Do not be Deceived or Enticed

back with 16 because that's to get the whole paragraph in context, which I always think is important to do. Moses is giving his instructions to the people of Israel who are about to enter the land of promise. And he says to them, be careful or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. He's already told them about the importance of what God was going to do and the blessings he was going to give to them. And now he's warning them of the dangers they face as a result of prosperity. There's good things happen to them and you can be deceived and led away from being obedient to God. So he says, be careful or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you. Now here is a word of warning. If you do turn away from obedience to God, that is living in obedience and submission to him, then God's blessings, all that he's listed above, will disappear and instead judgment will come to you. And the judgment means that you will work hard, do everything you can, but you're not going to be able to be successful because God will not enhance what you're doing. Then verse 18, here's the remedy he gives to avoid this happening to you. Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds. So he's talking about the words of the covenant that he's given to them and the instructions on how he wants them to live. The remedy for being enticed away is the truth. And if you read the Bible and you find out what God says you should do and you hold on to that, then you will never be deceived or led away. But once you begin to question and you don't hold on to the ideas that the scripture gives, you're easily deceived or tricked or led away. So fix the words of mine in your hearts, that's the capacity you have for making decisions, and in your mind so you know the information you need to make the decisions. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them to your foreheads. Now the Jews literally did this. They would tie them on their arms of armband and they would also put them in a little pouch on their foreheads. But God didn't mean, I think, to actually literally do that so much because you could put them on your forehead and on your hands and not obey them. What he's really talking about is you make sure that they're everywhere your hands are so that the things that you do are guided by the instructions of God. He means it's on your forehead so that it's always in front of you and everything that you're doing, the words of God are there to instruct you for everything you do. So we are to avoid this deception by holding on to the truth of the word. That's why it's so important for you to read the Bible. That's why it's so important for you to be in places where you can learn it, Sunday school, Bible studies. But it's not simply to come and listen. It's to begin to latch on to those things and read them and hold on to them and observe them. Learn about them, reflect on them, put them into practice. Make sure in your own life you're living and making decisions based on those things. It's oftentimes what Satan does to deceive us is to get us to make decisions that are second best or decisions that keep us from doing what God really wants us to do. They're not necessarily evil, but they eat up our time and our lives so that we have no more time for God or the Bible or listening to him or reading it. So the primary concern is you who are listening to me, adults, he's saying, you make sure that your mind is saturated with this, that you're actually putting it into practice in your life and you're living that way. And verse 19, then teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up. How do you teach your children the things of God? First you have to know them. I've met a lot of people who say, well, I always want my kids to know about God and I sent them to Sunday school. They stayed home. And when the kids go and they hear what's said at church, they will believe that for a while. I mean, they'll believe it until they get up to be teenagers. And then the boys will start saying, well, dad gets to stay home, why can't I stay home? And the girls get to saying, well, mom doesn't go, so I'm not going to go. What you do is the pattern that your children pick up. And the Bible knows this. And the church can't take the place of a parent who's living and teaching the things of Scripture to your children. Now, you don't have to be a genius to do this. You just keep reading the Bible, you keep learning from it, you keep practicing it, you keep learning how to put it in practice yourself. And then whenever your children are doing things, they're doing something that's not right, you can tell them. Now, this is not the way I live. And it's not the way I want you to live. Because God tells us that it's not good for us to tell lies. Or it's not good for us to be mean to people. Or you just said something that you should apologize for, so I want you to apologize. All the things we learn in the Scripture about human relationships, about money, about the use of our time, we are to teach those to our children. And how do you teach them? You don't sit down in a class and do that. You teach them talking about them when you sit at home. When things come up and you're making decisions in your home about what you're going to do, you explain to them why you're going to go to church instead of going somewhere else. You explain to them why you do give your money the way you give. You explain to them why you made the choices that you make and base it on the Scripture. Not because we want to or we thought it was a good idea or we're going to impress other people, but we've talked to God about this and we've read in the Scripture and this is what we believe we should do. So as you're making the choices, be sure to explain to your children why you're making the choices. And your explanation has to always be not because the Bible tells us we have to, but because God has shown us this is the right way to live. You don't ever want to make your life with God to feel, seem like it's filled with a bunch of rules and regulations. You're trying to make it as if this is a relationship you have with someone that's smarter than you, that you trust and you believe. And because He's told you this is the right thing, you want to do the right thing and so you're doing it. In all the ordinary, everyday activities that come up, why do you watch the shows you watch? Why do we spend our money the way we spend it? Why do we go the places that we go? All those should be good reasons why you make the choices you make and if you're not making choices based on what God wants, then you should learn to do that. Use the principles of Scripture to do that. So in the things that you do, you're to talk about them when you're sitting at home with your children. When you're going down the road, he's talking about walking down the road is usually a kind of a euphemism for people living. As you're living your life and the normal processes of life, you'll see sad times come, good times come, and you have an opportunity in that moment to explain to them how you're handling your brother's death or your mother's problems or your friend's problems or the relationships you have with other people. You'll have an opportunity to explain to them how you're handling the problems that come to you. Now, the ordinary events of life are covered in the Old Testament and the New Testament with great detail. What do you do when someone treats you this way? In the Old Testament, there were specific things that they were supposed to do. If somebody's animal gets in your field and eats your crop, what do you do about it? There are specific concrete things. Jesus doesn't give us specific concrete things about all these, but he gives us basic principles by which we're to decide what to do. And so when you get in a situation where something happens to you and, say, somebody treats you really badly, a neighbor, a friend, or a relative, and your kids would see that you're not mad and you're not cussing at them and you're not saying we're never going to talk to them again, you have a reason to explain to them why you're handling it this way. God tells me there are things that I should do, and this is the way he tells us to live. And because he owns my life, I want to live this way because I know it's the right thing to do. And I know my life will be better no matter how much it hurts now. It will always be better because I trust God. See, that's how you pass on your faith to people. When you lie down, when you go to bed, you go to bed with peace with God. When you get up in the morning, you get up ready to serve God. So every day, all day long, everything you do is based on obedience and submission to God. Now, verse 20, write them on the door frames of your house and on your gates. Again, the Jewish people took this literally and sometimes did that. They wrote these scriptures on the door post or on the gates. But you and I understand that you've probably been in houses where it said something like God's ruler of this house, and you looked around and you said, I'm not sure that's true here. You know, just a plaque on the wall. So he's not talking about just a plaque on the wall. He's talking about making sure that in the operation of your household, everyone around you is aware that your relationship with God is that he is my Lord and I am submissive to him. It should be clear in the way your household operates. It should be clear in the way your relationships and your family are. For the visibility of God's commandment in your lifestyle is to be plain. You put them on your gates so that your days and the days of your children may be in the land the Lord swore to your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. Now he tells, started out talking about don't be tempted. Now he tells them how to keep from being tempted. And now he says what the results of this kind of lifestyle will be. I promise to bring you to this land in which you will have a successful life. Talks about your days being long. He's talking about having a long life in this setting, a successful life, a life that is everything that God promised it should be. Now here's the promise. When you live your life in obedience the way I tell you, your life will be everything I promised you it would be. The promise that I make to you to guide you so that your choices are always the right ones, so that you listen to me, so that you can always depend on the fact that I'm going to provide your material and spiritual needs. Also I've made a promise to you that I will protect you from the things that would crush you. Now a lot of things in life come along that can destroy you, but God promises I will not let you be destroyed. He didn't say He wouldn't let us be hurt, but we're not going to be crushed. And I'll make sure that when your life is over you'll look back on it and say, my life counted. It meant something. It wasn't just like an emptiness. Now that's the promise he made in the covenant. Here he's saying, when you enter this land, if you live in obedience to me, all those promises I made to you will come to pass. I will bring them to you. And then he made another wonderful promise to us. You do these things I tell you, not only live that way yourself, but pass them on to your children, and then your children will also have this same kind of life that I promised. Now that's not a guarantee that God has that every child raised the right way is always going to do the right thing. You and I know that that's not possible. And what he means is, this is what I can do whenever you give me the opportunity. My mother grew up in a very difficult home. I don't like the word dysfunctional because it sort of means something's just a little broken. Her dad was a mean and evil man. He abused his wife. He beat her, ran her off. He abused his children, not only verbally, but physically and sexually. And he was such a bad guy that the neighbors one time got together and came to her house and beat her dad up. And he was so afraid because of how bad he was that he carried a pistol from that day on until the day he died. She ran away from home, as did most of her brothers and sisters. And he wouldn't let them go to church at all. But she went, they invited them to church, what neighbors did one time, and she went. And as a result of that, she was touched by just one sermon, a sermon about the handwriting on the wall. And she, one day, just walking back from the barn, said to God, God, you can do anything in my life that you want. That's a surrender to God. She didn't know what happened, but she got away from home and started going to church when she finally got, when she got married. My mother went to, she only had a second grade education, but she went to church Sunday morning, Sunday school, Sunday night, to discipleship training and to Sunday services, Sunday night. She went on Wednesday nights to church. Every time the doors were open, even though she had a grocery, my mother and dad ran a grocery store and kept it open 12 hours a day or 14 hours a day. She made time for that. My dad didn't go and it didn't matter. She went anyway. He wasn't a spiritual influence in my home, but I saw my mother learn what the Bible had to say and live it. It impacted my life and my sister's life so that both of us also began to live this life that we saw her live. Now both of us have children and our children are also walking in that same path with God. And now I have grandchildren, two of them, and they're growing up in homes where they're learning how to live in obedience to God. Here you have a very wicked man who would normally produce children who are very wicked, but one person one day invited my mother to church. She heard a sermon. It changed her life, but it didn't just change her life. It changed my future because instead of being raised in a home like she grew up in, she learned how to be a mother as God wanted her to be. She couldn't read very well, but she could listen and she did read the Bible. I never heard her read the Bible out loud. She couldn't do very well with that, but she learned and put it in her mind and in her heart and it was on the wall of her life and it turned me to God. So I'm living this kind of life and I have four boys and they've learned this. Now one of them has two children and he's teaching his children. What an impact one life has to change the course of history. We often think, you know, when people grow up in these homes where terrible things take place that they're destined to continue. They're not. What Moses gives us are instructions to let us know how we can control our future, place it in God's hands. The instructions that he gave to the people of Israel are true for us because when you enter in this covenant relationship with God, he changes you and the promise of scripture is if you will do this, it will influence your children and their children and their children and the promise I made to you will also be a promise that they will have and the promise that their children will have so that they can learn to live this life of victory and fulfillment. So the Lord gives this promise and if you will keep it, this promise made to your forefathers so your days and the days of your children may be many in the land the Lord swore to give to your fathers. Now for us, it would be for the life that God swore to our forefathers. In other words, I have the life that he promised my mother as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth forever. Verse 22, he says, if you care, if you carefully observe all these commands I'm giving to you to follow and here he explicitly identifies what he's talking about to love the Lord or God. He means by that word love to be connected to God. The idea behind this we talked about a little bit earlier is the idea of being married. You're joined together with God as if it were husband and wife with him and this is the model for your marriage really is the relationship you have with God. It's the same relationship you have with the spouse. You're fastened together in a permanent fashion, trusting each other because God is guiding both of your lives. That's God's plan for this. So if you carefully observe all the commands, now notice this, he's talking about making sure that you don't just take some of them, but you make sure that you're reading constantly all of them and beginning to take them into your lives. Then the result of that is you'll be connected to God and you'll walk in his ways and you will hold fast to him. See you can read the Bible and these things not happen, but when you read it and you say, okay, God, I've heard what you want, I know what you want from me, I'm going to do it. Then you're bound to God and that's where the love comes in and then you live the way he tells you. That's where the walking comes in, walk in all of his ways and then hold fast to him. That's the determination you have to say, nothing will keep me from doing this. Now when all that happens, there's another promise. Then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you. Remember the issue he was dealing with here is you're going into the land of promise and I've given you this land, but you have to go in and drive out the people that are there. It's going to be a really tough fight for you. Now we aren't going to take a land or a property. We're not going to invade a country, but what he's talking about here is the task that I've given you and he gave them the task of conquering that territory. The task I'm giving you to live, whatever your role is in this world, there are obstacles that will come up in those. All of you are old enough to know that happens. Nobody gets through life without facing tremendous difficult times. So you're going to come up when you try to fulfill what I've asked you to do with times where the enemy is stronger than you and they're bigger than you and there are more of them. All of us will come to places and times when we will not have an answer for the issues that face us. Sometimes it's people we can't control. Sometimes it's circumstances we can't control. But when you get in those spots and you say to yourself, I am not able to do this, I want you to remember, if you've heard what I've had to say and you're doing what I've told you to do right up to this day, then I will step in and I will push those obstacles out of your way. What a tremendous promise God gives us. That our ability is not the key to a successful life. For without God, we're destined to be overwhelmed by the circumstances around us and make choices that are foolish and stupid and to see things in the wrong way. But it doesn't make any difference. When you get in those spots, you just stop and say, okay, I've got to do exactly what God tells me to do. When I talk to people whose lives are in such a difficult mess, I say to them, it's like you're in the middle of a minefield. You don't know where the mines are, but God knows where every one of them is. And so you say to God before you make any move, what should I do? And if he says move one step forward, you do that. If he says wait until I tell you what else to do, you just wait. If he tells you to move one step back, you do that. You just listen to God and do every single thing he tells you. And he will guide you through the most complicated minefield you've ever seen, safely to the other side. It's kind of an image that allows me to talk about action being based on God's direction. But here he talks about it in a different way. You go into the battle and you look at the enemy ahead of you and there are more of them than you. You look at them and they're bigger than you. You look at them and they're stronger than you. I will push them out of the way. Okay. You're starting to live your life. You have problems that you face that you think have no solution. And there are more of them every day you look around you and they seem to pile up on you. Don't worry. I'll push all of those things out of the way. You just walk right behind me in obedience to me and I'll just push them right out of the way. What a wonderful promise God makes. Why should a person be anxious when you're walking in the footsteps of someone who made the universe, who has the power of a hurricane and tornado? How can you be afraid, nervous, or worried? Every place where you set your foot will be yours. You just walk. You just take the step. And when you put your foot down, that will belong to you. From the deserts of Lebanon to the Euphrates River to the Western Sea, no man will be able to stand against you. The Lord your God, as he promised you, will put the terror and fear of you on the whole land wherever you go. The second thing he does is to say, not only will I push everything out of the way for you, but the second thing I'm going to do is I'll make sure that whoever tries to stand in your way will be eliminated. The presence of God promised to the people who obey what God asks of them. You see, all of this goes back to the point where he says, I want you to hide in your mind and heart my words and live them. And then every fear will be conquered. Every enemy will be overwhelmed. Would you bow your heads for just a moment, please? I want to ask, first of all, if you face some things that are overwhelming to you, if you could believe that this is true, and you could say, God, I don't know what to do, but I'm going to ask you every day what to do, and I'm going to try my best to do what you ask of me. Make that promise to him and see if a peace does not come to you. And every time you start to be anxious, stop and say, am I doing everything I know God wants me to do? And see if you don't learn to walk with peace. Whenever you're looking at the things in your life that are big and you have no solution for them, and it looks like no possible solution could come, I want you to ask yourself, am I doing exactly what I know God wants me to do? And try to imagine that God is out there making plans, however fancy they might be, that will solve your problem. Try to imagine that there is a solution that maybe requires a lot more than you could give it, but that God is planning a solution for you. If you have to say to yourself, I'm really not living the way God wants me to live, yes, start there. Say, okay, God, I promise from here on in my life, I'll obey you. Father, thank you for the wonderful promises you've made to us. We know that they'll come true, but they're conditioned on our faithfulness. We ask that you would help us to be faithful. And in the middle of all the things that we face, give us the wisdom to turn to you and to find your comfort, your peace, and your certainty. In the name of Christ, I ask this, amen.