The Attributes of God:

The Faithfulness of God and the Fickleness of Man Duet. 31-34                   “Vengeance is Mine, and retribution, In due time their foot will slip; for the day of their calamity is near, and the impending things are hastening upon them. For the Lord will vindicate His people, and will have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their strength is gone, and there is none remaining bond or free.”                   The people gather that day in a small village of Enfield, Connecticut, to hear a guest speaker. The town was a small village, and the church was a small building only 38 feet wide and 38 feet long. It had two stories and a small belfry.  It was a church that had been unresponsive to the first Great Awakening, so the pastor had invited the speaker to come and preach to stir the people...

The Choice Dt 26-30 “Now it shall be, if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.  All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God.”                   The choice seemed obvious.  If the people obeyed God's commands, He would bless them beyond measure.  They will enjoy prosperity and peace.  However, if they reject God and disobey His commands, they will face His judgment and the curses that come with disobedience.  The commands were not harsh but based on what was best.  The commands of God are not difficult, but are the basis for a joyful life.  However, in our sinfulness, when given the choice between obeying God or following our desires, we choose to do ...

Holiness as a Way of Life Deut. 21-25 “As I have commanded them, so you shall be careful to do.”                    We tend to compartmentalize our life and our faith.  We view our relationship with God as part of our spiritual duty on Sundays and special religious days like Good Friday and Easter.  However, we go throughout the week with little regard for how our faith and relationship with God affect other aspects of life.  We compartmentalize our lives so that we have our religious obligations, family responsibilities, business duties, etc., and they remain disconnected.  As we read the application of the law in Deuteronomy 21-25, we discover the totality and scope that our faith influences and governs every element and decision in life.  There is no detail or issue in our life that is not directly impacted by the faith we embrace.  Rea...

The Test of a Prophet Deut. 16-20 “But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.  You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken.  The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.”                   How do we discern faithful preachers from those false in an age of information (and misinformation)?  On almost any topic, we can find teachers who proclaim the exact opposite to be true.  Some preachers emphasize only the “red Letters” of the New Testament.  They argue that if you want to know the absolute truth of Christ, then ...

The Most Important Decision Deut. 11-15 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse:  The blessing if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.                    It is estimated that a person makes 35,000 decisions every day, including 226 decisions on food alone. However, of all the decisions we face and all the options we confront, only one is genuinely transformative and essential: the decision to either obey God and His word or ignore and reject His commands.                     As Moses recounts the law to the next generation of people g...

Obedience and the Danger of Complacency. Deut. 6-10 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”                   Deuteronomy 6:4-5 are foundational verses.  Just as John 3:16 captures the motivation and purpose of Christ’s redemptive work, verses 4-5 set forth the heart of the covenant and our response to God.  In verse 4, we find the essence of God captured in a simple statement,  “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!”  Not only does this describe the essential unity within the Trinity, but it also shows that there is only one God who reigns over the universe.  The noun “one” points to the uniqueness and solidarity of God.  He stands alone and is unequaled and unrivaled.  In a world that embraced polytheism, God makes it clear that He is the only God, and no one rivals...

The Danger of Spiritual Forgetfulness Dt. 1-5 “Know therefore today, and take it to your heart, that the Lord, He is God in heaven above and on the earth below; there is no other.  So you shall keep His statutes and His commandments which I am giving you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may live long on the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”                   It is easy to make vows in a sanctuary when we are moved by a sermon and encouraged in our faith.  However, spiritual commitments can easily be forgotten in the daily walk of life.  In a crisis, we turn to God but neglect Him when other demands and desires capture our attention and distract us from our faith.  The greatest threat to our spiritual health is not the onslaught of some great crisis or temptation; it is the neglect of ou...

The God of Justice Numbers 31-36 “When you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images and demolish all their high places; and you shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land to you to possess it.”                   The book of Numbers, which began with the refusal of the people to follow God’s command, ends with the first major military campaign of the conquest.  In the forty years between these two events, the justice of God is evident as He brings judgment upon the generation that had refused to obey Him.  As we read of the first battle with Midian, many people are troubled by the command to destroy the people of Midian.  The only ones left were the unmarried girls.  As we read...

Transition and Reminder Numbers 26-30 “Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work.  It will be a day for blowing trumpets.”                   As the Book of Numbers ends, 40 years have passed since the people first stood on the brink of the promised land.  Instead of embracing the promise of God to give them possession of the land, they allowed fear to undermine their faith.  Consequently, they would spend 40 years wandering in the physical and spiritual wasteland. As they again stand on the edge of the promised land, God commands them to count the people.  After 40 years, the population of Israel remained static (603,555 to 601,730), thus serving to illustrate that the wilderness was not only a time of spiritual stagnation but a time when the physical growth of the nation be...

A Talking Donkey and  a Prophetic Jackass  Numbers 21-25 “And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe, and the Spirit of God came upon him.”                   The story of Balaam is full of paradoxes and irony.  The story begins with a donkey rebuking Balaam and Balaam pronouncing the blessing upon Israel but concludes with Balaam becoming the epitome of ungodliness.  Rather than being a godly prophet, Balaam was the ultimate jackass; a person who was characterized in Scripture as a detestable person who was a local prophet for hire and more concerned about financial gain than he was about honoring and obeying God. Balak, fearing the success and threat of Israel, sought out a local seer known to communicate with the gods.  From the outset, it is clear that Balaam is not a genuine prophet of God but a local seer who claimed to be a...

Pride and Humility Numbers 16-20 “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (20:12).                   We naturally blame God for our problems but take credit for our successes.  Of all the sins that grip the heart, there is none more insidious and abhorrent to God than pride.  The book of Proverbs warns repeated that pride brings destruction but with humility comes honor (see Prov. 3:34; 11:2; 16:18; 18:12; 29:23).  In his classic book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis warns of the dangers of pride, “Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through pride that Lucifer became wicked: Pride leads to every other vice; It is the complete anti-God state of mind.”  He states, “A proud man...

Opportunity or Adversity Numbers 11-15 “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will come true for you or not.” (11:23                   When confronted with challenges and hardship, do we see it as an opportunity for God to demonstrate His power and grace or a failure of God to care for us? After spending 11 months at Mount Sinai, hearing God's voice, seeing God's glory and power on full display, and receiving the promise of God’s special care, they continued their journey to the promised land.  However, after experiencing the highs, we are often confronted with the valleys of life.  As soon as the people started again on their journey, they quickly forgot God’s promises.  When life reverted to the mundane, they began to complain against Moses and God.  The manna that had richly supplied them with food in the d...

Being set apart for God: A Call to Holiness Numbers 6-10 “The Levites, too, purified themselves from sin and washed their clothes, and Aaron presented them as a wave offering before the Lord.  Aaron also made atonement for them to cleanse them.”                   For almost a year (11 months and 5 days), Israel had remained encamped at the foot of Sinai.  During this time, they received instructions from God regarding His requirements if they were to be His people.  In one of the great acts of grace, God pledged that He would be their God and they would be His people.  However, before they departed from Mt Sinai, one final act needed to be done.  For the people to enter into a relationship with God, they needed to be holy.  The term “holy” is more than just a moral characteristic of God.  It is the one word used to describe the t...