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well welcome along to the law is good if one uses it lawfully session nine um you have in front of you two handouts just so you know uh one of them is a diagram so they do go together um you
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can enjoy the swoopy arrows that's uh that's what Microsoft Word had available to me but hopefully it'll make clear what I'm trying to say um uh when when the time comes um we'll be beginning uh
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our study of what I've been looking looking forward to this for a while because Deuteronomy 4 is my second favorite passage of scripture um and only second favorite
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because of that by which it is exceeded um and appropriately that would be for me Hebrews me Hebrews 12 I really do see this as being part
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one of what Hebrews 12 is the the con the the the the conclusion um conceptually and appropriately what Hebrew HEBs 12 uh
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concludes its argument with is is actually in Deuteronomy 4 um this is a this is a work of great Beauty and
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elegance and it's for us to enjoy I also am struck by how it's one of those passages of scripture that you could study and study and study and yet on its space it is almost Crystal Clear um not
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something I think you can say about much in Scripture there is much in Scripture that is hard to understand I don't think Deuteronomy 4 is one of those things I think it is presented to us entirely clear where Moses is bringing us into a
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a full understanding and and a really deep and well explained understanding of of all that God has done for his
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people and his intention for them in the future and most and then primarily that they should hold fa fast to the word of God because even more than the land the
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word of God is our Possession It is what will bring them in it is what has brought them safe thus far and it is what will keep them if
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they keep it um so I'm going to uh read a um and I I did a thing I'm going to read a a
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composite here that I put together of of my ESV text of uh a literal translation that's older called Young's literal and some Interlinear Interlinear resources
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so it will be different from anything you have in front of you or what I've read before but I wanted to put together this composite in order to render in kind of poetic free verse what is not
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necessarily obvious to you when you see it in paragraph form which is the relationships among the phrases and just how poetic it it is um so I hope you'll
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be able to hear better when I've brought out repeat phrases um when I've brought out the the beauty of how Moses ties things together um so give ear uh to the
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reading of God's word um and and and hear with understanding and now oh Israel listen
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to the statutes and judgments that I am teaching you to do them that you may live and go in and take possession of the land Yahweh God of your fathers is
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giving you you shall not add to the word nor take from it to keep the Commandments of Yahweh your God that I command you your eyes have seen what
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Yahweh did at Bal peor for all the men who followed the bahal of peor Yahweh has destroyed from your midst but you who held fast to Yahweh your God are
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alive all of you today see statutes and judgments I have taught you to do them as Yahweh my God commanded me in the midst of the land
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you are going in to take possession of it keep them and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who when they
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hear these statutes will say surely this great nation a wise and understanding people for what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as Yahweh is to us
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our God whenever we call upon him and what great nation is there with statutes and judgments so righteous as this law that I set before you
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today only take heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently lest you forget what your eyes have seen lest
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they depart from your heart all the days of your life make them known to your children and your children's children how on the day that you stood before
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Yahweh your God at H Yahweh said to me gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live
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on earth and that they may teach their children so and you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven
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wrapped in darkness Cloud yay thick Darkness then Yahweh speaks to you out of the midst of the fire the voice of
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words you are hearing and a form you are not seeing only a voice he declared to you his Covenant which he commanded you to perform it the 10 words he writes
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them on tables of stone Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach statutes and judgments for your doing them in the land you are going over to possess it
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watch your souls therefore for a form you have not seen on the day that Yahweh spoke to you at H out of the midst of the fire lest you act corruptly and make
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a carved image to you the form of any figure the likeness of male or female the likeness of any Beast that is on on the earth the likeness of any winged
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bird that flies in the heavens the likeness of any creeping thing on the ground the likeness of any fish that is in the waters under the Earth lest you
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raise your eyes to heaven and see the sun and moon and stars all the host of heaven and be drawn away and bow down to
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them and serve them things that Yahweh your God has allotted to All Peoples under the whole heaven heaven but you Yahweh has taken and
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brought you out of the iron furnace out of Egypt to be for him a people an inheritance as at this day and Yahweh
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was angry with me because of you and he swore I should not pass over Jordan that I should not enter the good land Yahweh your God is giving you as an
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inheritance for I am dying in this land I am not pass passing over Jordan but you are passing over and take possession of that good
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land take heed to yourselves lest you forget the Covenant of Yahweh your God which he made with you and make a carved image to you the form of anything Yahweh
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your God has forbidden you for Yahweh your God is a consuming fire a jealous God when you father children and children's children and have grown old
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in the land and you act corruptly and you make a carved image the form of anything and have done evil in the eyes of Yahweh and provoke him to anger I
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call Heaven and Earth to witness against you this day that perishing you will perish off the land that you are passing over the Jordan to possess it you will
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not prolong your days upon it but destroyed you will be destroyed Yahweh will scatter you among the people peoples and you will be left few in number among the Nations where
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Yahweh will drive you and there you will serve Gods the work of man's hands of wood and stone that neither see nor hear
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nor eat nor smell but from there you will seek Yahweh your God and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul when you
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are in trouble and all these things come upon you in the latter days you will return to Yahweh your God and obey his voice for Yahweh your God is a merciful
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god he will not leave you nor destroy you nor forget the Covenant with your fathers which he has sworn to them for ask now of the days that are passed
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which were before you since the day God created man on Earth from the end of Heaven to the end of Heaven whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of did any people ever
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hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard and still live or has any God ever attempted to go in and take a nation for
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himself from the midst of another Nation by trials by Signs by Wonders by War by Mighty hand and outstretched arm by great Deeds of Terror according to all
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Yahweh your god did for you in Egypt before your eyes to you it was shown to know that Yahweh is God and there is none else beside him he caused you to
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hear from the heavens his voice to instruct you he caused you to see on Earth his great fire and his words you have heard out of the midst of the fire
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and because he loved your fathers and chose his seed after him bringing you out of Egypt in his presence by his great power driving out nations from
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your presence greater and mightier than yourselves bringing you in their land to give to you an inheritance as at this day and you have known today and have
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laid it to heart that Yahweh he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath there is none else and you shall keep his statutes and his Commandments
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which I am commanding you today that it may be well with you and with your children after you that you may prolong your days in in the land Yahweh your God is given you all the
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days amen we can go home um we have our signpost and and we've reached the the ending ones here that the theme of possession where God tells
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them that they shall possess the land and yet they Rebel okay tells them the new generation in the wilderness begin to take possession
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in in real time and in history to tell them then to turn that theme of possession into you will possess the land but you possess the word of God and you will possess the land if you possess
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the word of God your possession is the word that was spoken to you out of the midst of the fire and then our motif of Yahweh was angry with me our three sign
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post through there where Yahweh was angry with Moses because he joined the old generation without thinking in unbelief how Yahweh was angry with him
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but it is the certainty of yahweh's promise to Joshua that he will lead the people into the land that is the same certainty that Moses will not and then
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finally Yahweh was angry with me how much more with your descendants if they will not keep to the statutes and the rules which I am teaching you today for your doing
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your doing them I think our challenge in in viewing this with its full beauty is one of understanding this generation's place in history I have sought in this study and
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and have I put extraordinary detail into these first four chapters of Deuteronomy because here where the oratory is short we get an opportunity to
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being able to sort of assimilate the whole thing in our minds we get the opportunity to see these various ways that he communicates which will be true through the rest of Deuteronomy but his
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second oratory goes from chapter our chapter 5 to our chapter 27 maybe maybe longer depending on how you split it but it's very long and very hard to get a
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full sense of it but Moses neither in this oratory nor in the main meat of Deuteronomy is just throwing out a hodgepodge of things he means what he
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says and he means it the way he says it so our our task is to really get into the heads of the original audience and hear it as much as possible the way they heard it so that we may get when we get
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into the meat of Deuteronomy we may hear those statutes and those rules and those laws that Moses taught them for their performing them in the land into which they were going that we hear them as
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much as possible as good Hebrews we are not Hebrews we are not standing where they stood we have the privileged
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place of standing at their fulfillment which is why I mention my favorite passage of scripture it is the standing at the Fulfillment of these things looking back and looking ahead and this
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is standing at the the down payment on God's promises to Abraham where the PE where his seed are ready to go into the land and looking ahead to the
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faithfulness of God and seeing unlike what Hebrews 12 does seeing that the people will go astray Hebrews treats us differently we
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stand at the Fulfillment if we all who have the spirit of Christ have put on Christ we are united with Christ and he our man in glory has secured our place
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in a way that Moses could not possibly secure it Moses was a faithful servant in all God's house we need need say nothing bad about him Jesus is
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better but for us the meaning in its fulfillment I think is only better appreciated by knowing its original import and it is our it is the original import though not directly applicable to
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us for our life is found in Christ Jesus but these things were written down for our instruction on whom their end has come and so it is incumbent upon us to
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understand them as much as possible in their original import as well knowing that the import and its fulf the the original message and its fulfillment will will cohere as beautifully as the
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text that we have read this morning and the situation of Israel further in history serves as an analog to our own a word picture and I wrote that down
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before uh Chuck began his Leviticus study in which he points out that Hebrews calls the law a parable uh and I'm so glad that that was the case um because it it is it has seemed to me for
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many many years that the people of Israel stand as a parable for different aspects of our of our life together in
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Christ um I think they certainly stand for the individual believer um on his own whereas I see waging in waging in my
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heart and flesh the war that Israel was fighting at in a national level of faithfulness and unfaithfulness but I think even more appropriate is for us to have been studying the the import
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of of of of Israel's uh National experience in history as an analog to our own together within the body of Christ um that I think is even more
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certain so it serves as an analog to our own I don't know if if everyone here has this trouble but I speak from my own standpoint we can tend to overp
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spiritualize these spiritualize these people not remembering that though they lived in the sight of the fire and the cloud their lives had the same ad mixture of ordinary and common as our
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lives do I consider this to be a key a key factor in getting into their minds is understanding them as Ordinary People we expect at various times having
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believed in Christ and received his holy spirit that our lives will somehow be less mundane and many of you know I'm struggling mightily with that uh
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personally we even read of the extraordinary things that happened to the Israelites in the wilderness and wonder why our lives do not have at least as much spiritual excitement as theirs did without ever considering that our perspective is Warped by a by being
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disconnected from their historical context we see their life in snapshots and we see what is the important things but that's not the sum total of their life and so we can lose sight of the
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fact that these were but men after all the fact that the sum total of these people's lives is not something that God decided we were to have directly described to us then simply requires of
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us what our ordinary lives require of us every day which is work so we have to labor in detail to understand this whereas they may have heard it with
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almost complete understand standing when they originally heard it we have to work for it they lived with the presence of God dwelling in their midst yet the test
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of their faith and this is where it comes together this is where e the effort to understand them as ordinary men really becomes important to us they lived in the presence of God dwelling in
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their midst yet the test of their faith was often nothing more than ordinary matters of hunger thirst boredom and and fear and you do see that in the
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histories in the law we live with the holy spirit of God dwelling in our hearts and yet the test of our faith is often nothing more than ordinary matters of hunger thirst
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boredom and boredom and fear you even read in Revelation where uh in the intro to Revelation John calls himself your brother and partner in the
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trouble and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus ordinary Jesus ordinary things and yet the kingdom of God in our
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midst that extraordinary thing which is as yet as yet unseen which by faith we see and it militates against the evidence we have
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stacked up in our daily lives that this is just just the slog and nothing more so we relate to our brothers the Israelites in general I think and and
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seeing them as experiencing long times of nothing but looking after food looking after water finding good work to do or failing in their work fear over
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enemies fear over drought uh fear over the future of Israel um these are things that we really can identify with them in I think you you touched on it there but
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you also hear it in in Moses's almost exasperation kind of the way through the capacity that we also share with them to
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make the extraordinary mundan that they have experienced and you hear him who else has ever heard of somebody experiencing things like this and yet here you are
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grumbling at me about how he's not providing for you yeah the Wonder I mean I was struck by this going through Exodus the things that they witnessed with their own eyes and yet they forget
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them or they become in their experience it's something we live through and now that we're we' passed it we forget it it's like Hebrew
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says and also is it in James the man who looks in the mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looks I mean they have this they they look into the acts of God and then go away and forget what
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that looks like they had the sight of Heaven on Earth and they have their their life on Earth and our tendency is to go yeah yeah yeah about this and but
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right and Hebrews lets us get away with it either because your point I mean we are indwell we have the experience that they think they were longing for yes um
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and we were just discussing your your your reading in the upstairs assembly is that of Judges so hard on the heels of this you have the example of judges of
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The People the generation just after or couple of generations dep on where you are in the judges effectively being a people without God having completely
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forgotten him it's exactly what he's talking about with the there'll come a day where all of this is coming on you yes that's not as far away as you might think right and yet it seemed the more
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distant they got into their ordinary apostasy the more distant the promises of God became to them um
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absolutely um as and and I and I think 's profit then in in studying Israel's specific situation their specific trials as well you know in their case they are not
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going back to the Mountain of God they're not going back to HB and they will be dispersed throughout the land um the former generation was told and they
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they experienced this in history by farther steps the the former generation was told by God to leave the mountain and go on to what he had promised them no longer to hear the voice of Yahweh on
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on the mountain okay then the new generation would no longer see the fire by night and the cloud by day okay Deuteronomy will record at the end the the last manifestation of the presence
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of Yahweh in the pillar of cloud until it fills the Temple of stone a period of nearly 450
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years I think sitting with that is well worth it to know that our Brethren across time sympathize with our
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their descendants then will live dispersed throughout the land even not as a kahal together tightly traveling okay not gathering in one spot at all
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times not all around the Tabernacle but dispersed throughout the land many of them most of them not even within sight of the smoke that ascends from the tent day and
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day and night and the people of Israel then will have to work work to remember his law and his presence as they spread out and subdue the land so they have the trial
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of the mundane things the trial of the everyday the trial of the unknown that they are facing now their life is going to change and finally the trial of Temptation
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Israel is entering into a land filled with Pagan idolatry and prosperity which is a deadly
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combination something again I think we can sympathize with if we get past the idea that most of us don't experience seeing actual idols on a daily basis I think we can sympathize with the both
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paganism and prosperity and how deadly a combination that is to
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us don't be fooled our trials are of the same nature and theirs are a picture of um so uh before we get into the text any any particular questions or or
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comments okay look at uh verses 5 through 14 if you care to follow along in your in your scriptures as we look at this symphonic final movement uh the wisdom of God is the
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people's Glory looking at verses 5-4 uh where he says that it will that the that the word of God that the wisdom of God will be there wisdom and their glory in the sight of the Nations so the
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people see God's fire they saw it rather but their glory is found in holding fast to the testimony in the sight of the Nations they are not watching God the
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nations are watching them as they keep to the to the law their God was near to them and he would hear them but without the typical
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religious element of something visible that they could say here's our God I find it an irony that in the English language we have a a homophonic
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relationship between our words here and here because the truth is they're the the the gods of the nations are ones where you would say here is our God and Israel's call was here oh Israel Yahweh
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your God is one God it's an irony that I was appreciating this week so the people were gathered together as God said
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before at the Blazing Mountain but they saw no form they did see something but it was the voice that came out of the midst of the fire that was important
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okay they saw no form but they were gathered together before God nonetheless at that blazing mountain and the people then going forward as we we move into
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the land the people going forward would learn to fear Yahweh not by seeing a form and then not by a blazing display but by what issued from that
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blazing display which they would still possess by hearing his word so then Yahweh says gather the people to me that I may let them hear my
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words so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children so the people could not remain at the
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mountain but their children would remain with God as they taught them his word want to keep your children with Yahweh you're not going back here and
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Moses is not staying with you keep to law the people then too like they were gathered at the
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mountain must gather together seeking out the light of yahweh's presence where he could be found that is where the law prescribed they should gather which was at the tent
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three times a year all your males must appear before me is extremely important given that there is no geographical reason why they would want to do that
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but yet holding to the law and the proclaimed law at the place where yahweh's presence is remembered by the fire and the smoke from the altar is of extraordinary important that
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is how Yahweh would gather his people together in the future not at the Flaming Mountain but at the tent of meeting and the hearing of the law lest you act
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corruptly the heavy emphasis put on not acting corruptly I think and falling into idolatry is something as I said before that doesn't seem to have ready application to our context but we need
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to take seriously that these things represent to us a warning against the tendency of our human nature that we share with these people and we ignore the warning against idolatry to our
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Peril or at our Peril we ignore it um we are in our flesh natural idolators as much as they it's simply our culture
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that temporarily doesn't show that at the moment um but there are two then so the the the
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most H just the just the really wonderful part of this first half of the final movement then our two parallel threads and this is what you have on
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your diagram two parallel threads woven together to form the heart of of this final movement of hearing and seeing God
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seeing God is treating with them in view of their senses but not according to their senses and Moses is telling them about their experience what did you hear what did
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you see and what is the significance of these things because as natural idolators we are very well wedded to what we can see and Moses has to put what we see in
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its proper place so if you look at the diagram what I've done is I've I've tried to show you the contraposition where hearing and seeing and hearing and seeing is treated Al in
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an alternating fashion and where the argument is made in that alternation then Yahweh speaks to you something you heard out of the midst of the fire what
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you saw the voice of words you are hearing and a form you are not seeing there's a a negative there yeah you saw a fire you are not seeing a form
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only a only a voice so now the hearing is is placed up the the purpose of the of the fire of yahweh's presence was that you might hear his word okay it is not what's
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going to endure it's it's the law that is uh being placed up and then the center of this he declared to you his Covenant which he commanded you to perform it 10 words he writes them on
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two tables of stone Yahweh commanded me at that time to teach statutes and judgments for you're doing them in the land you are going over to possess
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it then what are they to watch going forward their souls therefore for a form you have not seen okay on the day that Yahweh spoke to you at HB out
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of the midst of the fire lest you act corruptly according to your sight according to your need to see something religious lest you act corruptly and make a carved image to you the form of
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any figure and then this litany F follows of uh types of forms um any questions about the diagram what I'm trying to show
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um um okay the form of any figure so this Litany of types of forms that Israel is not to make for themselves then serves to underscore
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God's unique particular choice of them as a nation out of all the nations of the whole earth so see the
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um first the the Litany of nothing uh no likeness of male or female the likeness of any animal on the earth notice the
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geographical placement of these things the likeness of any Winged Bird in the heavens the likeness of anything creeping on the ground the likeness of any fish in the water under the Earth
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okay and then the the the real Bugaboo beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven and when you see the sun and moon and stars and all the host of Heaven
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that you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them and there's a key point then made here things that Yahweh your God has allotted to all the peoples
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under the whole Heaven the the creatures and then especially the the signs and bodies in the heavens these are things that God has given to All Nations he made them
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and gave them to all the nations but Yahweh has taken you specially prepared out of all his
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works out of the iron furnace because the iron furnace is Craftsman's language right you make you you forge something in the iron furnace or or you bake
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something over it whatever it is you want to want to be crafting this is Craftsman's language I made the host of heaven and gave it to all the nations but you I took you as my special nation
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and gave you myself out of another nation in fact out of Egypt to be my
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inheritance we should sit well with that that that God as we've and we've discussed this many many times over the last few years and and thanks be to God for Faithful Men for the faithful
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teaching and for the ability to bring these Treasures out of his word to to tell us again and again and again that we are a new creation a
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people for God's Own possession different from the old creation people with bodies that are subject to corruption with one foot in the kingdom of God with God's very presence dwelling
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within us and in our midst together that we are a special creation of God and that he did so to make not only him our
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inheritance yes but us his we were God's workmanship and his object in creating in the first place
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that he might as he said to the PE say to the people of Israel later here that he might bring us out and bring us
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in so we'll pick up with uh part two uh next week but let us for the time being uh give thanks to God in our assembly for his good will his perfect will uh that
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we can for all of our days and thereafter seek out and bring out new Treasures as well as old let's pray our father thank you for putting
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your light in our midst and for giving us the fire of your presence dwelling within us your Holy Spirit The Same Spirit that dwelt with
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Israel and yet you have not placed us on the foothills of a mountain that cannot be touched nor have you placed the spirit of fear in our hearts where we
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cannot approach you but you have enthroned us on the mountain among the saints enrolled among the Angels in fested
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gathering in gathering in celebration in celebration in certainty letting us come up to you our God near to us whenever we call upon
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you please help us then to exemplify your wisdom in the sight of the peoples in which we go in our ordinary lives please help us to not see our
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ordinary lives as merely ordinary but rather to understand that we live and do these things whether we eat or drink or whatever we do to your glory in the sight of the Nations and that that will
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be our wisdom and that will be our Glory when they Marvel that here a nation whose God is near to them whenever they call on
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call on him we thank you for the receipt of a kingdom that Will Never Be Shaken
