Romans 10:1

Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.

In the New Testament, the Israelites are the Jews. The Jews are still waiting on the Messiah. He's saying, "I wish they were saved, but they're still waiting on the Messiah. The Messiah's already come in Jesus Christ but they didn't accept Him."

Romans 10:2

For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.

In other words, they want to know God and have a relationship with God, but they missed God's prophecy (in the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ). They missed that but they're zealous for God. That's what Paul's saying here.

Romans 10:3

Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.

This is why they haven't accepted the Messiah: they have established they're own righteousness. They say, "This is what we think is right. Anyone who disagrees with us is wrong." So that's the way it is. That was the major conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. They had their own righteousness and did not submit to God's righteousness.

Romans 10:4

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

When it says, "Christ is the end of the law," and you look over in the Old Testament, you're talking about the Law and the prophets. The Law is what we've talked about with the Ten Commandments and all of the other commands and decrees that God gave them. When you talk about the Old Testament Jew or the Old Testament Israelite, they were "under the Law." They had to obey the Law. God said, "This is what thou shalt do and this is what thou shalt not do." That was the Law. When Christ came, he said, "I didn't come to destroy the Law but to fulfill the Law." The Law shows us that we're sinners because we can't ever meet all the requirements of the Law. No matter who you are, no one can do all of the things God commanded him or her to do. We still fail with the Law. Christ says, "The Law shows you that you are a sinner. I came to show you that I provide salvation to you as a sinner." That's what Paul meant here.

Righteousness is key in chapter 10.

Now it gets interesting.

Romans 10:5

Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them."

What does this verse start with? Moses. You were probably wondering, "What does this have to do with Deuteronomy?"

We should be able to go back to the writings of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) and find the words we're about to read.

Deuteronomy 1:1

These are the words Moses spoke to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan--that is, in the Arabah--opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Dizahab.

This is where Moses is getting the new people ready to enter the Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 2:14-15

Thirty-eight years passed from the time we left Kadesh Barnea until we crossed the Zered Valley. By then, that entire generation of fighting men had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them. The LORD's hand was against them until he had completely eliminated them from the camp.

We're summarizing what I just told you. This is Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 3:21

At that time I commanded Joshua: "You have seen with your own eyes all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings. The LORD will do the same to all the kingdoms over there where you are going.

This is Moses talking to God about crossing Jordan to go over into the Land.

I want you to note when we read this, Moses is saying, "Here's what God is going to do. Here's what the Lord's going to do." Don't miss that. I wish you could underline every place in your Bible where it says, "God will do this," or "The Lord will do that." When you get to the New Testament, what does God say to you, as a Christian, about living the Christian life? He says, "You don't do a thing. Let me work through you." God has already done everything. He wants to work in your life. He does not want you to try to live a Christian life. He says, "Let me live through you. You just live your life. Trust in me. Rely on me. Talk to me. Meditate with me. Read about me. Study about me. I will take care of everything for you." Just like we're going to see with the Israelites. All they have to do is take possession of it.

Deuteronomy 3:22

Do not be afraid of them; the LORD your God himself will fight for you."

Does everybody see that? What do the Israelites have to do? All they have to do is believe. "Israelites, walk into this Land and God will take care of everything." Does everybody see that? Just like a Christian today, "Walk and God will take care of you. Just walk."

Deuteronomy 3:23-24a

At that time I pleaded with the LORD: "O Sovereign LORD, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand.

Notice the other thing I told you about. As you get into the Old Testament and start reading it, God reveals Himself. I told you that this was a very strong point in the Old Testament and it's true in your Christian life. The more you learn about God, open yourself to Him, and put yourself aside, the more He'll reveal Himself to you. I've told you that. I believe that's true in every Christian's life. Here, Moses is saying, "you have begun to show," (in other words, "God is revealing,") "to your servant your greatness and your strong hand." You see that revelation. God is saying, "Here is what I'm all about."

Deuteronomy 3:24b

For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do?

There's a reference to idols and other gods, but he's saying, "You know, God, you have really shown yourself to be strong, mighty, and awesome compared to these other gods."

Deuteronomy 3:25

Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan--that fine hill country and Lebanon."

A little sneaky there. Moses still wants to go over.

Deuteronomy 3:26

But because of you the LORD was angry with me and would not listen to me. "That is enough," the LORD said. "Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.

Moses is not going to the Promised Land. He's almost there. God says, "You're going to see it but you're not going to go into it because of your disobedience."

Deuteronomy 4:1-2

Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.

Do you see that again? What do the Israelites have to do? Just be obedient and trust God. Have faith. God is going to take care of you. He has given you this Land.

Deuteronomy 4:6-8

Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people." What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the LORD our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?

Does everybody see the witness that the Israelites are supposed to have for God? What is that called? Witnessing for God. Testifying for God. The Israelites are supposed to obey these commands and what are all the other nations supposed to see? Love, understanding, and the results of following the decrees and laws. What do they start to believe about God? This is witnessing for God in the Old Testament. I told you that this is just like the New Testament. Can you see the New Testament here? As a Christian, what are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to be about? As you go through this world, if your desire and mindset says, "I'm going to be the best Christian there is. When people see me, they're going to see me as righteous as I do all these things." That's the wrong attitude. What should be your attitude? "Whatever I do and whatever happens in my life, God is in control." It is not you. It is God working through you. You should say, "I'm just going to live the life God wants me to live." When people see something in me and they ask about it, what am I going to say? "God did it." That's what it's all about. Other nations (other people) will be influenced by your witness. Christians, today, obey God. Love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and body. Others will see Jesus in you. I think this is great.

Deuteronomy 4:15

You saw no form of any kind the day the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully,

He's already told them about the decrees and laws. Now he says, "Watch yourselves very carefully." Guard your heart and mind. Take captive every thought. These are New Testament phrases.

Deuteronomy 4:16-20

so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars--all the heavenly array--do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. But as for you, the LORD took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

Christian, you have been brought out of this world. You're a new creation. Don't become impacted, infected, or distracted by the world. That's what this is talking about. We don't have "idols" like they did, but what are the things today that distract us? What are you enticed by today? TV. The more you watch, the better things look. Computers. Radio. All the media. What else? Cars and houses. What about money? What does the world tell you about money? You have to have it--more material possessions. Think about this. My father and his father never heard about a 401k or a retirement plan. What does corporate America tell you about a 401k or a retirement plan? You gotta have it and it has to be this way. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them. It's when they become an idol and it's something that's your lifeblood, something you're counting on for your security and your faith. Where's God? Do you give God a chance to work with you so that you can sacrifice for others and witness to others? It doesn't happen.

He's saying, "watch yourselves very carefully." What should we do as Christians? Watch ourselves very carefully. Watch what we start to believe this world has told us is true. God says, "That's not the truth. That's not having life and having it more abundantly. That's slavery." Think of people who had a lot of Enron stock. If they logged on every morning to check their 401k balance for Enron stock, what is their life like? There's nothing there.

Deuteronomy 4:25a

After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time--

Remember the "future prophetic tense" I told you about where God says, "It's already done." Do you see that here? God says, "It's a done deal." It's the same thing for us as Christians when you read the New Testament. God says, "It's a done deal."

Deuteronomy 4:25b-26

if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed.

Guess what? That's exactly what we're going to study. That's exactly what's going to happen. They're going to turn to idol worship. These people, who saw God, heard God, and saw all these miracles, still turn to idols. They turn to all kinds of abominations to the Lord. God did exactly this: He destroyed them.

Deuteronomy 4:27-31

The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.

Notice the word "seek." That's what we need to be about today.

There's another aspect of God: "merciful."

In other words, you can be unfaithful. God will not be. That's what that's saying. God will always be with you. One of the things that happens to Christians today when they get away from God, they want to believe the lie that God will not accept them again or God's away from them. Scripture does not teach that. Scripture says that God is always with you, ready to accept you back at any time. Run to Him. Ask Him for forgiveness and ask to be one with Him again.

Deuteronomy 4:35-37

You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other. From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

I believe that "Presence" is the Lord, Jesus Christ (pre-incarnate), again.

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

This is the "Shema" that you hear the Jews repeat.

Deuteronomy 6:6-7a

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children.

Notice that this is not talking about the stone tablets or the Law. These are things written on their hearts (even in the Old Testament). You don't have to wait for the New Testament. It's in the Old Testament.

Deuteronomy 6:7b-9

Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

You know, sometimes I get frustrated when trying to talk to people. I get really, really involved with what God is showing me or telling me. Sometimes I'm trying to share this with someone and all they want to talk about is, "the Atlanta Falcons won last night." I say, "OK. Big Deal! Let's talk about this other stuff. This is so good!" I get frustrated. I have to admit that. That may be a sin. I haven't thought of that, but maybe it is. But READ WHAT THIS SAYS! What does it say you're supposed to be about, as a Christian? Your conversation--you can't help but get in a conversation and talk about God. If you're not there yet, get there. Start reading and letting God work through you.

You know, one of the other things that comes out here is "remembering." Remember what God has done for you. One of the things about human nature is that we forget or we have selective memory. We only remember what we want to remember--whether it's negative things to support our negative thoughts or positive things because we like this person or this thing. I suggest that you have a journal. I kept a journal for years. Write down things in that journal when God shows you something (not, "I felt bad today. I couldn't make it to church."). Write down when you have an experience with the Holy Spirit. You don't have to write down a lot--just write it down. Five years from now if you're reading that journal, do you know what that's going to do to you? That is going to give you so much encouragement about your walk with God. There's no pastor on earth that can give you the same encouragement as reading what you wrote down about God. I read some of the things I wrote down and say, "Wow! I wrote that down!? I didn't know this stuff back then. Look at this!" That's what it'll do to you. Moses is saying, "Remember."

Deuteronomy 8:1-3

Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.

That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Deuteronomy 8:4

Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

This is God, taking care of them in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 8:5

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

Amen. Praise the Lord! I love that.

Deuteronomy 8:6-7

Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land--a land with streams and pools of water, with springs flowing in the valleys and hills;

Deuteronomy 8:10-12

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down,

This sounds like my neighborhood.

Deuteronomy 8:13

and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied,

...and your 401k has increased...

Deuteronomy 8:14a

then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God

When I read this, I think of America. We say that we're a Godly nation and everything, but "fine houses", etc. We don't have herds and flocks, but what do we have? Cars, garages, boats, stocks, 401k's, etc. What do we do? Our heart becomes proud, "Look what I've done!" And we forget the Lord, our God.

Deuteronomy 8:14b-18

who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. You may say to yourself, "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

We need to get it through our minds, as Christians today, that God does everything for us. We can go off and make our own plans and do our own things in this way and that way, but it's God who will deliver anything that's of value in our lives, not us. It seems that God gives us everything we have and then we take credit for it. "Look what I've done! Look how high and mighty I am!"

Deuteronomy 9:3

But be assured today that the LORD your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.

Do you get the point of what God is going to do? What are the Israelites supposed to do? Have faith. Walk in it. What are you supposed to do in the Christian life? Have faith and walk. That's all. Have faith and walk.

Deuteronomy 9:4

After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness." No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

Do you see that? This is amazing in the Old Testament. This sounds like the New Testament.

That's what we are too. A stiff-necked people.

Deuteronomy 13:6-11

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

<This is a serious, serious situation.>

And yet all of them were enticed.

Deuteronomy 18:9-11

When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead.

They had child-sacrifices at this time. It's been proven. You can see it on the History Channel. Whenever I read this, I think about where we are today with on-demand abortion (not involving the health of the mother). Here we are sacrificing children. We're not a pretty people. We're not nice, sweet people. We're a stiff-necked people just like the Israelites were. As Christians, as Americans, and as people, we're the same way.

<We're sacrificing them for our happiness and convenience.>