ALL THINE HEART
Deuteronomy 4:22-29 (KJV)
But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.
Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
I feel like we’ve been in the middle of one of those tests of the Emergency Broadcasting Network.
“We interrupt the regular programming for this test of the Emergency Broadcasting Network. If this had been a real emergency, you would have been instructed what to do.”
So far, 2020 has been a test without any real emergency.
The trouble is, no one has shut off that annoying signal yet!
I want to remind you what the Lord led me to preach upon and to pray for this year.
· I am preaching on the theme, Where is Your Heart? and
· I am praying for a reviving
Things are not back to normal, but it is beginning to feel a little bit like it’s returning to normal.
And it seems right for me to resume preaching on the subject of the heart.
The message this morning is an encouraging one, but a hard one in the same breath.
Deuteronomy 4:29 (KJV)
But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
I. SOME BACKGROUND
These are some of the final words of Moses.
God had shown him
Deuteronomy 4:22 (KJV)
But I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan: but ye shall go over, and possess that good land.
Forty years previous to this Moses had made a bold step.
He left the sheep he had been tending in the wilderness, entered into the home of the Pharaoh of Egypt, the home he had grown up in, and demanded that the Pharaoh, “Let my people go.”
The Bible says that Israel left Egypt “with a high hand.”
God had dealt blow after blow against Pharaoh so that, when he finally did left Israel go, he was only too happy to see them leave.
Now, forty years have transpired.
Moses knew these people VERY well.
· They had murmured
· They had complained
· They had worshipped idols
· They had personally attacked Moses and Aaron
I was thinking, I don’t believe there is any place in the Pentateuch where they ever said anything nice to him or about him.
They consistently followed him
They were times that they responded favorably to his message
But they were never encouraging toward him.
I take it that a preacher doesn’t have to be loved by his congregation to be the man God put in oversight of them.
Now Moses must die.
Before he left them, he gave them
II. SOME INSTRUCTION
Deuteronomy 4:23-28 (KJV)
Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, which the LORD thy God hath forbidden thee.
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil in the sight of the LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Of course, this isn’t everything he taught them; just that which comes before the passage I want to preach to you.
Notice
A. Take heed
Deuteronomy 4:23 (KJV)
Take heed unto yourselves, …
He said they should take heed unto themselves.
Moses knew them very well and knew they would soon forget the covenant of the Lord and that they would make a graven image.
They had already done it at the foot of Mt Sinai.
B. God is a jealous God
Vs 24
For the LORD thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
This will be key in a moment or two. Remember it.
It’s one of the Ten Commandments.[1]
The word is always used as a negative when it involves people.
Jealousy is in fact, a sin.
But the Bible teaches repeatedly that God is jealous, and for Him it is no sin.
The Hebrew word means, protective.
The ancient meaning would have been something like “to acquire a nest.”
Like a mother bird gathers food and hovers over her brood.
Listen, God does not want anyone or anything to come between He and His children!
He is a jealous God!
C. They wouldn’t live long in the Promised Land
Deuteronomy 4:26-28 (KJV)
LORD thy God, to provoke him to anger:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Moses knew them very well.
· He knew they would forget the covenant of the Lord
· He knew they would make them graven images.
· He knew they would provoke God to anger and
· He knew the Lord would scatter them among the heathen
From there Moses gave them,
III. SOME HELP
Deuteronomy 4:29 (KJV)
But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
I want to tell you this, whatever predicament you find yourself it, there is always a way of escape.
1 Corinthians 10:13 (KJV)
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
Whether your predicament be:
· The result of the times in which you live
· The people from which you come
· The choices of which you have made
If your predicament is
· Someone else’s doing or
· Your own doing
God has made for you a way of escape.
· If you find yourself in a strange land, where you should not be
· If you find yourself doing things you should not do
· If you find yourself in
· financial problems, or
· personal problems or
· relationship problems or
· legal problems
God has made for you a way of escape.
Wherever you are and whatever trouble you are in, if you seek God you can find Him.
But there is this one hard truth.
Deuteronomy 4:29b (KJV)
…if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
God is a jealous God.
He will not accept part of your heart.
He refuses to be a part of your life. He wants only to be all of your life.
Jesus said, Matthew 6:24 (KJV)
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Jesus said, Luke 14:26-27 (KJV)
If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
The Bible says in Matthew 8:19-22 (KJV)
And a certain scribe came, and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.
And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.
Listen to this passage, Matthew 22:35-40 (KJV)
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
The good news is that
Psalms 145:18 (KJV)
The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.
Deuteronomy 4:29 (KJV)
… if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him,
The hard news is, Deuteronomy 4:29b (KJV)
…if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
This will separate the sheep from the goats, won’t it?
Jesus said in, John 6:53-58 (KJV)
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.
For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.
He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.
This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.
What He was teaching is that He had to become the very reason for their life.
And the disciples heard it and said,
John 6:60 (KJV)
Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
And John 6:66 (KJV)
From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Conclusion
Deuteronomy 4:29 (KJV)
… if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him,
We Christians in America sure like to hear that!
· Whatever we do
· Wherever we go
· Whatever trouble we find ourselves in
· Whatever decisions we make
Deuteronomy 4:29 (KJV)
… if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him,
But the hard truth is,
Deuteronomy 4:29b (KJV)
…if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
And that is where we fall short.
God is a jealous God. He will not accept some part of us.
This is hard.
It’s so hard, in fact, that we cannot do it.
· That’s why Jesus came.
· That’s why He died.
Your life for His.
He gave His Heavenly Father everything. And He gave it for you and me.
And now, if we will come to Jesus, God will accept us, because of Him.
I am not excusing your halfhearted Christianity.
I am just saying that Jesus did what you cannot.
And I am giving you a reason to invest more of yourself in Christ.
[1] Exodus 20:4-5 (KJV)
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
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