A Message from the Future
Have you ever broken a bone? Been in a bad wreck? Suffered a bad injury or hurt, physically or emotionally?
What if you had the ability to go back in time and get a message to yourself before the event? What would you tell yourself? It would probably be something along the lines of… Don’t do that!!!
God knows everything about the Israelites. He knows their past, present and future – just as He knows yours and mine. Throughout the book of Deuteronomy He is reaching through time to deliver a message to the people, especially one of warnings of the harmful things He knows lie in their future. He is telling them time and again, don’t do that.
When you decide you want to be like other nations around you and have a king…
When you are tempted to participate in detestable practices such as sacrificing your own children, divination, sorcery…
When you get well fed in the land and begin to forget the Lord…
Keep reading through the old testament and you find incredibly specific instances where the Hebrews are in the middle of the wreck of their own making and the sin and hurt and pain that it causes, that exactly matches the things Deuteronomy is warning them not to do.
Did they forget that God knew their future? These aren’t suggestions, they are warnings.
Unfortunately, they are warnings for you and me as well. There are no new sins. There are no new temptations. No temptation has ever or will ever present itself except the same old common temptations that man has faced and God has overcome since Adam and Eve. (1 Cor 10:13)
But they keep coming and we continue to fail to heed the warnings that God has written into the Bible. We even know they will continue. Deuteronomy provides warnings about false prophets. Revelation talks about the False Prophet that is to come.
But we can change and it starts with what you are doing right now – studying the Word of God. Knowing His word leads to having an attitude of gratitude that God loves us so much that He has given us these instructions and warnings. And, most importantly that He has given us the most special privilege of all: to know Him.
Deuteronomy 4:35 sums it up well, “You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other.”
My Answers:
11.
a.
one from among them, avoided greed, trappings of power, multiple wives. He must write for himself a copy of the law and read it every day and follow it carefully, not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn them from the law
b.
many of them were evil – Solomon took many wives, had great wealth and his foreign wives tempted him to turn from God
12.
a.
sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.
b.
Jesus Christ
c.
If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed. – Test it against scripture!
13.
a.
As a seal of the covenant – God commanded it – it was only after the offering that they were to rejoice in the full blessing of the Lord
b.
v. 11 – Rejoice
c.
Offer back to God in all He has give me: Time, love, family, faith, voice, money, business, future, health, obedience, – in an attitude of gratitude
The Notes are Good 