

And so their relationship with the law was the outpouring of, the outflow of, the evidence of their faith in God. It was not what made them righteous. Faith made them righteous. Faith brought them into right relationship with God. But that faith in God was expressed then in obedience to the instruction that God has given. And so righteousness has always been by faith. Faith has always been the expression of obedience.

or expressed by obedience. And love has always been expressed by service. And so the children of Israel would serve the Lord because they loved the Lord. They would obey the Lord and walk in the law because they trusted in God. And because of their faith in God, they were counted righteous and had right relationship with God. It really has not changed. There are certain particulars, of course, that have changed in that

Well, there is not a temple for us to go and worship God at, right? The structure and some of those details have changed because Jesus Christ came on the scene, fulfilled all of the pictures of that Old Testament Levitical system, but it's the same concepts. Righteousness is still always by faith. We believe the Lord and it's accounted to us for righteousness. We believe in Jesus and we are accounted as righteous.

And our belief, our faith in God is expressed by obedience still today. That is an outflow of our trust in God. And service unto the Lord is an expression of a demonstration of our love for God. We don't earn our salvation by our obedience, and we don't earn our salvation by our service. That comes by faith. And out of faith comes obedience.

And as we walk with the Lord in obedience, we learn to love him. We develop this appreciation and greater depth of love for him. And it overflows in our lives in the expression of service. The same concepts, just slightly different approach, slightly different details as a result of the fulfillment of the law, which is Jesus Christ.

Now Jesus kind of alludes to this as well in John chapter 14. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. John chapter 14 verse 15. And then a few verses down from there, John 14 21, he says, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. And so here is Moses says,

Remember the things that God has done. Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God and keep his commandments. Tying this love and obedience together, Jesus agrees later on in John 14, and he says, yes, if you love me, then you keep my commandments. These two things are tied together.

And we must continue to remind ourselves of this so that we don't get into that place of, I love Jesus, but I'm going to live how I want to live and do what I want to do and disregard what God has said. And Jesus then says it the other way, if you keep my commandments, it's because you love me.

That is, you cannot keep the commandments of God without loving God, without having that relationship with Him. If we try to keep the commandments of God through our own strength, through our own resources, with our own efforts, we will fail every time. But if we have a real relationship with the Lord and we love Him, as we walk with Him, He enables us to keep His commandments, to walk with Him in obedience.

And so therefore, he says, you shall love the Lord and keep his commandments. This is what God still instructs us today. Because of who he is, because of what he's done, love him and keep his commandments. Now still, the reminder here in verses 1 through 8 is to obey God because you have seen him work. Notice what Moses says in verse 2 here of Deuteronomy 11.

The first generation reached the border of the promised land, and they refused to obey. They would not enter into the promised land. So they die out in the wilderness. Now here's the second generation. And Moses says, generation number two, I'm speaking specifically to you. I'm not talking to the third generation so much.

Now this current generation, they have children, and there's kids growing up, there's teenagers, now those who have been born during this wilderness experience, those who have grown up during this time, there is a third generation. But Moses says, I'm not so much speaking to them right now, because the current generation, listen, you guys are the ones who are going to go in and accomplish what it is that God has set before you. And I want to remind you, Moses says...

Your children will have a little bit different experience because they didn't see the things that you saw. They didn't experience the things that you experienced. Now, this generation, this current generation, Moses says, I want you to think back and remember all the things that you have seen. And he goes on to list a bunch of different examples of things that they've seen God do. They saw the Lord's chastening, he says in verse 2.

How God disciplined the nation and dealt with issues of disobedience and rebellion and brought them to an understanding of who God is as a result. They saw examples of his greatness and his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. As God has worked miracles, as God has done amazing things for them. Now the next few verses he goes on to give some more examples of his work. The deliverance from Egypt in verse 3 and 4.

Verse 3 says, his signs and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and to all his land. What he did to the army of Egypt and their horses and their chariots, how he made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day. God says, you guys, you were there, you walked through the Red Sea, you experienced that deliverance from God. Moses says, so don't forget that.

Kind of go back and relive that in your mind. Experience that again and remember what it was like to walk in the deliverance of God in that way. You've seen God work mightily. You were part of this deliverance from Egypt. Another example he gives in verse 5 is the provision that God had given in the wilderness. Verse 5 says, what he did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place.

Now that's a big summary, right? But you can think about the manna that was provided for them every day. Well, technically six days a week, right? But they had food provided for them for every day of the week by the Lord miraculously. Like they would just walk out of their tent and there would be the manna provided for them. They would just have to gather it up and then prepare it for their meal.

They didn't have to go hunting. They didn't have to go scrambling. They didn't have to, you know, break open their piggy banks to try to go to the market to get some food. Their food was just provided for them every day for 40 years. And so that's a lot to remember. That's a lot to reflect on. The times that God provided for them water and how he refreshed them and quenched their thirsts.

God provided for them in an abundance of ways. If you want to reflect on that a little bit further, I would encourage you to go back to Deuteronomy chapter 8, and there he gives a little bit more insight and details about some of the ways that God provided for them and worked on their behalf in the wilderness. But then he also gives the example of discipline. Discipline for rebellion in verse 6.

And what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and the substance that was in their possession in the midst of all Israel.

And here Moses is referring back to the event recorded in Numbers chapter 16, the rebellion of Korah and these other two guys, Dathan and Abiram, were instrumental guys in the rebellion that took place. And so he reminds them of this incredible event where God supernaturally brought discipline for the rebellion that was going on in the midst of Israel. And so Moses here says, listen,

You know that God is big. You know that he is great. You know that he is king of kings and lord of lords. He took you from a small group of people to this now great multitude. And you've seen personally, you've witnessed the deliverance from Egypt. You've witnessed the provision in the wilderness. You've witnessed discipline for those who rebel against God.

Verse 7, but your eyes have seen every great act of the Lord, which he did. Your eyes have seen this. And as they prepare to head into the promised land, they need to remember and be reminded of all of these things that God has done. Now, I think in my head, if I was one of those who walked through the Red Sea, you know what I mean? Saw it piled up on either side and I'm walking across dry ground.

I would say, you never need to remind me of that again, right? Because that would have been such an amazing experience, such an incredible work of God. I would not need to be reminded of that. But this is 40 years later. And the reality is, as much as I might feel like I wouldn't need to be reminded of that, the reality is, you know what? I probably would need to be reminded of that.

Because even when God does these incredible, outstanding, amazing, earth-shattering miracles in our lives, a little bit of time passes and the experience, the lessons, the truths begin to fade from our memory. And I would suggest to you that it's important and appropriate for us, especially in times of transition in our lives and times when God is doing new things to us,

To have an opportunity to sit back and reflect on what God has done up to this point. To remind us why we should obey the Lord. To remind us to keep walking with the Lord in this way. And like Israel, in these examples that Moses provided, we can remember God's deliverance in our lives. We can remember God's provision for us. And we can also remember, and we need to remember, God's discipline in our lives when we've been out of line.

And I would encourage you to maybe spend some time thinking through your relationship with God over how many ever years that has been, or weeks or months, whatever is appropriate for you, but to think about and consider to be refreshed and renewed and to kind of maybe relive some of those experiences in your mind of God's deliverance, God's provision, and God's discipline.

In verse 8, Moses says, Verse 1 says,

In verse 8, kind of go hand in hand, say the same thing, right? He's saying, therefore, you should be obedient. Therefore, you should be obedient. Remember how big God is and what he's done. Remember how he's worked in your life and the things that you've witnessed. Therefore, you shall keep every commandment which I command you today. So make sure you're obedient, Moses says. Obey God because you've seen him work. And you have in your life examples of God's deliverance.

You have in your life examples of God's provision. You have in your life examples of God's discipline. You've seen God work in your life. That reminder, remembering those things, should be a great encouragement to you for right now to be obedient to God, to take His commands and put them into action in your life.

Well, moving on to verses 8 through 15, here we get the second reminder this morning, and that is obey God because you will enjoy His blessings. Here's another reason why we should obey God, because God has blessings in store for you. And through your obedience, you open yourself up to, you enable yourself to enjoy His blessings.

Again, verse 8 says, Here Moses says, listen, you need to be obedient to the Lord. You need to be

practicing what it is that he has told you. And when you do, the result is you're going to be strong. And when you cross over, you're going to possess the land that God is giving to you. Understand there, the implication is they had the opportunity to not possess the land, just like the previous generation had the opportunity to not possess the land. And they chose not to possess the land. And so they spent their days in the wilderness. Now this new generation, God says,

It's the same choice. Be obedient, which means step out in faith and enter into the promised land and receive the promises that I have for you. In verse 9, he says that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers. God promised this land to you. Now there is the possibility that you only get a short time there. There's a possibility you don't enter in if you don't obey right now.

There's the possibility that you enter in, but you stop being obedient, and so your days there in the promised land are short. There's the possibility that you don't get to experience all that God has for you. And notice it's once again described as a land flowing with milk and honey. And that's a way of expressing the abundance of

of all that this land produced, the many blessings, the multitude of blessings that God had in store for them. He says, obey God because he has all of this blessing in store for you. You want strength to be able to face the battles and handle the issues? You want strength? He says, obey God that you may be strong.

You want to receive the promises of God? You want to experience those things that are there for you, that God wants to provide for you? He says, obey God, because then you'll be able to possess the land. You'll be able to possess and receive the promises that God has for you. You want to enjoy a long time in the midst of God's work and His blessings? Prolong your days in that? Obey God.

And it will lengthen your time, lengthen your ability, increase your capacity to enjoy the blessings that God wants to provide. This land flowing with milk and honey. Going on to verse 10, it says, For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt, which you have come, or from which you have come, where you sowed and your seed sown.

and watered it by foot as a vegetable garden. But the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares. The eyes of the Lord your God are always on it from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. God now gives them a contrast to consider. Coming out of the land of Egypt, that's all they've known. They've never lived

in this region, in the land of Canaan that was promised to them. And so God says, you need to understand living in this land is not going to be like living in the land of Egypt. In the land of Egypt, your experience in producing crops and harvests was vastly different. In the land of Egypt, he says in verse 10, you watered it by foot.

Now, there's a little bit of discussion about what that means that they watered it by foot. And some believe that the Egyptians had a pumping system that they would operate by foot. So maybe you think about like being attached to a pump, being attached to a bicycle, although it wouldn't have looked like that, right? But you know what I mean? Some kind of contraption that they would operate by their feet to pump water out of the Nile River into their fields so that they could grow the crops, right?

Another alternative, another understanding of this would just be they would have to work to dig the channels and the different paths for the water to flow from the Nile to the various places. And so they were on their feet working, clearing the paths, digging the ditches, digging the trenches, and bringing water to the fields from the Nile River.

He said, look, you had to work hard, essentially, to get water to all of your fields, to get water. And so you were limited by, you know, how far you could get the water or how much water you could bring to the crops that you were seeking to grow. But the Lord says, look, the promised land is not like that. It drinks in the water from heaven. It drinks in the rain from heaven. The water provision for the land of Canaan is radically different.

There's a lot of concepts that are similar. There's still the sowing and the reaping and those kind of things, but the water is provided by the Lord. He says, the eyes of your God are always on it. And so there is this provision of water that will be a tremendous blessing to you. Now, we don't know exactly how much has changed, but just to give you a little bit of perspective, currently, the land of Egypt is

receives less than three inches of rain a year. As a whole, the whole nation receives about three inches of rain. Now, if you need a little bit of context for that, the average rainfall here in California is 21 inches.

So, you know, we are always on the verge of drought conditions, right? For us, we get as a state about 21 inches of rain every year. Egypt gets three inches of rain or less. That's normal for the nation of Egypt.

Now, the nation of Israel currently gets about the same as the state of California, about 21 inches a year. I would suggest, I would propose that that's not what God meant when he said the land drinks up the rain. He wasn't talking about 21 inches a year.

I would suggest that we are seeing Israel now in the condition that it's in physically because the children of Israel did not continue to walk with God. They didn't continue to obey God. And so this is the fulfillment of God's other promises that if you don't obey me and don't walk with me, then I won't send the rains like I used to.

But they get an abundance of rain currently compared to Egypt still, and I would suggest it was even more exaggerated at the time that Moses was writing this or speaking this to the nation.

But so anyways, the Lord is saying, look, I have great blessings here for you. This land is going to receive the water that it needs, and you're going to be able to grow crops in abundance and experience a great blessing in produce in the promised land. Verse 13, and it shall be that if you earnestly obey my commandments, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, you will be able to receive the water that it needs.

God says, you're going into this land. Here's how it operates. It receives a normal rainfall called the early rain, and it's going to be filled with grass.

in October and November time frame. Then it receives another season of rainfall in April. And these two seasons of rainfall, these early and latter rains, cause the land to produce abundantly. And so you'll have grass for all your livestock, and they'll be well fed and taken care of.

And you'll have an abundance of crops of grain and wine and oil because God is providing this water. But notice there the condition, if you earnestly obey in verse 13. There was this attachment to obedience in receiving the blessing that God wanted to give. And again, as Christians, sometimes we mistake obedience

the differences between the Old Testament and the New Testament. And we think that Old Testament, they had to earn their salvation. New Testament, we don't. No, Old Testament, they didn't have to earn their salvation. It was by faith. New Testament, we don't have to earn our salvation. It's by faith. But when it comes to receiving the blessings from God, there is still an attachment to obedience.

It hasn't changed. We still express our faith in God by being obedient to God, by trusting Him enough to do what He says. And so for the nation of Israel, this early and latter reign would be provided for them as they continued and maintained their faithfulness to obey God, to love Him and to serve Him, as they continued to stay close to the Lord in this way.

in obedience, in love, in service. Again, righteousness is the result of faith. Faith expresses itself in obedience and love expresses itself in service. And so they would be in this constant state of needing to be walking with God, of needing to know God and be close to God, that they would continue to experience the blessings that God had designed and intended for them. Pastor David Guzik says this,

The constant need for rain kept Israel in constant dependence on the Lord. It is good for us to have things that keep us in constant dependence on the Lord. We should never despise those things and long for the day when we will no longer need to depend on God as much. There were some great promises there in the promised land, but none of those promises were an independence from God.

None of those promises were, you're never going to need God again, and you won't need to obey God because you'll be set for life. But that is how sometimes the promises of God were interpreted and lived out by the people of Israel. Sometimes that's how the promises of God are interpreted and lived out by believers today. And we need to understand that

No, God allows for these things in our lives that cause us to rely upon Him and be dependent upon Him. And they're important for us because what we need the most is to be close to Him and to trust in Him and to walk with Him. And as we do, we then get to experience. We then get to enjoy the blessings that He has for us. Obey God because you will enjoy His blessings.

Well, as we continue on in verses 16 through 21, we get the third reminder why we should obey the Lord our God. Point number three this morning, obey God to protect yourself from deception. Obey God because you need protection from the deception that we are susceptible to. Verse 16 says this,

Verse 1.

and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Here as Moses continues on, he says, take heed. Be warned. Take heed. Be very cautious. Be aware. Be alert. It's the idea of guarding ourselves against a danger. What's the danger? He says, your heart can be deceived. It's something that we must not forget. Every one of us still today, no matter how long we have walked with the Lord...

are vulnerable to deception. There is a danger of deception continually. Satan didn't give up on us when we first believed in Jesus and said, well, I guess my chance was over then. I will not try to deceive those people any longer. That's not the way that it works. There is still a spiritual battle for your soul. There is still great endeavors by the enemy to deceive you. There is still the weakness of our own flesh to

that makes us vulnerable and susceptible to deception, there is still the wicked heart, the sinful nature, that is in its best feature, its best quality, is deception. That's what Jeremiah says, right? The heart is deceitful above all things. That is, your heart has a lot of qualities, has a lot of things it can do well, but the thing that it does the best is deception.

And so here the Lord wants us to remember, he wants to remind us, as vulnerable as we are to deception, and if you really understand that, it can be quite scary, because it's like, how do I know I'm going to continue in the truth and not be deceived? That can kind of freak you out for a while. The Lord provides the answer. Here's how you make sure that you stay the course.

that you don't get turned aside, that you don't get deceived and really shipwreck yourself and your life as a result of deception. It's through obedience. It's through obedience. He's saying, be obedient to God because that will protect you, that will keep you

away from these dangers. Notice verse 18. Therefore, you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. He introduces the danger here of deception in verse 16, and he says, here's how you protect yourself from that. Bind up the Word of God. Bind up the scriptures. Put them in your heart. Put them in your mind. Put them in your living space.

Put them on your face. Put them everywhere you go so that you are immersed in the things of God and in the Word of God. God says, look, you have a great danger of worshiping and serving other gods. As they would head into the land of Canaan, the Canaanites worshiped the god Baal, which they looked to as the god of fertility.

And those early and latter rains, they attributed to Baal. And God says, look, you're going to go in there. You're going to be tempted to worship their gods to try to continue to get the early and latter rains and experience the great blessings and produce that are the result of it. But don't do it. Don't get distracted by it. Don't allow those other gods, those false gods to deceive you and cause you to seek those things for blessing and provision instead of me.

Now this is just an example, one example of the dangers of deception that they would face. A couple chapters earlier, in Deuteronomy chapter 8, God warns them of a different kind of deception. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, you could look at, if you want to look at it later, verses 11 through 17. God runs down this whole list of things that might happen when they get into the promised land. He says, "...beware that you don't forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments."

Notice that not keeping God's commandments is equivalent to forgetting the Lord your God. There is sometimes that break in our understanding and we think, I love Jesus, I'm just not obedient. But no, forgetting the Lord is equivalent to not keeping his commandments. But he says, watch out that that doesn't happen, lest when you have eaten and are full, when you've built beautiful houses and dwell in them,

When you have herds and flocks that have multiplied, when your silver and gold are multiplied, when all that you have is multiplied, when your heart is lifted up and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

You forget that God led you in the wilderness. You forget that God fed you in the wilderness. And then the key verse there, Deuteronomy 8, verse 17, and you say in your heart, my power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth. See, this is another kind of deception that they were going to be faced with. As they go in and experience this abundance, the blessings that God had provided for them, the deception of pride that I have done this for myself.

The deception of pride that, wow, look how great and wonderful I am at farming. Look how great and wonderful I am at, you know, anticipating the future and putting crops in the right place where the rain was going to come. And, wow, look how smart I am. Look how I'm able just so strategically, you know, to be able to make these deals. And, man, we have just multiplied and attribute that success to themselves.

He says in Deuteronomy 8.18, you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day. God says, I'm going to fulfill the promise, but here's what you need to do. Remember, it's God who gives you the ability to get wealth. That abundance, you know, if I were to ask you, you know, which would you rather have in your life, victory or failure? Abundance

or lack? Which would you rather have, right? Which is better for you? We, of course, would lean towards victory. We would lean towards abundance. We would want those things. We would think that abundance and victory are safer places for us to be. But sometimes, abundance and victory is the worst place for us to be because we're vulnerable to this deception to start thinking, I did this by my hand.

I worked hard for this job. I worked hard for this money. I worked hard for this savings. I worked hard for this, you know, whatever we might be considering. And we might forget in our deceived state, in our deceived condition, in our pride, we might forget that it's God who enables us to get wealth. It's God who gives us smarts to be smart with, right? It's God who gives us wisdom and enables us. We need to be careful to obey God.

that we would protect ourselves from deception. Obedience to God protects us from this deception of pride. It protects us from the worship of false gods. It protects us from all the kinds of deception that the enemy seeks to use to penetrate our heart and to draw us away from God. Now the danger, the result of deception is

given to us there in verse 17, lest the Lord's anger be aroused against you, and he shut up the heaven so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the Lord your God is giving you. And so the result of deception there is you're going to lose all those blessings. He'll stop sending the rain. He'll stop allowing the land to produce, and you'll perish quickly. If you allow yourself to get deceived, you're

It's going to take you away from God and you will stop receiving the blessings that God wants to give to you. It's an important thing for us to consider. I really liked what J. Vernon McGee said about this. He says, in an affluent society such as we live in today, where things come so easily, I am afraid that people assume God has nothing in the world to do with it. I do not understand why people think that if things come easily, they have done it.

If things come with difficulty, then God must be in it. Well, God is the one who provides for all our physical needs. Whether things come to us easily or with difficulty, he is still the provider. We may not feel like we live in an affluent society, but a quick study of history, a quick look at the world around us outside of our immediate context, really reveals and shows, even though we have difficulties and hardships and things that we struggle with,

We do really live in an affluent society. And so much comes easily to us. And we can attribute it to so many things. Well, it's because we live in a democracy. And democracy is our savior. And that's why everything is so great here. And we don't give God the credit that is due. We've been deceived when we approach it that way, when we think in those terms. For ourselves personally, I can relate to what McGee is saying here.

There's so many times that we're like, it happened easily, the plan was successful, I did a great job, right? But things are difficult, things are challenging, man, I wonder what God is doing. It's this misunderstanding that in both cases, it's God who's working and God who desires to provide for us. And sometimes what's best for us is the difficulty so that God can grow us and develop us in the way that we need to grow and develop.

And sometimes we do get to experience the blessings of God, but it's never as a separate thing from God that we get to experience those things, that we just get the rewards of our own efforts. It's always the blessings of God that are rooted in obedience. Obey God to protect yourself from deception, that you don't get sucked into the pride of victory or success.

that you don't get sucked into the worship of other gods, that you don't get sucked into the many tactics that the enemy desires to use against you. And again, the way to do that, verse 18, therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul and bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Immerse yourself, fill your life with the word of God.

And then to further that protection of deception, he says, pass it on to the next generation. Verse 19, you shall teach them to your children. Speaking of them, when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up, you need to protect yourself. You also need to protect your kids. And so you need to teach them. This next generation that didn't get to see the Red Sea, you need to teach them the words of God. You need to teach them how to walk with God.

You need to teach them and help them learn to love God and to know God. And in you teaching them, it's protecting you from deception. Because not only are you immersed, but now you're communicating, you're teaching. And so you're not just doing that for the sake of the next generation. They need it, and that's important.

But you need it. You need to teach because you need to teach, not just because they need to hear and they need to learn, but because you need to teach it because it's good for you and it helps you to hold fast to the word of God, to teach the things of God to the next generation. He goes on in verse 20, you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates and

that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth. God has great things for a long time in store, so include the Word of God in your foundations, in your doorposts, at your gates, so that when you come, when you go, you are reminded of, you are instructed in, you are taught to hold fast to the Word of God.

Now doing the outward expression of this and literally putting it on your doorpost, putting it on your gate, writing scriptures on there is great. But of course, it's more than just that because we can wear a cross around our neck and then go out and live a sinful life. Wear a cross around our neck but not have the cross impact our heart. That doesn't help. And so beautiful arts from Hobby Lobby on our walls that talk about the scriptures are great things.

But that's not the fulfillment of this, right? That doesn't protect you from deception in and of itself. But what we need then is to take those things and for them to impact our lives, for us to be obedient to God, make our decisions by what the scripture says, make our choices, live our life, determine our course by what the word of God says and be obedient to him. And the way to protect ourselves from deception is by that obedience. And so remember why you should obey God.

Because you've seen him work. Because he promises blessings for you to enjoy. Because it protects you from deception. And finally, we're going to look at verses 21 through 25, or 22 through 25. Point number four, obey God because he will work for you.

Similar to the promise of blessings, here God says, I'm going to work on your behalf as you enter into the land and walk with me. Verses 22 through 25 says this, if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to hold fast to him, then the Lord will drive out these nations from before you, and you will dispossess nations, or sorry, greater and mightier nations than yourselves.

Every place in which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. From the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even to the western sea shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand against you. The Lord your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as he has said to you. Here the nation of Israel gets some more incredible promises from God. God says, I am going to work on your behalf.

I'm going to give you this land. And there's bigger nations, there's mightier nations. Militarily, they outflank you, they outrank you, they outpower you. But I'm going to give you their land. But notice the condition there in verse 22. For if you carefully keep all these commandments. Some of the promises of God have conditions attached to them. There are some promises of God that are unconditional. And God's love for you is unconditional.

But the work of God in your life very often has this kind of condition attached. If you carefully keep all these commandments. He adds on to that there in verse 22, to love the Lord your God, to walk on all his ways, and to hold fast to him. Loving God, walking with him, obeying him, would result in the fulfillment of all these things that God wanted to do for them.

The outpouring of his work on their behalf was rooted in their obedience to him and his word. It is something that we can understand for us today as well. There's so much that God wants to do in our lives that is available. It's there. He's capable, but he's calling us to be obedient. He's calling us to receive what he has for us.

By taking his word and putting it into practice in our lives. J. Vernon McGee says it this way, Why is there such a difference in believers today? Some Christians are sitting on the sidelines and are poverty-stricken spiritually. Others are fabulously rich spiritually. God makes it clear that he's blessed all believers with the spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 1. Some believers claim those blessings, some do not. Some believers enjoy those blessings, but

Some do not. Now, this isn't talking about our physical life. This isn't talking about our health. Those things are not necessarily a reflection of our obedience to God. Refer back to the book of Job for that, right? But spiritually, spiritually, we have access. We all have the same access to God. And yet there are some who know God to a greater degree than others. Why? Not because they have better access, not because they have special favor, but because they're more obedient.

to get to know God. They're more obedient. They receive it. They claim the blessings of God and live in them and walk in them. Listen, all that God has for you, He wants to provide, He wants to give, but He does call you to participate in that work. And it's through obedience. Again, obedience means

is the expression of faith. I believe God, and so therefore, I trust Him enough to take His word and to put it into practice in my life, to do what it is that He tells me to do. And so God tells them, He gives them the promise, if you do that, if you take the things I'm commanding you and live them out, then I'll drive out the nations before you.

And even though those nations are bigger and mightier and there's no military reason why you should be able to drive them out, you will be able to drive them out because you're obedient to me and I'm working on your behalf. Translating that to us today, we're not talking about conquering nations, we're talking about our spiritual life. Listen, you are capable of very little in the spiritual realm on your own, but you can do such great things for God by obedience to him alone.

You're able to dispossess greater and mightier things than yourself. You're able to cast out the forces of evil, the demons of darkness. You're able to work on behalf of God, to impact the kingdom of God, to make a difference for eternity in the world around you because the Lord will drive out those nations as you obey him. He says in verse 24, "'Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours.'"

That's a great promise, but it also speaks then of actually physically going and putting your foot there, right? For the nation of Israel, they couldn't just claim victory over places they've never been. They had to go to those places, put their foot there, essentially putting themselves in danger, right? They'd have to go into enemy territory and then claim it and receive it from the Lord out of obedience and in faith.

Pastor Warren Wiersbe says, look, you don't claim a land by studying a map and dreaming about conquest. You claim the land by stepping out in faith, believing God's word and depending on his faithfulness. You claim the land by stepping out in faith. You claim God's promises by stepping out in faith. And you and I, we need to not just study the scriptures theologically, but

understand them intellectually, we then need to work out how does this impact my life practically? How do I go set foot and take steps of faith and do things that God wants me to do? Well, God says, if you do that, no one will be able to stand against you. There's nothing that could stand in your way. You walking in the plan of God and the center of God's will will

There's nothing that can stand in your way because you're walking out, living out obedience to God. And He will work for you to accomplish His purposes, no matter what opposition there may be, no matter what obstacles there may be, He's able to overcome. And so this morning, we're reminded, again, the children of Israel, they're on the verge of all these amazing things that God promised to them.

He says, what you need to remember as you head into the promised land is obedience. That's the most important thing here. Head in and be obedient. And God will fulfill all of these promises. You've seen him work, so you know that he can fulfill all these promises. Obey God because you've seen that happen. You've seen him work. He's got all these blessings. He wants good things for you. So obey God because he wants what's best for you. You're vulnerable to deception. And it's quite easy for us to be led astray.

So protect yourself and be obedient to God. Let him work on your behalf and fight battles for you by looking to him in his word, looking to see what he says about your life, about your situations, about the things that you're facing. Make your decisions based upon God's word and God's will for your life.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the great opportunity to know you, to walk with you, to hear from you, Lord, that is granted to us by faith in what you have accomplished for us at the cross. And so, Lord, we come to you and we do seek you, Lord, for wisdom and instruction and direction in our lives. I pray, God, that you would show us how we can be obedient to you, to take steps of faith and move forward in your will and your plans, Lord, that we might receive the blessings and

Your work and your promises that you have in store for us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.