First: love; then: obedience - the order matters.

<p>First: love; then: obedience - the order matters.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hope Channel

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2021: Deuteronomy

Sebastien Braxton

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Jonathan Walter

01 Covenants and Sermons

Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, and 1 of the most difficult, if not the most boring.

Study with us on this episode of Inverse.

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey everyone, my name is Justin Kim, and you're watching on Inverse, and you're on Inverse, and you're listening to Inverse, and you're with us in the Inverse studio.

And I have my friends here, Sebastian, Israel, and Jonathan.

I was looking at Israel, but I was thinking of Sebastian.

And we are embarking on a new series, on a new arc on the book of Deuteronomy.

How many of you have started reading the Bible?

You start in Genesis, you got these wonderful stories, you got Exodus, some stories are in there.

Leviticus is kinda getting a bit weird, Numbers, you're trudging through the wilderness and you've landed in Deuteronomy and it's super, super hard and slow and molasses-esque.

We're gonna study in the next 13 weeks the book of Deuteronomy.

So we wanna encourage you to go to inversebible.org and you can download our Bible study guide and study with us and have this wilderness experience together.

Are you excited for this topic of Inverse?

As you see, we have an all male cast this season.

And we have- Not this season, just today.

So, Israel, can you pray for us, and not just pray for this episode, but pray for the entire season that we really treat this book of Deuteronomy well.

It's a hard topic, but I think like we have done in the past, if something is hard, we don't wanna shy away from it.

We kinda tackle it and through the Holy Spirit and through prayer and through meditation, we can get some blessings.

Father in Heaven, we are about to embark on a journey with You through the book of Deuteronomy, and we pray that You would bless us, that You would give us insight, that You would be among our conversation, and that You would teach us to be more like you and to love you more.

Sebastian, share with us, do you have any experiences with Deuteronomy?

Have you had this kind of existential crisis when you're actually reading through Deuteronomy?

I know I have and I share it a little, but have you, or is this just a breeze for you?

I wouldn't say it's a breeze, but I actually really enjoyed the book of Deuteronomy because I love history, and it does a lot of recounting with actual lessons, right, commenting on those stories.

And I also have found that Deuteronomy is really challenging with some of the laws, and you're trying to understand, like, why this is here.

And I always like to embrace a biblical study challenge because I feel like there's usually a hidden gem of truth there, right, that you're just not seeing.

Isn't it a little counterintuitive that, hey, I want to be more spiritual.

And then, hey, let's read a book with laws in it.

So we'll have to scratch a little bit at the surface and see what's deeper rather than just look at the laws for the lawsuit.

Yeah, for me, actually, reading the Book of Deuteronomy, I always get a little emotional because it's like Moses' last profound sermon to his people, you know, and he's like pouring his heart out to them.

And I mean, it's history and it's a lot of loss and so on, but I think it's, I always try to imagine Moses giving these sermons and he knows he's going to die.

He's 120 years old, you know, and and his people, he led them all these years.

I just I always get a little emotional reading this book.

So this season you want to zoom into Jonathan's eyes and to see if you see that Austrian tear coming out from the end.

But no, that being said, it is an emotional book, not only for Jonathan, but you also see that God is a very passionate entity, a passionate, the personality of passion comes out through here.

And Jonathan, if you can start reading from verse 19.

And we can't read the whole chapter, but read it from verse 19.

And we'll try to get the essence of chapter 1.

So we departed from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as the Lord our God had commanded us.

And I said to you, you have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.

Look at the Lord your God has set the land before you.

Go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you.

And every 1 of you came near to me and said, Let us send men before us and let them search out the land for us and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up and of the cities into which we shall come.

So I took 12 of your men, 1 man from each tribe, and they departed and went up into the mountains and came to the valley of Eshkol and spied it out.

They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us.

And they brought back word to us saying, It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.

Okay, let's stop there and we'll switch to Sebastian.

You can read from verse 26 onwards, please.

Nevertheless, you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God.

And you complained in your tents and 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 to destroy us.

Our brethren have discouraged our hearts saying that people are greater and taller than we.

The cities are great and fortified up to heaven.

Moreover, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.

Then I said to you, Do not be terrified or afraid of them.

The Lord your God who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.

Yet, for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you, to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.

And hopefully you've been with us and you're reading the scripture with us.

We wanna really encourage you to take out your Bibles, whether it's on your phone or actually book and read Deuteronomy with us, what's going on here in chapter 1?

It's a long section and it takes a little bit of, you've got to get into the narrative, what's happening?

Callie Williams

02 Rebellion and Consequences

Close your eyes and think, what does God look like?

We'll talk about the physical features of God on this episode of Inverse.

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, Welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now, here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

My name's Justin Kim, and you're on Inverse.

In the studio with me is Israel and Jonathan and Callie and we're in the midst of studying the book of Deuteronomy.

We encourage you to go to HopeTV.org slash inverse.

You can look at last week's episode and see how we get into this wilderness experience.

And we are in Deuteronomy, 1 of my, I don't want, I would not say it's 1 of my top 10 favorite books of the Bible.

But after last episode, I mean, it's, we're getting there.

I mean, it's, it's every time we do study a book of the Bible, it tends to lean to be my favorite.

We're going to go to Deuteronomy, Chapter 4, Deuteronomy, Chapter 4.

But before we read the Bible, I'm going to ask that we pray.

Father, we are here again to open your word, to grow from your word.

And Lord, we just want to invite your Holy Spirit, teach us what we need to learn today, not just us, but all those who are watching and studying with us.

And I pray that as we journey through this book of Deuteronomy, they will grow closer to you and have a more committed and more fruitful relationship.

I don't think we have enough time for the whole 49 verses.

So, let's start from verse 29 through 31.

But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

When you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey his voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will not forsake you nor destroy you, Nor forget the covenant of your fathers, which he swore to them." Yeah, this is kind of the apex of that passage.

So right after chapter 4 is chapter 5, where the 10 Commandments are given.

We're going to look at that in the next episode.

But you look at Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5, where there are 2 times where the 10 Commandments are mentioned.

Jesus also created according to the New Testament.

But also Deuteronomy 5 emphasizes his redemption, so creation or redemption.

But right before this giving of the 10 Commandments, we have chapter 4, and God kind of gives us kind of preface or kind of his plea before his grand opening.

Yeah, as we've mentioned before, the book of Deuteronomy not only speaks of the law, but it also speaks...

The Book of Deuteronomy not only talks about law, but it also talks about life, it talks about instruction, it's really more than that, it's a book of experience, a book of life, stories that are retelling the experience that God has had with His people.

Especially in chapter 4, He begins by talking about, in verse 7, you know, for what great nation is there that has God, Yahweh, so near to it?

Verse 8, what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in the law, which are set before you this day.

When we're talking about the law, it's more than just 10 commandments, more than just regulations, but it's talking about how is it that a person can really experience happiness, right?

Now, what I appreciated about that setup that Moses gives us in the beginning of chapter 4, he's talking about the comparison between great nations and the nation of Israel.

Because what we want more in this life than anything else, we don't want a great God, we want to be great ourselves.

And then it's kind of like he's bringing to mind, look, all of these nations, as great as they are, as powerful as they are, as wealthy as they are, they're missing this 1 thing.

And that is that they don't have God near to them the way you do.

And so even though you might be a small nation, even though you might look like a feeble nation, even though you might be at the bottom of all the nations, You have this great privilege.

Yeah, of having the great God of the universe.

And, and, and so this is something that kind of, that is portrayed.

And then he says, what makes the difference though, between whether or not you will appreciate God or you will a great God, or you will appreciate a great nation.

And then it becomes, as Kelly read, it's an issue of the heart, right?

If you want God near to you, if you want the great God, if you want to appreciate the greatness of God near to you, then you will have me, you will, when you seek for me with all your heart.

And then he goes into verse 15, into this kind of section on be wearing idolatry, not to reproduce God, reproduce him in a physical feature.

Which should go to the theme in the beginning, the opening of the show.

Well, idolatry is as old as humanity, really.

It is every time humans try to make something that you know God clearly instructed not to do or to do and they just do their own version of it that is really idolatry.

So like You see it already right in the beginning, you know, with Cain when he did the sacrifice that was not, he did a sacrifice, that's what God asked for, but he did it according to his own way.

And so he formed the sacrifice in his own image, so to say.

But God is saying, I have clear instructions.

I've clearly showed you the way to go and just follow my way.

Now, when it comes to his, you know, you're asking about his physical features and those kind of things.

We do know from Genesis, and we did studies, you know, numerous times on inverse, that God created humanity in his own image.

Now, that of course can be interpreted in many ways, but it does, you know, throughout Scripture, there seems to be, it does allude to the fact that God does have physical features that he can be seen.

I mean, Moses saw, you know, God's back, well, face to face and then his back and then his hand.

So there seems to be a physical, visible presence of God that can be seen, whether that is always the way he looks, or if it's only when he interacts with humans.

We don't have all the information on that, but there seems to be some kind of form that he has.

And going to 1 of the questions that you asked about why idolatry, in this case of creating these images, is wrong, is because we cannot create an image that accurately represents God.

Even if we're not even talking about physical forms, just like you can't confine Him.

He even said like, yeah, He'll come and dwell in the temple, but like you can't confine Him even to a temple.

And so to say, this is what God looks like, or I need to go to this house and then see God, you're bringing down his physical presence, you're confining him to a place, you're confining him to an appearance, you're confining it to an experience that you control, and it even just takes away who God is.

And so you're just like, God is all these things and God is so transcendent, but then you're like, oh no, no, actually he's just like in my pocket or like he's in my living room.

No, I think that last line, I really appreciate.

In our last episode, we looked at how God is a relational God And as cliche as that sounds, I mean, it's sticky, there's time element, there needs to be investment, and it's just, it's emotions involved.

And in that complexity, for us to reduce that complexity to a mere, you know, artifact, an object, or whatnot, and then put in your pocket, right?

Then you've just kind of reduced this complexity to something that you can ultimately control.

And the danger is to even impose yourself upon it, And there's different versions that we do that.

03 Ten Promises

Are they 10 don'ts or are they 10 promises of something more spectacular?

My name is Justin Kim, and in the studio I've got my friends.

We've already done Episodes 1 and 2, and if you can go to inversebible.org, you can download the Bible study guide.

You can also go to hopetv.org slash inverse and look at the past episodes.

And you want to be with us because we're looking at these themes that really go throughout the book of Deuteronomy.

And as you see, this book is, there's a wilderness experience.

Deuteronomy 5 and as I mentioned in the opener, we're going to look at the 10 Commandments and Our sister Callie was saying like, hey, I wonder which 1 it is.

So, Kelly, pray for us and we'll jump into this discussion today.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of your word and the gift of this time and the gift of your commandments and the gift of your Holy Spirit.

I pray that you'd guide us, open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from your law.

May we see your heart and we trust that you will help us to be our experience because we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Sebastian, go to Deuteronomy chapter 5 and we're gonna look at the first 5 verses there.

We won't actually get into 10 Commandments.

You guys can read that, or you can look at your local government building and see if it's there or not.

That's what's in the news these days about 10 Commandments.

They think it's more of an imposition of religion on government or not.

What is the moral code found in Deuteronomy?

So, not Moses, Sebastian, can you read verse 1 that talks Moses?

That's just a verse 1 that says Moses there.

Okay, Deuteronomy 5, And Moses called all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today, that you may learn them and be careful to observe them.

The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive.

The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire.

And I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire and you did not go up the mountain.

And then you see the 10 Commandments there from verse 6 onwards.

So, Jonathan, there were 4 chapters before, and can you kind of maybe recap a little bit on that for those of you guys who are with us for episodes 1 and 2, you can go and see it.

But also, why does God do that and why now into 10 Commandments is kind of the question I'm getting at.

Yeah, so I mean, we've been starting out with the book of Deuteronomy and seeing this is, you know, Moses' last sermons to the people of Israel, kind of his last appeal to them before they enter the promised land.

And so he starts out by, you know, just kind of laying out the history of what has happened over these 40 years in the wilderness and in relation to them between God and just some of the more mundane things like how did they organize themselves with elders and leaders and so on.

But then he also goes into some, right away really into some deep subjects of your relationship with God.

You've broken it, but God has grace on you.

He's willing to work with you as you have seen over all these years.

So he points back, says, remember, remember, remember what has happened.

And then he also goes into the topic of idolatry and says, you know, there are things that you can make an idol.

And, you know, on our discussion here, we saw that it's not just statues, it's really what we choose to go to instead of going to God.

And it can be anything, it can even be good things and where our affections lie and so on.

And now we, in Deuteronomy chapter 5, in the course of the book, Moses now of course recalls the time at Mount Sinai where God established a covenant, where they were given the 10 commandments.

And it's an important reminder because this is really laying the foundation of, you know, relationship with God and relationship with others.

You know, we see in verse 2, it says, the Lord of God made a covenant with us in Horeb.

And what's interesting is that Moses really is bringing this new generation of Israelites because these 40 years have gone by.

He's saying, you know, you were all there, even though some of them were not there.

He is pointing to the importance of remembering that this covenant was not just established with their parents, but with them and everyone who calls themselves a Israelite.

You know, Justin, it's really interesting to note, right, building off of Jonathan's insights there that They're never called commandments, right?

It's just like, this is what He said, right?

These are His words, this is the words of the covenant.

Yeah, I mean, the actual Hebrew says 10 words, right?

In English, we do kind of make the 10 commandments.

Right, and it's interesting because even taking that concept, right, changes the spirit behind how you view them, right?

And God puts them in this sort of transcendent, you know, condescending communication like, yes, you will do this, you will do this.

And this is the covenant, it's me commanding and you submitting and acquiescing.

And so, I think that understanding this in the context of a covenant builds off of our episode 1 about the relationship emphasis.

These are the 10 words that God is saying to you and this is what's going to be the terms of our relationship.

Not so much you commend, because you don't commend a person you love, right, in that same sense, right?

When your son is young, you may guide and try to demand obedience, but as you progress in that relationship, that's not the nature of the relationship you always want with your son.

These opening chapters of Deuteronomy really reflect for me presuppositions.

These are what sunglasses, what color glasses do I put on as I read this text, read this story?

There's a lot of people who put on these glasses And it's like, oh God, oh God.

And then he put on these glasses and then they read this text, like, oh, God's complaining again, and he's gone on a power trip, and then we messed up again, and there he is, and then this relationship is getting horrible, He's whining, he's remembering every single time that I didn't take out the garbage, every single time that I didn't pick up the kids from school, every single time, I mean, all these things, and then at the apex of that, like, and now these 10 rules, this is like his final, like, this is the final, you know, 10, if you don't buy my, then you're kaput.

That's 1 set of glasses that many people unfortunately have.

And then there's the other set of glasses that you put on, and it says, God does record all those times.

And this is why you need a covenant, where now I'm going to do, I'm going to give you 10 words or 10 promises, right?

And you're going to be able to do all of these 10 things, and I'm going to flow through you.