Matt Hagee - The If Is Not In God

Hello and welcome to this Sunday conversation. We’re now in the book of Deuteronomy, and this is the last book in the Torah. Remember, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible written by Moses as the Lord gave him instructions, is very important not only in the Jewish faith but also in our understanding of who we are as Judeo — Christians. It’s imperative that we understand that these books provide the origin of the epic that unfolds throughout the rest of the Bible.

Deuteronomy is the last book of Moses, and it is his account of what happened from the time the children of Israel left Sinai and are now ready to enter into the Promised Land. Deuteronomy means «to retell»; this is the second narration. If you would think of it like this: Moses is a past president in the United States, and he’s writing a book of his memoirs. He’s writing about all of the decisions that were made while he was in leadership and all of the events and actions that took place. Moses makes it clear how he feels about what has happened in the last 40 years. Moses knows that he’s going to die on Mount Nebo. He understands that he’s not going to be crossing over the Jordan with the children of Israel, so he does not spare his feelings about the last four decades of his life.

Now, here are some things to consider: Moses is not writing this book to the generation that he started with in Egypt-those who saw the miracles of deliverance, those who were there when the Red Sea parted, those who ate the manna that fell from the sky-they’re dead, buried in the wilderness. These are the children and the grandchildren of those he led out of captivity. So Moses’s hope is not to chastise or judge them, not to tell them, «Because of your behavior, these are the consequences that you’ve suffered,» but his desire is that he would help teach the next generation, that he would give them something to learn from their experience and the things that the previous generation had done. You know, there’s something that you can learn from everyone. Sometimes you learn from good decisions, and sometimes you learn from failure.

The Bible tells us that the Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. As a matter of fact, it says that in Malachi, and it says it in the book of Hebrews. In Malachi, it says, «I am the Lord; I do not change.» In Hebrews, it says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. While that speaks about the consistency of who God is, it also reminds us that we can learn from the experience of others in the past, even though they may not be here today. One of my favorite books in all of the Bible is the one we’re about to jump into for just a few moments because it tells the next generation that if you will remember the word of the Lord, if you will remember His commandments, if you will obey what He has asked you to do, then He will be a God who blesses you. I want you to remember this as we begin in Deuteronomy chapter 1: the «if» is not in God; He’s the same. The «if» is always in us. We are the ones who have to decide.

If there’s one question that should be asked reading the first three verses of Deuteronomy, it’s this one: what took you so long? Here’s what I mean. Deuteronomy chapter 1 says, «These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain opposite of Shuf, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.» Verse two: «Very important, it is an 11-day journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.» Kadesh Barnea is where the children of Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, and verse two says it is an 11-day journey. So why did it take them 40 years to go from Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, to the crossing? Less than two weeks, and now, four decades later, they’re here. The root cause: unbelief.

Verse three says, «Now it came to pass in the 40th year, in the 11th month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him to them.» And he had killed Sihon, king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and who dwelt in Ashteroth and Edrei on this side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab. Moses began to explain this law. God wanted the children of Israel to be different from all other nations on the face of the earth. He set them apart by giving them His law. Many people will call it the law of Moses, but truly it is not; it’s the law of God given to Moses.

What you need to understand about the law of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at this point in history, is that it is one of the most liberal and one of the most equitable laws that had ever been written. Prior to the Ten Commandments and during that time, many people would look at what history calls Hammurabi’s Code, or they would look at other states and nations that operated under a caste system where a royal figure was the supreme authority. This was what existed in Egypt, where Pharaoh is like a god and everyone else serves at his pleasure.

So when God told Moses liberal ideas like «an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,» it was revolutionary. In our modern world, we would look at that and say, «Well, that’s cruel! How can you take my eye if I take your eye?» In the life and time of Moses, if I’m the king and I want your life, I can take it without consequence. But if you’re a peasant, you can’t take anything because you’re at the bottom of the hill. What Moses was saying is that all men are created equal. If the king on the throne takes your eye, because you were created by the same God he was created by, you can take his eye. It was revolutionary.

So many times when people argue that the Bible is an outdated book, you need to recognize that in the context of its time and in the hour of history in which it was given, it was a revolution. It was absolutely astounding that all men were created equal. Follow that thread through history. What were some of the thoughts that our founding fathers put into our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence here in the United States? That all men are created equal. Where did they get that crazy concept from? The law of Moses. If you go to Washington today and you look above the Supreme Court building, at the apex of the building is a figure holding a staff and two tablets of stone; to his right and to his left are other symbols of justice and authority throughout history, but in the middle, at the highest point, is Moses. Why? Because the law that God gave him is the foundation of the law of the land in our nation today.

In Deuteronomy, we read very quickly that God wanted the children of Israel to complete this journey. In verse 6, it says, «The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, 'You have dwelt long enough at this mountain.'» The children of Israel came out of Egypt and went to Mount Sinai, and they were there for two years. In the 24 months, they built the Tabernacle, began to institute the sacrifices, and understood what it meant to serve the Lord. In verse 4, we read that all the enemies that were against them were defeated, and the way was prepared. They’re now ready to go to the place that God had promised them. However, they make a series of mistakes. Mistake one: we read about this in verses 9-15. God said through Moses, «I spoke to you at that time, saying, 'I alone am not able to bear you. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude. May the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are and bless you as I have promised you. How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? '»

Verse 13: «Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.» This gives us the system of judgment and delegation that Moses provides to the children of Israel. It’s very imperative that you understand he was instructed to choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men. Whenever they made the decisions about who was going to lead the children of Israel, they chose individuals-some with knowledge, some who were wise, but very few with understanding. When Moses began to complain, «I am not able to bear you,» Moses forgot that the children of Israel belonged to God and not to Moses. They were never his to bear; they were his to lead. I think that’s something that a lot of people could understand a little better today.

We often talk about things we’re in charge of as if it’s our responsibility and don’t recognize that we have a role to play in the responsibility that God has given us. It’s not a burden to bear; it’s ours to lead. Moses chooses wise men-individuals who know when to use information. Moses is to choose men with understanding, people who have knowledge and are capable of applying the information at the right time. Moses is to choose these individuals that have all of these traits so they can help accomplish their mission as a nation. In verse 10 and verse 15, Moses got them men-remember, wisdom means knowing what to do and when to do it; knowledge means having the information; understanding means being able to see the entire situation from both sides. Because they’re going to settle disputes between two individuals, the people that Moses chose didn’t know how to use the information.

If you really want to see a demonstration of this, you can look back in the Bible at Exodus chapter 18. There you have a very clear situation of how the law of God is perfect, but people who use the law imperfectly create problems. It’s the same in our world today. How many times do we see people claiming that the Bible says something that it really doesn’t say? What they’re trying to do is take the word of God out of context to accomplish their will and not God’s. Here in Deuteronomy 1:16, we find evidence of how God treats all men equally. «Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the cases between your brethren, and listen; judge righteously between a man and his brother or a stranger who is with him.'» If God didn’t see everyone equally, why would He include the stranger?

Verse 17: «You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid of any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it.» I commanded you at that time all the things in which they should be done. God is a just God; the judge must be willing to treat all people fairly. When the laws of the land are rooted in the word of God, and the people who are to execute the law fear the Lord, you have a prosperous nation. This is why the Bible says that «blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.» When people behave according to the ordinances of God’s word, the blessings of God are poured out upon them.

When you look through the book of Deuteronomy, you see the foundation of a nation, and at the very cornerstone of every prosperous civilization is the truth and the fear of the Lord. Moses gives the children of Israel clear instruction: «We departed from Horeb, and we went through all of the great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as the Lord our God had commanded. Then we came to Kadesh Barnea.» Then Moses begins to look into the faces of the generation who were born in the wilderness-children who had buried their parents-and he begins to retell the story of their unbelief and how they began to doubt God, who had been so good to them for 400 years while they were in Egypt. God delivers them through what is described as plagues, but truly as miracles- turning water into blood, turning the sun into darkness.

When you review the miracles of deliverance that God used in Egypt, what He systematically did was dismantle every deity that Egypt had. Egypt was polytheistic; that word means that they had many gods. God commanded His children to be monotheistic-one God. This is what you read in the book of Deuteronomy; it’s called the Shema in Hebrew: «Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one.» If you understand that simple principle, you’ll recognize very quickly why the Jewish people have been so hard for any nation on earth to conquer or control throughout their history: because they refused to serve or be a part of any system that had multiple gods.

So when God sent Moses to Egypt, they worshiped the Nile; God turned it to blood. They worshiped crocodiles; God sent frogs. They worshiped the sun; God sent darkness. They worshiped Pharaoh; God took his life. Everything that that other nation, which was more powerful than Israel, worshiped, God dismantled and destroyed. Why? Because He was proving to them, «I am the Great I Am; I am the one true God. There are no other gods except for Me.» God is so consistent in this message that He parts the Red Sea. They walk through on dry ground-an unfathomable thing to picture. As much as we’ve tried to describe it, it’s still inconceivable that millions of people walked through a body of water as vast and large as the Red Sea on dry ground.

They get to the other side of the Red Sea; they’re out of water. God sends water that gushes from a rock. Now, that would be remarkable enough, except this water was voluminous enough that two million people were able to drink from it. They’re hungry; God rains manna from heaven. They eat the manna, and then after they eat the manna, which the Bible literally describes in the Book of Psalms as «angel’s food,» they complain, «We’re tired of eating this cake; we want meat.»

The reason I bring all of this up is because, in verse 26 of Deuteronomy chapter 1, Moses tells the children of these individuals who have spent 40 years walking in circles, «God brought you out; God gave you the land.» Verse 26 says, «Nevertheless, you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.» And listen very closely to this because this is something that many people do not connect in the modern context. Verse 27: «And you murmured in your tents and you said, 'Because the Lord hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites and to destroy us. Where can we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying the people are greater and taller than we, the cities are greater and fortified up to the heavens. Moreover, we have seen the sons of Anak there.'»

Then I said to you, «Do not be afraid; the Lord your God who goes before you will fight for you according to all that He did for you in Egypt before your eyes.» Now, in your tents, verse 27, you murmured in your tents. The children of Israel are called to a place of meeting. The ten spies go into the land; they come back with a report. The report is given: ten spies say, «This land is uninhabitable; it’s giant; it’s full of cities; we’ll never win.» Two spies, Joshua and Caleb, say, «We can win!» But then the children of Israel go back to their private dwellings, into their tents, and it’s there they begin to murmur. They didn’t say anything in the big room; they didn’t say anything in the congregation. They kept their thoughts to themselves when everyone else could hear them, but when they got into a private place, they began to express what they felt, and they began to complain.

God brought them through the Red Sea; God gave them manna; God gave them water; God defeated Egypt. He’s not a good God? God had given them the cloud by day, the fire by night; God brought them to the land; God sent word that they should go and take the land. «We can’t do it!» And when they began to complain in their private space about what God was not willing to do, the over- exaggeration of their problem caused them to believe that success was impossible.

Now remember, I challenged you in the beginning of this message to consider the fact that you can learn something from people in the past, even though they’re not here today. We haven’t even gotten all the way through one chapter because it goes to verse 46, and think about some of the things that we’ve learned just in a few verses. One: God is faithful. If He said He would do it, He will do it. You may not know how, but He does. You may not see the way, but He’ll show you. You may not have the ability, but I promise you nothing is impossible for Him.

Two: if you will obey, God will bless you, but the «if» is not in God; the «if» is in us. The children of Israel, as long as they obeyed the Lord, were blessed. The moment that they doubted God, they suffered the consequences of that disbelief. When God is the foundation of society, all men are created equal. And when you over- exaggerate your problems, when you focus more on your burdens instead of your blessings, you begin to believe that there is no possible way anything good can come out of your circumstance. That doubt causes you to disconnect from God, and you do not get to see His hand move in your life.

You hear people say simple statements like «count your blessings.» It’s so true because whatever you focus on is what you’ll tend to move toward. Have you ever been driving down the road and you look to your right or you look to your left, and your vehicle starts to drift in the direction that you’re looking? When you look at God’s goodness in your life, you continue to go towards the source of that blessing. But when you start to look to your right and look to your left and consider all of the things that aren’t just as they should be, you begin to drift off course and find yourself in a place of a lot less comfort than God intended. Not because He isn’t the same yesterday, today, and forever, but because you chose to take your eyes off of Him.

The entire book of Deuteronomy is filled with life application, wisdom, and truth that, if you’ll take the time to read it and allow the Holy Spirit to reveal it, will bless you. I pray that you’ve been blessed by this Sunday conversation and the things that we’ve shared here today. I want to remind you, as we read through the Bible, even if you haven’t kept pace, you can start right where we are. Go back and look at older lessons and catch up if you’d like, or just encourage someone else to come and be a part of this Bible study as we continue week by week, chapter by chapter, book by book, reading the Bible in a year. God bless you; I’ll see you next week.