Sunday, February 7, 2021

Deuteronomy 11:18-25 comments: a command to remember God's words and a promise

 

Deuteronomy 11:18 ¶  Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. 19  And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 20  And thou shalt write them upon the door posts of thine house, and upon thy gates: 21  That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. 22  For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; 23  Then will the LORD drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. 24  Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. 25  There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the LORD your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.

 

A frontlet was a container that could carry bits of scripture or prayers and carried on the forehead. The point is that the Israelites were to always have the words of God present to remind them of who He is and who they were and of His commands and righteous expectations of them.

 

That they failed in this has been made clear previously.

 

Judges 2:8  And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died, being an hundred and ten years old. 9  And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathheres, in the mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill Gaash. 10  And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

 

This was Israel’s curse on themselves to not pass on their knowledge of God to their children and grandchildren. This history was vital to the Israelites’ success and they failed to transmit it. It is also the curse of many Christians in America today whose children were not taught their faith. They did not attend church as a family, prayer was not done with their children in the home, and the Bible was not read in the home. The children of many self-identified Christians lead lives of debauched decadence and atheism which can be directly attributed to seeing no evidence of a living faith in their parents or being taught anything spiritual by them. The fact that these “Christian parents” complain when things go awry is astounding when they have no one to blame but themselves.

 

If they obeyed God promised that it would be He who would drive out the nations before them.

 

Exodus 23:27  I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. :28  And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. 29  I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. 30  By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

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