1 & 2 Chronicles (Program #8) – Living Christ for the Expression of God

After the division of Israel into two kingdoms, God was still able to point to some among His people that have not given up their proper standing and had maintained at least outwardly some devotion to His fundamental word.  God’s word at that time of course, consisted of the laws.  But many don’t realize the law came in two sections, both of which came through Moses.  The first section is the law of commandments, were the ten commandments we commonly referred to them.  These are the moral laws that God gave to His people cover all aspects of relationships.  The second section is called the ceremonial law, the laws governing the details of the offerings and the priesthood and the feasts that God established for His people.

Though the kings of Judah stood on the proper ground of Jerusalem and professed allegiance to all the laws of God, in reality they kept neither the moral law nor the ceremonial law.  The result was that ultimately they lost their possession and enjoyment of the good land that God had given them.  What can we, God’s New Testament people learn from such a tragic example?

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1 & 2 Kings (Program #12) – The Reign of Jehu Over Israel

Many prominent figures of the Old Testament are important not only because of the actual events associated with their lives historically but also because they represent or typify something greater and more significant than themselves.  For example, in the New Testament, Moses still typifies the law and similarly Elijah represents the prophets.  Of course, Moses and Elijah were godly and used by Him to advance His purpose in the Old Testament age.  But there is another Old Testament figure that was utterly evil and led God’s people into idolatry and inequity and is also referred to in the New Testament typifying the idolatry and inequity that still consume many of God’s people today.  Today we come to consider the evil prophetess Jezebel from the books of 1 & 2 Kings.

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1 & 2 Samuel (Program #9) – Samuel—A Man According to God

Through out the history of Israel only two men had ever been identified been raised up by God in three critical aspects, as priest, as prophet and as judge over Israel.  These two are Moses and Samuel. Samuel like Moses before him was unique and having such a position before Jehovah.  In many ways he was God’s representative on the earth and there were none that were higher than he.  Yet it is interesting that when the Lord instructed him in I Samuel chapter 9, to anoint a king over Israel with his status already intact as priest, prophet and judge we can see it would been easy for him to say at least in his heart “how can God ask me to anoint anyone to be above me?”  Yet in Samuel God had found a man who care nothing for his own position but who only care for what was on God’s heart.

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Deuteronomy (Program #25) – The Final Exhortation and Charges, The Blessing of Moses

Deuteronomy, the mysterious little book with a very strange name. Actually it means re-speaking or second speaking as we have seen over the past weeks and this is the an account of Moses re-speaking the law with all of the statues and all the ordinances to a new generation of the children of Israel as they were about to enter into the land of Israel, the good land. But incorporated into this book were page after page of serious warnings of the curses that were befall Israel if they were to not listen to the word of Jehovah.

Near the end of the book, there is a long section, chapter 33, called the song of Moses that accounts in poetic form many incorporated in this book and it concludes this way, a very fitting conclusion to the entire book of Deuteronomy.  “So Israel dwelt securely, The fountain of Jacob in solitude, On a land of grain and new wine; And the heavens over him drop their dew. Happy are you, O Israel; who is like you? A people saved by Jehovah, The shield of your help And He who is the sword of your majesty! So your enemies shall come cringing to you, And you shall tread upon their high places.”

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Deuteronomy (Program #23) – Warning (Implying Grace) (1) and Christ in Deuteronomy – The Monument, the Altar, and the Offerings

In the land of Israel near the ancient city of Shechem they are two peaks.  One is called Mount Ebal and the other is Mount Gerizim. The two were separated by a narrow valleys and to this day one is called the Mountain of Cursing and the other is the Mountain of Blessing. Because it was here that Moses commanded the children of Israel to erect a monument to the law and an altar for burn offering and peace offering. Under the law man is cursed but under the cross of Christ were He was offered to God as the unique offering, God and man find peace and the very man that was formerly cursed is brought under the blessing of righteous and Holy God.

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Deuteronomy (Program #22) – The Rehearsal of the Law (16)

Deuteronomy contains a lengthy section, 13 chapters actually where Moses rehearsed or repeated the law that had came down from Jehovah on Mt Sinai. He was repeating it to a new generation of the children of Israel that had never heard it before.

We come today to the final program dealingwith this rehearsal of the law and how it concluded gloriously with the children of Israel declaring that they would keep these commandments and walk in them and Moses saying to them, “today you had declared Jehovah to be your God that you would walk on His way and keep His statues, His commandments and His judgments and listen to His voice and He will set you high above all the nations which He has made for praise and for a name and for honor and that you will be a holy people to Jehovah your God as He has spoken.”

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Deuteronomy (Program #18) – The Rehearsal of the Law (12)

When Jehovah God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt Sinai to pass on to the children of Israel, they failed to understand that God was giving them a portrait of Himself.  In any society, the laws of that society reflect the kind of person the law giver is. But not only did the 10 basic commandments review our God in His person so also do the detail ordinances and statues that followed.

Deuteronomy, is the rehearsing or re-speaking of the law to a new generation of Israelites waiting to enter into the good land. And each of them unveils more of what kind of God we have.

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Deuteronomy (Program #15) – A Word Concerning Division and Apostasy

Deuteronomy includes a lengthy portion where God through Moses is instituting His divine government among His people Israel. Divine government means government by God and according to what God is. This is call theocracy, it is neither democracy a government according to the opinions of the people nor it is autocracy which is government by a dictator or monarchy.  Many people may be apprehensive about this term because through out history it is often misapplied but according to the Old Testament picture there is a genuine theocracy may be not among earthly nations but certainly among God’s people. A theocracy that reflects the person of God, the God of love and of righteousness and holiness and absolute fairness and justice.  So, in the coming few programs we want to keep this view of God, the God who knows man and man’s condition and what man’s need to be preserved for His eternal purpose.

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Deuteronomy (Program #10) – The Rehearsal of the Law (3)

To the assembled nation of Israel preparing to cross over the Jordan river and enter Canaan, Moses had this to say, “Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross over the Jordan this day in order to enter in and dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities that are big and fortified up to heaven, know therefore today that Jehovah your God is the One crossing over before you as a consuming fire; it is He who will destroy them, and it is He who will subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess them and destroy them quickly, as Jehovah has said to you.”

Surely these words must had filled the people with hope and expectation. but Moses also brought their earlier failures to remembrance, “Remember; do not forget that you made Jehovah your God furious in the wilderness; from the day that you came forth from the land of Egypt up until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Jehovah.”  Moses once again preparing this new generation to overcome, enter and possess the land.

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Deuteronomy (Program #5) -A Review of the Past (1)

Deuteronomy begins with Moses reviewing 40 years of history to the assembled children of Israel. Kadesh-barnea is at the gate of Canaan in the very place where they had arrived some 38 years before.

Deut 1: 19 And we set out from Horeb, and we went through all that great and awesome wilderness, which you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as Jehovah our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.  Verse 21 “See, Jehovah your God has set the land before you; go up, possess it, as Jehovah the God of your fathers has spoken to you. Do not fear, neither be dismayed”…. “Yet you would not go up. Rather you rebelled against the word of Jehovah your God;”

The unbelief and disobedience that the people showed on that day caused their father to falter and not going to possess the land.  As we see Moses now is preparing a new generation to overcome that past and to be strong to enter in and possess the good land.

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