God's Provision and Judgment

of the people of Israel, if they were to be able to sing this song on the festivals they came to, to remind them of God's care and provision for them. I want to start with verse 39 of this section, but there are contexts in which the scripture is given to us, so we have to look at that to see what it's saying. So I want to start reading verse 36. The Lord will judge his people and have compassion on his servants, and when he sees their strength is gone, no one is left, slave or free, he will say, Now where are their gods? The rock they took refuge in. Deuteronomy chapter 32, beginning with verse 36. The Lord will judge his people and have compassion on his servants, and when he sees their strength is gone, no one is left, slave or free, he will say, Now where are their gods? The rock they took refuge in. Earlier in this song, God calls himself the rock, and he said, Now here's the rock you've taken refuge in. It's not me, but it's someone else. So where's the rock that they took refuge in? The gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drinks offering. Let them rise up and help you, and let them give you shelter. Here he's talking about the gods who sucked the life out of them. They've taken all the things that you have, the fat that you've offered as sacrifices, the wine that you've offered as sacrifices. They've eaten it and drank all of it, and you don't have anything left and nothing to show for it. Now verse 39, he starts in response to this, See now that I myself am he. You were looking for the God to take care of you and provide you, and you looked at the bales of the world around you, their gods, and you said, This is the one. This is the God who's going to bring us prosperity and success. But I'm telling you, I am he. I am the God. There is no God beside me. I put to death, and I bring to life. I have wounded, and I will heal. No one can deliver from my hand. I lift up my hand to heaven and declare, As surely as I live forever. Here in this short passage, he addresses the difference between the idols they've been worshiping and himself. Now when I asked, when we started looking at this, I was trying to talk about how we have gods in our own country, and I tried to write down some of them that you mentioned. What is it in your life that controls the choices that you make? What is it in your life that brings the value to your life? And we talked about sports. Some people just live for that. They have every activity. They watch all of it on TV. They go to the ball games at great expense themselves. Take their kids to Kansas City to see the Chiefs play or the Royals play instead of having them in church. They make sure that their kids are on every team, even if they have to be gone on Sundays and weekends. What are they going to get from this? They're going to make a team, and they're going to play a game, but is it going to bring them life? Is it going to provide them a way to be able to find a spouse? To be able to build a family? To be able to find a life where there is fullness and completion? That's what they're looking for. If you ask people why they do this, I want my kids to have the best. I want them to be able to have feelings of success. I want them to be looked up to by their peers. All of these are things that are valuable, but instead of finding it the way God wants, they have a substitute. So you talked about sports and talked about people with money. Talked about people who focused on themselves, satisfying every single need that they have. Popularity. People who are trying to be popular. People who are hooked on sex, whether it's movies or television, pornography, or just the practice of having sex outside the context of what God says is right. People who are focused on pleasure. People who are obsessed with their health or recreation, even with their family or their work. All of these are things that are not necessarily evil, in fact things that God tells us we should do, but what happens is that they take the place of controlling our lives and our decisions apart from God controlling them. So that we try to find ultimate value in things that are not of ultimate significance. And all of this is because people are trying to find something good, something valuable for themselves, and so they waste their lives trying to find it in these things. God makes a promise to us, I will provide for your family, I will give you the assets that you need to be able to live, I will provide meaning and value in your life, you just listen to me and follow me and you'll find that. Now the world around you will tell you that there's something more valuable than what you're doing, reading the Bible, doing the work that God has given you, doing what God has asked for your life, the world will tell you that there's other things more valuable than that. Now here's what God says, but let me ask you a question, do these things have eternal value to you? There is really no controller of your life in the world but me, I alone am God, I am the only one who can give you value in your life, I'm the only one who can guide you in your life, I'm the only one who can protect you because I have the power to be able to do it. I want you to know there is no God, I am the only one, it's not that there are a number of us, there is no other God. I am the one that brings death and I am the one that brings life. All these other things can't give you life. No one ever finds himself born because of a ball game or athletic skill. Now you may die because you're involved in one of them, but it is God, he says, I give you life and I give you death, he's just saying to us, I control life, none of these other things really control life, I do. I control life and death and I can wound you and I can heal you, so if you're wounded I can take care of you and if you're in trouble I can bring the wound to you to turn you around and punish you for what you've done. No one can deliver from my hand, no one can take you away from me, I alone have all power and authority. See what God is trying to open our eyes to is, these things in the world that promise such great success and such fullness of life can never really deliver. Now when God talks about this, he's talking about the ultimate end, I alone bring life into the world, I alone can bring death into your life, I control ultimately the ultimate things. So whenever you're looking around to find what you can trust, I alone have that. These other gods take away from you, they take your money, they take your offerings, I give to you, I give you life, they don't do that. Don't let yourself be deceived by thinking that these other things can take the place of what I alone can give you. I lift my hand to the heaven and declare, as surely as I live forever, none of these other things live that long. God was here before the world was created, and when the world is over he'll still be here. Where do you go to find that kind of power and authority? Only, he says, with me. Verse 41, when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasp it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. Now he changes the tone of what he's talking about. I have this ultimate ability to provide for people. But there's another side to what takes place. I have the power of judgment. No one else in the world has the power of judgment that God has. You can take people to court in this world and they can fine them, they can put them in jail, and they can even kill them. But God alone has the judgment for eternity. No court can say to you, we pass sentence on you and now from this moment all through eternity this is what you have to do. They can't tell you that. They can say you have to pay a fine every year until you die, then you're free from it. But God can say even death cannot remove you from the power of my judgment. Think seriously about what you're doing. When you look at the short term and you see only the little things that are around you now and you miss this great perspective of God, you stand in danger of facing the God who judges not just in this world, but will do so forever. I live forever. When I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasp it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries. People in this world can say there is no God, they can say bad things about God if they want to. They can even turn their back and say there is some other God other than the God of the Bible. But what God simply says is, in the end they will pay. I will bring my vengeance to them. And the place he has prepared for his enemies is worse than death. So he's letting us be aware that the things that so easily distract us and consume us and control us in this world are great dangers for us because they put us at odds with God. They make us in a position where God needs to take vengeance on us because we have become his adversaries. And I will repay those who hate me. Sometimes I think, you know, we look at the God of the Bible and we think of him in terms of his love for people, and that's true. He does love us. If you were butch to see somebody in the front yard beating your wife up, and they had a gun and they were getting ready to kill her, and you had the capacity to be able to kill them, would you do it? Because you don't love people? You see, when God sees us living in this world and doing things that create the world that we live in filled with sin, and he sees this world of sin holding us, grabbing us, pulling us down, destroying us, the people who are his enemies, he sees them as enemies. And when the time comes when he needs to get rid of them to finish his work or to protect us, he does. He destroys the wicked out of love for his children. It's not a hard concept to grasp. So when people talk about hell and how can a loving God send people to hell, you think of this story. How far can he separate these people from his own children? As far as hell is from heaven. Since it's mine, I will repay it. I'm the one who has the power to be able to do it. I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours flesh, the blood of the slain and the captives, and the heads of the enemy leaders. These people who are enemies of me and my people, I will make sure, no matter how bloody it has to be, to make sure they do not win over my people. This is how much God is determined to help you. You'll run against people in your life when you're serving God who will talk about you, who will criticize you, who will make fun of you, but all they're really doing is building a case in which God is going to respond. And when his response comes, it will be deadly and it will be certain. I don't mean that they're going to drop over dead next week. They may live a long life, but the genuine punishment comes when they face God after death. And he says, I know what you did to my people. I have a place prepared for you. We don't ever have to get mad and try to get even. God's going to get even. He's going to take care of this. And if you think that the world is winning at any time in your life, you just remember this passage. He's got his arrows ready. There'll be arrows that are drunk with blood and his sword will devour flesh. The blood of the slain and the captives and the heads of the enemy leaders will be cut off. Why do you pay attention to these other gods over here? They can't do any of that for you. They can't do anything because they don't exist. Think this through. See, this song was written to the people of Israel. They were to sing it and it was to remind them that when they drifted away from God, they must return to him. Now he's giving them the case for the reason why they should. He ends this by saying, rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for the land and the people. Now we've been looking at Sunday school at this word atonement. It means to be at one with God. And what he's saying is, I'll do everything I can to bring in this land that I'm giving you the sense that we belong together, that you and I are one with each other. I'll remove the barriers that exist between us. I'll destroy your enemies. I will remind you that I'm the one who provides for you. What God's intention in all this is, is to make sure that the people who belong to him are devoted to be obedient servants of his and to make sure that those who stand in the way of his people doing that are eliminated from the scene. That's what his purpose is. Now, the fact is that as you live your life, you're going to get in circumstances where you think, I don't see any way in the world that this is going to work. The obstacles will be too great for you to imagine how it could work. You're going through this now, and you're talking about divorce. How in the world am I going to make it? You've been through this too. You just get to the place where you think there's not a way in the world this could possibly work. But if you wait, and you're faithful to be obedient to God, you will see step after step he answers. He provides. He takes care of you. The real danger is for us is just like the people of Israel. We're in desperate trouble. We say, okay, God help me out. He helps us out. We get a little better, and then we start forgetting him. Then it goes back to bad again. The key to all of this is to say, God, this is forever. I'm going to be faithful to you no matter what. Every time we're tempted by the gods of this world to give ourselves to those things because it seems so much fun to the rest of the world, we stop and remember that these other gods just suck the life out of us and leave us empty. But the God of the Bible keeps giving to us, and keeps fulfilling us, and keeps providing for us. There will be times whenever the difficulty ahead of us looks bigger than any provision we've ever received from God. So if you faced a problem the size of, say, on a scale of 1 to 10 at 4, and you have had God meet those provisions by providing a 4, and you get used to that, you think, boy, now I have faith in God. He really comes through. This count on it. In a little while, you'll have a problem of 5. And then all of a sudden you say, well, you used to make 4, but boy, 5 is way up there. I don't know if that's going to work. It'll just keep happening to you until you learn to trust Him at 5 and at 6. That's why He says, just remember, there are a lot of powers in this world, but no one in the world can give life or take it but Me. No one in the world has lived forever but Me. Remember, I am He, God. No one else is like that. So the last of the song is made with this great affirmation. Rejoice, O nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants. He will take vengeance on His enemies, and He will make an atonement for His land and His people. He will bring those people back to Himself so they are at one with each other. He is the Lord, and they are His people. As Moses talks about this all the way through the song, rebellion and the way that people leave God, the last note God wants to have is, I don't give up on you. I have plans to make your life and my life together, and I'm not going to give up unless you become my enemy, and I have to destroy you. But as long as you're My people, there is hope. Hope is that the promise of God will come to pass. It's not, oh, I hope things get better. That's not hope in the Bible sense of it. God says, I will provide for you. So I'm in trouble where I need provision. My hope is that promise. I'll provide for you. I come in a situation and I don't know quite what to do, and I have no idea how to get it. I read the promise. I will guide you. I have hope then because of the promise He's made. The hope is not the certainty of it, it's the certainty of the promise. God wanted His people to know, whatever the circumstances, ultimately, I will win. So if you choose to be on My side, you're going to be on the winning side. If not, you don't have a chance. Let's pray. We thank You for the promises You've made for us and to us. We're thankful that we have a God who's above all these things that the world's involved in. They're so tempting to us because the world applauds those. The world is very happy to have football fans in the stadium, baseball fans in the stadiums. They're very happy to have people doing all these activities. But there's not much honor and reward for people that are faithful in church service or even in attendance or even reading the Bible. And so these things sometimes don't seem to have the allure that the things of the world have. But keep reminding us, in these things, life comes, that we might not lose hope. Amen.