The Bible Recap - Day 074 (Deuteronomy 11-13) - Year 5

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible recap. Today we drop back in on Moses parting words to the Israelites before his death. And he starts with a command we've heard often, but we've never really drilled down on it. God has commanded us to love Him. The word love here indicates emotion. It's action adjacent, but it's emotion specific. How do you command a feeling? Jen Wilkins says, the heart cannot love what the mind does not know. And I'm guessing that by fixing your eyes on his word daily, by looking for him in Scripture instead of

for yourself, that you love him more now than you did 75 days ago. The more we take our eyes off ourselves and get to know this infinitely lovable God, the more we will love him. Moses speaks specifically to the adults among the crowd who were alive even when the Exodus happened, and he reminds them again to remember who God is

and what he has done for them. In 1116 he tells them to pay attention to their hearts. There are things around them that will entice them to worship them, and they have to be vigilant to not be led astray by these new shiny things. If they stay faithful to God, no nation will overtake them. God has already proven that he can defeat bigger armies. There's an interesting image at the end of chapter 11. He tells them to choose between blessing and cursing, represented by two different mountains, Mount Gerazeem, the Mount of blessing, and Mount Ebel, the Mount of cursing. The Israelites will perform the ceremony he commands for this later in Deuteronomy, so we'll just put a pit in it for now, but know that we're coming back to it.

Moses continues to warn against idolatry, and if it's starting to feel like he's repeating himself, it's because he is. First of all, he's old, and old men tend to repeat themselves a lot, but second, and most of all, that's what we all do when something is important. This is the theme of Deuteronomy. Moses is very concerned about their faithfulness to God, and it's good for us to read these things as well because we all need daily reminders of who God is. God called them to remember His Word when they sit and when they walk, when they lie down and when they stand, which happens lots of times a day, so surely we can read it once a day. He tells them again to destroy all the paraphernalia of worship to other gods,

and he includes a word we've seen a few times, but haven't talked about yet. The word is a sharam. A sharam was a fertility goddess, and the Canaanites worshipped fertility. Let's be honest, the Israelites kind of seem to as well, but in their own way. The a sharam are wooden poles with a figure of Ashera on them. God commanded them to destroy these when they entered Canaan. Another phrase you may see referenced sometimes when we're talking about idolatry is the term of high places.

Most of the pagan worship sites were set up on hills and on mountain tops, or under especially distinct trees. So anytime you see God telling them to destroy the high places or the trees, he's talking about destroying the places of Canaanite worship. Moses also reveals that there will be a major shift in how some of the laws and sacrifices work once they get into the Promised Land. First, in 125, he says there will be one specific place in the Promised Land where God will make his dwelling place.

This is nothing new, really. The manifest presence of the Lord dwells above the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle, but the Tabernacle will no longer be in the midst of the encampment. It will be in the midst of a whole new land, and they're going to be spread out over that land, which is the size of the state of New Jersey. There will be Levites allotted to live among each tribe, but the tabernacle, wherever it goes, is the only place where they can offer burnt offerings. Moses says that all the Israelites will travel to that one place, even if their allotment of land is far away. And when they go, that's where they will worship God and make their sacrifices to him. I don't know how you felt reading this, but I kind of panicked.

If I had been in Israelite and I wasn't in the tribe that got the tabernacle, I would be scrambling to marry into whichever tribe did, not because I don't like to travel, but because I would want to be as close as possible to wherever that mercy seat was going to be. I cannot imagine having to move away from the presence of God. But one thing they all get to start doing once they enter Canaan is eating meat whenever they want, and even the people who are unclean can eat meat too. What this likely implies is that up to this point, the only meat anyone could eat was meat that had been offered to God. And since having that offering come

in contact with an unclean person would make it unclean, then unclean people had to be vegetarians by default. So now with this new situation unfolding where they'll all be spread out instead of living in one encampment, that have to travel a long way to make sacrifices, which would mean they'd only get to eat meat when they made that trip. With this new addendum, God is basically saying, you can eat meat in your own land anytime you want. It doesn't have to be sacrifice to me first. Moses warns them not to add or subtract from anything God has commanded, and he gives them a heads up that there could be people who will

mingle the truth with lies as a means of enticing them in little by little. For instance, in 131-2, he gives the example of a false prophet or a diviner who provides some correct insights, but who uses that wow factor to lure people away from Yahweh. Just because someone speaks truth, that doesn't make them a prophet of Yahweh. Even a false prophet can be right, but it doesn't mean we should follow them or seek truth from them. Moses said God may sometimes use this kind of thing to reveal their hearts to them. And then God commands that the false prophet or diviner get the death penalty. Not only because that's what is required of the covenant when someone breaks the

first commandment, but also as a means of protecting their covenant community from further spread of the lies. God demands this kind of allegiance to Himself over strangers and even over friends and family members who try to lure them into apostasy. These are intense preventative measures, but these laws are supposed to deter people from rebelling or enticing others into rebellion, and they're a necessary step in God's plan to restore humanity in relationship with Himself. This is a protective measure for everyone. Where did you see God's character on display today?

What was your God shot? There was a subtle thing that showed up three times in chapter 12, verses 7, 12, and 18, that really sets Yahweh apart from all the other false gods. In each of those verses, He says something like, you shall bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, and there you shall rejoice. When people made their sacrifices to false gods, it was to appease them or entice them to give them what they wanted. It was an attempted initiating some kind of response, either, hey, please stop punishing me or, hey, please keep you what I'm asking for. But with our God, none of that is how we approach Him.

Our offerings to Him are a response to His initiation. And it's not about appeasing Him, it's about rejoicing in His provision and relationship with us. What a great contrast to every other God. All those worshipers of false gods are missing out on the rejoicing, because Yahweh, he's where the joy is. A new mom who listens to scripture every day, followed by the Bible recap, recently told me how grateful she is that her baby will hear the entire Bible by her first

birthday. She knows that while her baby may not be able to understand what she's hearing, the word of God never returns void, and a foundation and a legacy of faith is being built in that young family. Praise God! This gave our team an idea. We know it may sound silly, but we made a baby onesie that says, baby Bible Reader. Why is it that tiny things are always cuter than normal adult-sized things?

And listen, we're not stopping with the infants. They already get to sleep 90 hours a day and party all night, so why should they have all the fun? So we've also got the backs of all you parents who are trying to keep it together with the toddlers. You need a little shout-out too, so we also have shirts that say, little Bible reader. And seriously, mom and dad, you're doing great, truly. What you're doing by being in the word everyday is the best thing you could do for your child.

It matters. Keep up the good work. And if you're interested in our One Zs and our Kids Zs, check out our store at thebibelrycap.com or click the link in the show notes. Today's podcast is brought to you by WayFM. They understand life can fill overwhelming and lonely sometimes, so to help you feel known, loved, and prayed for, they've created a space where you can receive prayer and pray for others.

They call it the prayer wall. Check it out at wayfm.com-forward-flash-pray or click the link in the show notes. Pray or click the link in the show notes.