Deuteronomy 8:1(NKJV) 1“Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers.
Throughout 2011, we have been looking at Israel’s journey from bondage in Egypt to their destiny in the promised land of Canaan. We have discovered that one of the aspects of that land was that it was a very prosperous place. It was God’s will for Israel to prosper. His purpose in this was twofold.
First, God is a good God who takes care of his people. In the New Testament, this goes even deeper. He was Abrahams covenant friend and his God. He is our Father. God loves you and wants you to have, according to 1 Tim 6:17, “all things richly to enjoy.” Therefore, he wants to prosper us in order to bless us. It is just that simple.
In the case of Israel’s promised prosperity in Canaan, there is another side to God’s plan. He is going to establish them as a blessed nation so that he can bring the Messiah through their lineage. In our case, God wants to bless us so that he can show the world that his ways are the only solution to the economic woes facing us. Of course, he is the answer to all the problems of mankind, but right now, the economy is on everyone’s mind. God is going to use this opportunity to bring people to himself.
This week we will look at Deuteronomy 8:1-20. This chapter is Moses exhortation to Israel concerning things they had to remember once they found themselves in this prosperous new land. This chapter lists attitudes they needed to cultivate and decisions they needed to make before they ever got to Canaan. I believe they are also valuable to us. If we cultivate these things, God will be able to lead us into our land of prosperity.
The very first thing God says to them is the same thing we found in Deuteronomy 28. If they are going to possess the land of their destiny, they will have to keep God’s commandments. This is not an option. We cannot live an ungodly life and receive a godly blessing. How do we reconcile this with the idea that we are not under law but under grace. It is very easy to reconcile.
Grace has always been the God’s method for dealing with man. God did not introduce grace in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, grace took the form of the Mosaic Law. The Old Testament believer had no access to the sacrifice of Jesus because it had not yet happened. He could not be become a new creature. Sin had separated man from God. Man was left with no legal way back into relationship with his creator. The book of Ephesians makes this clear.
Of man’s condition Paul says this;
Ephesians 2:3(NKJV) 3among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
Of man’s legal approach to God, Paul says this;
Ephesians 2:12(NKJV) 12that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Without Christ, man is a child of wrath or a child of the Devil. He is without hope and totally cut off from God in the world. However, Paul is talking to gentiles not Jews. He says they had no hope and were without God because they were cut off from the “covenants of promise.”
The Jews were not without hope or without God because they were part of a covenant of promise. The covenant with Abraham was their connection. God initiated this covenant, not because Abram deserved it but because God wanted to give it. The Abrahamic covenant was God’s grace in action. God added the law because man could not keep this covenant. God gave Israel sacrifices, rituals and all the rest so they would have a way to keep the covenant and stay under the grace God had provided.
If Israel broke the covenant by sinning, they were legally put back under the dominion of the devil. God gave them a Legal way of restoration back into the grace relationship he had provided. We live under a different covenant. Our covenant is a better covenant with better promises. It is grace in a purer form.
We have access to God because of what Jesus did. The teaching of the New Birth is a teaching of a change in nature. We are no longer children of wrath but, in Christ, we are children of God. If we sin, all we need to do is confess our sin. He promises to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God could not do that under the Old Covenant, because Jesus had not yet paid for man’s sin. Instead, God provided sacrifices as a way to push the judgment for sin ahead until Jesus came. This enabled Israel to stay in relationship with God. This was Old Testament Grace
Today we are required to offer no sacrifices. We simply receive forgiveness. Why is this so? It is so because we are children of God not just citizens of his chosen nation. If I am a citizen of the United States and if I break the laws of the land I must pay a price for my “sin.” If one of my children sins against the family, he is still my child. I will discipline him and maybe punish him, but he never becomes something other than my child. No matter what sin we commit, we will never be less than God’s child.
If my son goes outside my household and commits sins, he may face consequences that I do not wish for him. Legally he is my son, but when he does wrong things, he may get hurt. A citizen who does wrong things owes payment for his wrong. A son must only repent and he is forgiven.
If we want to prosper, we must live by God’s standards and keep his commandments. Grace does not excuse us from this. If we try to live outside those commandments, we will still be God’s child. We will still have legal access to God because Jesus has already paid the price for sin. To partake of that access we must repent and ask forgiveness from the Father. He promises to grant it. If we do not repent and ask forgiveness, we will give the devil access to our lives and our finances. We will not have Divine prosperity.
Key number 1 for entering into Divine prosperity is, “Keep God’s commandments and walk in his ways.”
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