3-30-25 - You Shall Utterly Destroy Them

So this morning we're gonna be continuing in our study of the book of Deuteronomy. We're in the first few verses of chapter seven. In this passage Moses instructs the Israelites about how they're to interact with the inhabitants of the promised land after God takes them in and gives them that land. That instruction that he gives them is a command and the command is simple that they are to utterly destroy the inhabitants of the land. Utterly destroy them.

Make no covenants with them. Show no favoritism or mercy to them, do not marry with them. Otherwise you will become like them, an object of God's wrath, and you'll be destroyed just like them. This is the summary of our text this morning. It's the kind of text that would probably not be described as gospel centered.

And yet it is a word to us from our God. And what I hope is that as we study it this morning, that this sermon will that God will use this sermon to impress impress upon you and upon me the necessity of taking him at his word, to do exactly what he says, especially when his commands cut across the grain of our sensibilities. That's what we have in our text this morning is a command that doesn't sit well with us. And the problem's not with the command or with God who gave it, but with us. And so my hope is that God will soften our hearts to receive his word with gladness.

Would you please stand now as we read the word of the Lord from Deuteronomy chapter seven verses one through four. When the Lord your God brings you into the land, when you are entering to possess it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. And when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them. Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them.

You shall not give your daughters to their sons nor shall you take their daughters for your sons. For they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will quickly destroy you. This is the word of the Lord. Thank you to God.

You may be seated. Now these land, these inhabitants, these nations that are listed in this text that inhabit the promised land have been there for a long time. They've built cities, fortified cities. You remember forty years previous to, Moses declaration here that the Israelites had gone in and spied out this land and they came back full of fear at the size and the strength of these nations. So much so that they were like, we can't go in there and take this on.

This is crazy. They'll just kill us and wipe us out. The Israelites knew their own weakness. They knew their own frailty. They were faithless.

So then God judged them and sent them forty years wandering in the wilderness, and now they've come back to the edge of the land and they're about to go in To kick out these people, these nations, who have lived there for a long long time. How long have they lived there? Well, we have a record back in Genesis 15 of the Amorites at least inhabiting this land. They've been there for over four hundred years. This is their land, they're settled in it, they're secure.

For perspective, they've been in this land longer than America's been around, as you understand it today. And there are wicked people, an exceedingly wicked people. In Genesis 15 it said this, Abraham and and the Lord were having this interaction. It says, now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham Abraham and behold terror and great darkness fell upon him. God said to Abraham, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they'll be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.

So this is the Lord telling him about Egypt. Right? They'll be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they serve, And afterward they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go with your to your fathers in peace.

You will be buried at a good old age. Then the fourth generation, they will return here for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. It came about when the sun had set that it was very dark and behold there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these places. And on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, to your descendants I have given this land. From the River Of Egypt as far as the Great River, the River Euphrates, the Kenite and the Kenizzite, Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the Jebusite.

Now, did you recognize these nations named back in Abraham's time? That the land that they lived in was the land that was promised to the Israelites, but that they weren't going to receive it for some four hundred years. And then in those four hundred years, they were going to be oppressed, they were going to be enslaved, and then they were going to be delivered out of Egypt and come into this land, where Abraham was currently residing as a stranger living by the oaks of Mamre. Abraham had wandered, Abraham had had split with Lot and he'd gone and settled in this land and he was just a sojourner, an alien, a stranger. He was just there among them.

And just before the passage I read, the Lord took him up on a hilltop and looked around. He said, as far as you can see, this is all going to be yours. And then here in this passage, we read of the nations that inhabit that land at the time of Abraham and yet still inhabit that land at the time of Moses four hundred and thirty plus years later. They've been there a long time. And they were a wicked people,

a

corrupt people, a rebellious people. And if you'll notice in the middle of that passage I read, it said, then in the fourth generation they will set, they will return here, you know, after they come out of Egypt in the fourth generation. They're going to come back here for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete. What does it mean that the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete? Well what's going on in that passage there in Genesis is God is God acknowledging that the Amorites are a wicked and rebellious people, and that he is going to judge them.

When he promised that land to Abraham, you have to understand that in that promise he is saying I'm going to destroy those people at that time. My judgment is going to come on them. We're going to wipe them out. How else could the Israelites receive the land unless the people who currently resided in it and had for hundreds of years were eliminated. So why weren't they eliminated sooner?

If they were wicked and if they were corrupt, why were they not killed in the time of Abraham?

Well, our

text the text in Genesis says that their inequity was not yet complete. And so what we learn is that God was planning to judge these inhabitants, but that the time had not yet come. God was keeping track and watching everything that they did. All of their corruptions, all of their rebellions, all of their wickedness. They were storing up for themselves great wrath from God.

If it were left to us, we might think why not why not kill them sooner? Why not clean them out? Why not judge them sooner? But you and I, we have to be careful not to judge the Lord's timing of things. It's an interesting thing and we can fail in either direction.

We can fail in the direction of thinking that he doesn't judge soon enough, Or we can fail in the direction of thinking that he doesn't wait long enough. Or that he is too mild in his judgments. Or that he's too severe in his judgments. Whatever the case, the danger that we face is that we would sit in judgment of the Lord's timing. It was hundreds of years before he judged the Amorites and now as Moses speaks to the Israelites on the shores of the Jordan, as they go in and are about to eliminate these people, the judgment of God is and has come to them.

Do we think like this? That God is watching, that God is seeing, that God is remembering, that God is going to rise up and act at some point regarding all of the sins that are committed. We have short memories. And that's why we think that his judgments oftentimes are too severe. Have you ever thought that a child needed to be disciplined only to see them disciplined and then say that the parent was too too harsh.

Have you wives ever thought that of your husbands? Have you husbands ever thought that of your wives? Have your children ever thought that of your parents as regards yourself or one of your siblings? The judgments come easily. Don't they?

This is what we have to guard ourselves against. This coming into the land was going to be a messy, a messy affair, a bloody affair, a gruesome affair with men of war and their wives and their children being consumed, being wiped out, being destroyed and killed by the sword. As they run away and try to hide themselves, being struck down as a judgment, as a as an as as as a an example of the wrath of God being poured out on sinners. And it's a sort of thing that we look at and go, I don't like that. If you read just just after this in the book of Joshua and the conquest of Canaan and you read about the sort of slaughter that went on.

It's enough to make you squirm. So what was going on? All that was going on was God pouring out his righteous wrath and judgment against those whom had who had offended him. Is that the God you serve? Do you love him?

Is he righteous in all of his judgments and in all of his ways? Or do you sit in judgment when he says no or when he disciplines? The Lord's instruction. In verse one, it says, when the Lord your God brings you into the land where you're entering it, and then he names all of the con all of the nations that are going to be cleared away. Cleared away.

It says, when the Lord your God delivers them before you and you defeat them, then you shall utterly destroy them. This is the example of God's righteous judgement, and this is just a picture of the judgement that will come when Jesus returns. Many of us shy away from the book of Revelation because the Armenians and the dispensationalists have really confused us in terms of what it means, and what it'll look like. And it is hard to understand in some ways I'll grant, because it's talking about events that have not yet taken place, at least some of them. But one of the things that's that's clear in the book of Revelation is that when Jesus comes back, some of the stuff he left in heaven, he's going to come with.

Primarily his glory. And the revelation tells us that he's going to come with a sword proceeding out of his mouth, and that he's going to mow down and execute justice and judgment on all of creation. Tells us that at that time that the wicked are gonna cry out for rocks and hills to fall down on them. That they're gonna cast themselves into the sea. That they're going to do anything they can to escape his fury.

In many ways, I think it's just not the sort of thing that our Christianity makes room for. This sort of judgment, it's not the sort of thing we think about, it's not the sort of thing we meditate on, it's not the sort of thing that strikes fear in our hearts and motivates the way we live. It's just something that's either far off in the past, like we find here in Deuteronomy or far off in the future, some other time. But God gives these Israelites a particular command that they ought to utterly destroy all the inhabitants of the land, these seven nations. Because this is God's judgment against them and it's not too severe, not even in the slightest.

The women, the children, the fighting men, cleanse them. Okay? Here's an example. It's it's it's almost a silly example because it's not near it's not serious, but it gets at the it gets at the picture of it. Okay?

If you had to wash dishes, and they were from like the night before, or maybe the week before, and all the nastiest stuck on it hard and like it's not gonna come off, and you told your kids, go wash the dishes. Can you put that dish in the dishwasher and expect it to come out clean? Probably not. It's too filthy. Right?

You're gonna have to use hot water. You're gonna have to let it soak. You're gonna have to scrub it. You have to pick at it and chip at it and it's gonna be a lot of work to get it off. Now what happens if the person doing the dishes decides to do half the work and they decide well, that other stuff is too hard to get off.

It's fine. And they handed you a plate or a bowl or or a fork that still had a bunch of old food on it. What if you were served with that silverware and that flatware in a restaurant? And they said, well it was just too much. It was it was it was just too much work.

You'd be offended. You'd be grossed out. Right? Because the goal was cleanliness. The goal was the goal was was get rid of all of the nasty, not just some of it, not just the easy parts, all of it.

The hard, stuck on, gross. Get rid of it all. That's what God's commanding them to do with the inhabitants of the land. Get rid of all of them, utterly destroy them. Clean them all out.

Now when you're washing dishes, have you ever made an excuse? Have you ever conveniently, you kids, have you ever conveniently not noticed the hard stuff? Maybe when you were taking the dishes out of the dishwasher and you noticed that the one was not quite clean and you you put it underneath the clean one in the stack. God sees all of that. And he knows where the wickedness remains.

And so their job is to go in and to cleanse the land, to to to purify it with the blood of the wicked, to prepare it to be their habitation. It's a gruesome command. Utterly destroy them, but it's not too severe. Unless of course you would like eating off of filthy silverware. You say, that's not good for us.

That's that's that's that's not appropriate. I'd say, that's all the more that God is saying here. The wicked has to be cleansed and gotten out of there. And not just the outside of the cup, not just not just the rebellious ones, not just the ones that fight, all of them. What is the danger of the children?

Is there a danger with the children? We'd say, no, they're kids, they're not they're they're not causing any trouble, but just later in our text he tells us the danger. He says, if you don't get rid of them, then what you're gonna do is you're gonna marry them, and they're gonna lead your hearts astray from me. And so there is a danger even in the children. And it just seems harsh to us.

It just seems like it's it's it's too severe. It's lacking mercy. It's lacking compassion. It's lacking kindness. And so then the question becomes, is it ever right for God to judge sin?

Do we ever agree with it? Do we ever think, yeah, it's it's time. And yes, it's right. Do we think that God's holiness ought to be taken seriously? And that rebellion against him deserves wrath?

Or his sin just become a byword that's just like it it's true and it's there and but really it's not a big deal. I'm sure you've experienced this in your own life. If someone is either a parent or or a a a a a boss or or someone has has confronted you with your sins, and they're not like making excuses for it or or making accommodations or saying, you know, I understand it's so hard to do what I'm saying. But when they square up and they say, no. It's not okay.

And these are the consequences you're going to face. And you realize what they're saying is gonna happen and you can't do anything about it. Oftentimes, we comfort ourselves with saying, well, I wouldn't do that if I were them. I'd be more merciful. That's not very Christ like.

And yet, we forget that Christ is described when he comes back in judgment as the one who's mowing down the wicked and executing judgment on all of them. So we really have to do business with this this thing in our hearts that doesn't want to see sin dealt with, to see judgment executed, to see wrath poured out. The root cause of our problems is that we don't take the holiness of God seriously. That we think that when he

rises up to judge the wicked for their wickedness, we

think that when he rises up to judge the wicked for their wickedness, we think he's overreacting. If it were left to us, we would just find the nice middle ground path where there's not too much pain or any unnecessary heartache or turmoil. Isn't that your goal when you discipline your kids? It's to like do it perfectly. It's like to never do it too severely, but never too mildly.

It's just like perfect. How does that work for you? Are you good at it? Have you found that that that sweet spot? Can you thread that needle?

Every time. Maybe sometimes you think you've done a good job and your spouse comes and tells you, oh no no. You did it wrong. You didn't do it hard enough. You didn't do it soon enough.

You did it too often. You did it too hard. You realize all of this is connected to our understanding of whether God is holy, and whether his commands are to be obeyed, or whether it's really not that big of a deal. Everyone would tell you as a parent that you should never be angry at your children. But what I'd tell you is you should never give in to your anger, and you should never you you should never, discipline them as though you're not a sinner yourself.

But it's crazy to think that you wouldn't be angered at their sin. Why would you not be angry about their sins? Here, I'll push you even further. When you're angry with your kids, is it their sins you're angry with or is it just their inconvenience? I bet many times you're more angry with the inconvenience that they are than the actual sins they commit.

You're willing to let their sins just go on by the way with not so much as a mention, but if they irritate you, or disrupt you, or awaken you when you're tired, now we have a problem. And I want to tell you that is so far from the character of God. That is not how he is. He keeps track of their sins. And he judges their sins.

When we read this passage, we should be thinking about our own sins, and we should be saying, if it were not for Jesus Christ on the cross dying to bear the whole wrath of God against me, then I would be unnamed among those seven nations. And God would be right. Just to utterly destroy me.

And God would be right. Just to

utterly destroy me. To utterly destroy me. But when we think about what the what Christianity is supposed to be like, how it's supposed to present in society, it's so far from loving and proclaiming the holiness of God. It's seen on the one hand as being a very weak and meager and feeble and pathetic religion for those who are not strong enough to take life by the horns themselves. On the other hand, Christianity is this powerful overcoming, triumphant, victorious religion.

Now which is it? Aren't you all wondering what I'm gonna say? Well, before I tell you I'll remind you that in this passage, what we're told is that the Israelites are facing nations that are both greater and stronger than they are. That when they went in forty years previously and they spied out the land, they were not wrong in observing the strength of their enemies. And they were not wrong in saying, we will be consumed.

Their failure was not believing that God would deliver those stronger greater nations into their hands. That was their failure. And even after forty years of wandering in the wilderness, these nations are still greater and stronger than you. That's why our passage repeatedly says, when God delivers them before you, when God brings you into the land, even though he uses them as the means to deliver the land into their hands, they're not strong enough in and of themselves to do it. They're weak and they're feeble.

It's a David and Goliath situation where God had to deliver these people into the hand of Israel, because they weren't going to be able to do it on their own. Good are you at ducking the consequences of your actions? And manipulating situations around you to get what you want? How much of what you have did you get for yourself by your own hard work and integrity? How much of it did you get by conniving and and dishonesty and stealing?

Scripture tells us that what we have, we ought not to boast of because all that we have we've received from the hand of God. In the same way that this land was given to the Israelites from the hand of God. Even though he used them to wipe out, to clear away these nations, it was God's strength that delivered this land into their hands. And don't you ever forget that the good things that you have are given to you by God. Our lives still today are lived as a weaker and smaller people than the nations around us.

And if we're to be sustained, if we're to increase, if we're to be safe, if we're to grow and be blessed, it will only be because God was merciful to us. It's an interesting thing. We despise poor, we despise weak, we despise foolish, but God doesn't despise those things. It's the poor in spirit who are blessed. It's the orphan and widow that have a special place in his heart.

But us, would we be named among them? Would we be content to be the poor, the weak, the oppressed? No. Something's wrong in our mind. Something is fundamentally wrong if that's our condition.

And so it stands to reason that we ought to be wealthy and strong and very wise. Not with the Lord's wisdom, but with the world's wisdom. And not with the Lord's wealth, but with the world's wealth, and not with the Lord's strength, but with our own. And so we bring these assumptions into our into our Christian lives. And I think really, this is the this is the the foundational fault with theonomy, with postmillennialism, and with Christian nationalism.

They all assume that you're supposed to be strong and powerful, and that God wants to give you all of these good things. Because he wouldn't have you be weak, or suffer, or be oppressed. Now, I know some of you are offended by what I just said. And it's okay that you're offended and I'm happy to talk to you later about it. My point is to say that if you live your life thinking that you can get what you want, maintain and and surprisingly, when we run into those walls in our lives, whether it's concerning those theological positions, or whether it's something else.

When we run into the wall, and our own strength and wisdom and wealth fail us, we still don't learn the right lesson. And we back up and take another run at it. And that's the mark of a fool. Is that no matter how many times they fail, they don't ever learn that it's God who provides for them, and cares for them, and restrains them, and disciplines them. Also that he won't consume them, because of their sins.

So be careful not to presume that God wants for you what you want for yourselves. This next section, he tells them you shall not covet make covenant with them, show favor favor to them, or intermarry with them. It's a strange command. Because if they utterly destroy them, how would they end up doing all of these things? Like how do you make covenant with somebody that you've destroyed?

How do you marry the children of people that you've cleared away? Well, God knows our hearts. He knew their hearts, and he knew that they would be tempted to fail and in fact they did fail in this regard. So he says to them, you shall make no covenant with them, show no favor to them or intermarry with them. This is a warning against us being more merciful than God.

Have you ever been more merciful or gracious than God? Was that your bright shining moment? Happen and you went, no. No. I know better.

That'd be too harsh. That would be too mean. What we really mean is that would be too much work and too inconvenient. This is a warning against them being more merciful than God. He told them to utterly destroy them.

Why would they make a covenant with them? Could you imagine these nations as they're being consumed, trying to enter into a a peace treaty with them. We'll serve you and be your slaves if you won't kill us. You could imagine that happening in a time of war, couldn't you, to end the war? And so God here says, make no covenant with them.

Show no favor to them. You know what? Some of them that you're supposed to utterly destroy will have money, and wealth. The money and wealth that God's intending to give to you, but you would be inclined to let their wealth corrupt your obedience. Show no favoritism to them.

Do not intermarry with them. Why would he instruct them not to intermarry with them? Well because here's the thing about marriage. Nowadays it's a weird thing. When we think people of people getting married today, we think it's only about the two people getting married.

And that there's some like distant awareness that there are in laws and the family that that our our fiance came from, but somehow we think we're not bound to them. And then you get married and you you you slowly realize just how bound to these people you are. Another thing you realize is how much you despise that connection. Because it's a real connection. They have expectations for you, and you have these expectations for them, and it's it can be a hard thing to to manage and to work your way through.

And the one thing you know is that, if you completely write off your in laws, those families, then it will cause trouble in your marriage. Right? And so there's this delicate balance you have to, or or you know, delicate path that you have to walk down because there's all these relational dynamics going on. I want you to know that's the purpose of marriage. In times where marriages used to be political, meaning this king's daughter would marry this king's son.

Why did they marry? What was the purpose of their marriage? Was it love? Just love and attraction and No. It was political.

Because if my daughter has to go live in your land, I'm much less likely to attack you. Because what might you do if I attack you? Kill my daughter. And then if we have children, all of a sudden we're permanently bound together. And so marriage served as a unifying prospect that would lower the conflict and the tension.

It would over time produce peace, because all of a sudden you're all mixed together, and you don't want to see them, the people that you love harmed and destroyed. You see this as an example in scripture not through marriage, but through family with Abram and Lot. What did what did Abraham do when Lot was down inside in the valley, and God was going to to consume and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? He petitioned. If if there are some righteous people down there, you know, 50 can How about you don't do it?

Well, how about 20? I'm I'm How about my nephew and his family? That's really what it got down to. Why? Because they were bound together.

This was his nephew. Right? The child of his wife's sibling. All of a sudden there's this connection, and there's this this this priority that arises to not cause harm or trouble to the ones that we love. And so God commands them.

Don't intermarry with these with these rebels because it's going to muddy the waters and blur the distinctions between those who are my people and those who are not.

One Saul

tried to do this back in first Samuel chapter 15. Samuel, had commanded Saul Saul to go and to destroy the Amalekites. Utterly destroy them. To kill everything. All the people, all the animals, everything.

And in first Samuel 15 verses 13, it says this. Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, blessed are you of the Lord. I've carried out the command of the Lord. He's proud of himself. He's done well.

But Samuel said, what then is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? Which is a indirect way of saying, weren't you supposed to kill all their animals? How how come I hear them? Saul said, they, not we, they, the people, they immediately he's not one of them. They, They have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared the best sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we have utterly destroyed.

Now, what is it that Saul's proposing to Samuel in that moment? The command was to utterly destroy. Well, we utterly destroyed all except those that we wanted to offer as a sacrifice to God. Wouldn't that be better? That's the argument he's making.

Then Samuel said to Saul, wait and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night. And he said to him, speak. Samuel said, is it not true though you were little in your own eyes you were made the head of a tribe of tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission and said, go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated? And so Samuel's making the case. Didn't God raise you up and give you this position, and this power, and this glory, and this kingdom?

Didn't doesn't everything you have come from him? And then didn't he who gave you all that tell you to kill all them? Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord? And Saul said to Samuel, I did obey the voice of the Lord. And went on the mission which the Lord sent me, and it brought back a gag, the King of Amalek.

So that again another failure. I brought back the King of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. You see he thought he had obeyed. We utterly destroyed all of the animals except the best ones, and we utterly destroyed all the people except the king. But the people took some of the spoil and sheep and oxen and the choices things that devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.

You see Samuel was confronting Saul about his sins, and Saul didn't see it. But at its most basic level in that story, Saul thought he knew better than the Lord. And he decided he would take some liberty with the commands of God. Utterly destroy them. Well, except for the best animals.

We were gonna sacrifice them to the Lord. Do you know what what happens with sacrificed meat? What tends to go along with sacrifices? What were you saying, Daniel? It's a feast.

It's a feast. They're such liars. They're like, we're gonna sacrifice to the Lord and have a feast. We wouldn't want all this good stuff to go to waste. We're hungry and we deserve it.

You see how easy it is to disobey the command of the Lord. All the while thinking you're doing what you said in both cases, both with the animals and with the king. Saul said, we did what we were commanded. But Samuel had a different understanding. Why did you do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?

So we have to be on guard about making excuses for our half obedience. Don't we? Thinking that we're more merciful, more wise, that we would could offer up to God something better than what he requires of us.

You know

how much trouble we would avoid? You kids, I'll talk to you for a minute. Do you know how much trouble you would avoid if you just do what your parents said? It's not trying to figure out how you can do like most of what they said, but then like make up for the part you don't want to obey by doing some other thing they never asked you to do? Parents don't appreciate that.

They don't say, oh, you knew better than I did what I wanted. That's smart, wise, or rather how rebellious and foolish. And so this is what Moses is warning Israel against. Don't be smarter. Don't be more merciful than God.

He has wrath for these people. He has wrath for these people. You are his instrument of wrath. Don't subvert his will. Don't become a rebel like those that you've been commanded to destroy.

Be careful to do what he commands to you to do. What's the end result of all of this? If they were to take take the people and wipe out some of them, and if you know the if you know the history, if you've read Joshua, if you know what's coming, you know that the Israelites don't do what's said right here. They start out well for like a city or two maybe, and then it's downhill from there. It's pretty quick that they were failing and not doing what what they were told to do here.

And so what does God warn them about? He says, well, if you do this, if you make covenant with them, if you're show them favoritism, married with them, what's going to happen is you're going to be turned away from me. And if you're turned away from me, then effectively you will become like them, and you will be destroyed just like they were destroyed. Those standing there hearing this at this time should have burned clearly into their memory the lack of fathers and grandfathers that they have because of their rebellion. They had just been consumed.

As we've worked our way through Deuteronomy, we've seen that, that it wasn't until the very end of the forty years that all of the generation that were to be destroyed were finally destroyed. And it was upon that destruction finally being completed, that they're brought to the land to the edge of the land and Moses gives them this this the law again, Deuteronomy. And so it should be fresh in their mind. The death of their fathers and grandfathers, the destruction, their their their their judgment should be fresh in their mind. And this is the Lord telling them, if you don't do what I say, that's what's gonna happen to you again.

But man, they didn't listen. Hard hearted, foolish, forgetful, rebellious, selfish, I don't know. Call it what you want. All those things and more. The fact remains if they make common cause with the wicked, if they intermingle among them, if their hearts wander over toward them, they will become like the wicked and therefore will be judged along with the wicked.

Paul warns us in first Corinthians 15, do not be deceived. Bad company corrupts good morals. The deception that they fell prey to was that they would be more just, more merciful, more gracious than God. As the people of God, Israel was supposed to be a pure and separate nation set apart from the wicked. They would have nothing to do with them.

And they were to behave this way and live this way for the sake of God's glory and for their own protection. How much of your life is spent trying to find joy and peace and contentment and good warm feelings? How much sin do you fall into because of that simple reality?

A lot

of it. A lot of it. And what what what what's on the other side of the scale is simple obedience to the word of God. And we find it so difficult. We find it so unappealing, so onerous, so burdensome.

But you

know the people that I've met, and I think you would agree that the people that you've seen who make a priority of obeying the word of God, and who try to organize their life around it tends to be happier people. Then the ones who spend their lives trying to find their joy in this world. They believe that what God has set before them in his word in their lives is what's good for them. And it's it's it's it's the manifestation of his blessing on them in their lives. And they receive it with gladness.

And it may not be as much as this other this other guy or that other family or whomever, but somehow they're content and cheerful. That's what's always being set before us. That's what's being set before them. God wants to bless his people. He's promised and covenanted to bless his people.

It's not him who breaks covenant. It's us who breaks covenant. It's us who thinks that joy and contentment and satisfaction and peace come from somewhere other than God's hand. And so we would do well to realize that and acknowledge it in ourselves, and then to let that that soak in and and sink into us. Such that we go, you know, that's not actually what I want.

That's not actually who I want to be. Lord help me. Would you give me the good things you promised to me, and would you help me to see them and receive them with gladness? And would you help me obey even when it's hard? When the command is to utterly destroy, it'd be a hard command.

You've not been commanded to utterly destroy anyone. None of you have had the Lord put a sword in your hand and been told to go and kill. But you have been given good things by the Lord, and you have been commanded by the Lord. And the question that's before you is, will you obey him? Or do you know a better way?

This is the tension that Christians live in. Many of us would rather kind of like move off the reservation and onto a like a Christian bubble. Into a Christian bubble. Where all the bad people are on the outside. All the temptations are over there.

Paul tells us that if that were to be the case that we'd have to go out of the world. God has put us in this this tense position where we are intermingled amongst the wicked and yet we're not to become like them. And I believe he's placed us in this tension to teach us to trust his word and to repent of our sins when we wander away. And so these warnings here in this passage about not covenanting with them, and not showing them favor, and not intermarrying with them, are all aimed at teaching them contentment and obedience and faith that God would provide for them. And so that's my challenge to you.

That's the end of the sermon. Will you take God at his word? Will you do what he commands you to do even when it's contrary to your, sensibility? Contrary to your flesh's desire? Contrary to your priorities, will you take God at his word?

And will you trust him and do what he says? And trust him to do with you what he will. That's how Christians ought to live. That's how we ought to live. Our lives would be a lot more peaceful and a lot more joyful if we would endeavor to do this.

And so that's my expectation to you. Take God at his word and do what he says, and see if he doesn't bless you. Let's pray.