Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20130203.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Deuteronomy: Moses' Great Appeal For Israel To Obey God For Blessing
Part III: The Treaty Historical Prologue, Deuteronomy 1:5-4:43
B. Kadesh To Transjordan: Learning To Trust God With Giant Foes
(Deuteronomy 2:1-3:11)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    Conflict with especially intimidating "giant" foes is difficult to handle, even at times for believers in Christ:

    (1) A news story appeared last week on the American On Line home page about hundreds of school teachers nationwide who are taking gun handling lessons following the Newtown school shootings. The report told how many teachers now feel they have become targets for unstable, gun-wielding foes, so they are arming themselves!

    (2) It is also easy to feel vulnerable to harm from government and business leaders. The Wall Street Journal last Monday had its lead editorial ("Treasury Gets a Citibanker," 1/28/2013, p. A14) a report that the new Treasury secretary "served as chief operating officer of Citigroup's . . . structured investment vehicles' that hid mortgage risks outside Citi's balance sheet" and "also housed internal hedge funds that were in the process of imploding."

    The editor added he "didn't create the mess . . . [but] he bears a . . . resemblance to the bankers who President Obama says created the . . . crisis . . . (A)pparently . . . you can get rich at one of Wall Street's biggest failures and end up running the entire financial system."

    One asks how he can feel safe about his currency if an official with a questionable role in the banking crisis now heads the Treasury!

    (3) Regarding a seemingly endless exposure to impotent national leaders, Ken Nelson of Chicago had his letter to the editor printed in the same paper that lamented: "(W)e are still mired in higher unemployment . . . health-care costs are rising and employers are decreasing hours and laying off employees to avoid Obamacare. Dodd-Frank still hasn't defined its rules and GDP growth is anemic, at under 2 %. Al Qaeda is resurgent in North Africa and the Muslim Brotherhood is taking over the Middle East. The federal takeover of the student-loan industry adds another trillion to our liabilities and we have increased our government debt from $10 trillion to $16 trillion. The Government Accountability Office says that the federal government's finances are on an unsustainable path . . ."

    (4) However, we face "giant" foes at the local level, too. Last week, I learned of five cases where believers in our Church are facing "giant" foes or difficult conflicts with other people in their lives.

    Thus, we ask, "If I am having difficulty trusting the Lord with unusually difficult foes I face, what would He suggest?!"

    Need: "How can I trust God to deal with the giant' foes I dread?!"

  1. The Deuteronomy 1:5-4:43 Historical Prologue of the suzerain treaty format of the book of Deuteronomy, typical of such treaty formats, tells of the Suzerain's past goodness to the vassel, that is, of God's goodness to Israel, reporting in Deuteronomy 2:1-23 of His encouragement for Israel to conquer her past fear of giant foes.
  2. Accordingly, as Israel wandered in the wilderness, God encouraged her to trust Him one day to defeat the Anakim of Canaan in giving Israel's people repeat exposure to the testimonies of His help to other like nations to achieve similar victories, Deuteronomy 2:1-23:
    1. When they had reached the southern border of the Promised Land at Kadesh Barnea, Israel had failed to trust God to defeat the giant Anakim who lived in the land, Deut. 1:26-28; Numbers 13:31-33.
    2. God had thus judged that generation to die in the wilderness as Israel wandered there for another forty years, Deut. 1:34-35; Num. 14:33-34.
    3. Yet, in grace, God had previously arranged for Israel to face multiple testimonies of His will and ability to help similar-sized peoples defeat giants to encourage Israel one day to defeat the Anakim, Deut. 2:1-23:
      1. In Israel's wandering from Kadesh Barnea to the Transjordan east of the Jordan River, God guided Israel by His cloud and pillar of fire (Numbers 9:15-23) near three nations related to Israel:
        1. In Deuteronomy 2:1-7, God led Israel near the land of Edom, the descendants of Jacob's twin brother Esau, Gen. 35:29-36:1.
        2. In Deuteronomy 2:8-9, God led Israel by the land of Moab, the seed of the older son of Lot, Abraham's nephew, Gen. 19:36-37.
        3. In Deuteronomy 2:18-19, God led Israel by the land of Ammon, the offspring of Lot's younger son, Genesis 19:38.
      2. As the people in these nations were genetically close to the people of Israel, they would have been similar in size to the Hebrews.
      3. Well, to Israel's encouragement, each of these nations were living testimonies of God's giving others similar in physical size to themselves victory over humanly far greater enemies:
        1. Deuteronomy 2:12, 22 reports God (cf. Deut. 2:19, 22) helped the Edomites defeat the "Horites" (NIV) and occupy their land, the Horites being a dominant people group in the region, J. D. Douglas, gen. Ed., The New Bible Dictionary, 1973, p. 537.
        2. Deuteronomy 2:9-10a NIV reports God helped the Moabites defeat the Emites to occupy their land. The Emites were strong, numerous and as tall as the Anakim in Canaan who had so terrified Israel's faithless generation at Kadesh Barnea, Deuteronomy 2:10b-11; Numbers 13:33-14:2!
        3. Deuteronomy 2:19-21 NIV reports God helped the Ammonites defeat the Zamzummites to occupy their land. They were also strong, numerous and as tall as the Anakim who frightened Israel back at Kadesh Barnea, Deut. 2:21; Num. 13:33-14:2.
  3. Thus, Israel could use this encouragement to BEGIN to defeat and to dispossess equally difficult foes east of Jordan, Deut. 2:24-3:11:
    1. Deuteronomy 2:24-37 reports how Israel was then directed by God to defeat the Amorite king Sihon of Heshbon and all of his people, dispossessing their land to the east of the Jordan River.
    2. Deuteronomy 3:1-11 reports how Israel was then directed of God to defeat Og, king of Bashan, taking his land east of the Jordan as far north as the Sea of Galilee, Deut. 3:1-4; Z. P. E. B., v. One, p. 485.
    3. Og's cities were fortified with high walls, gates and bars, along with many large unwalled villages, but Israel managed utterly to destroy the people of this kingdom with God's enabling, Deuteronomy 3:5-6.
    4. Deuteronomy 3:11 reports that Og was the last of the Rephaites, and Deuteronomy 2:11 claims these perople were among the giants, with Deuteronomy 3:11 NIV confirming it, reporting how king Og's bed was built of iron and was over thirteen feet long and six feet wide!
    5. Thus, exposed to repeat testimonies of God's enabling other similar sized relatives like Edom, Moab and Ammon to defeat their humanly greater foes, Israel was encouraged to trust God to start to conquer the Transjordan giants in preparation to defeating Canaan's giants.
Application: If we dread any foes, may we (1) trust in Christ for salvation from sin to come under God's "Much More Care," John 1:11-12; Romans 8:32. (2) Then, (a) drawing encouragement from testimonies by others of their past victories in God's power, may we (b) begin to tackle difficult foe issues as God leads us (c) until we eventually totally conquer where we had been defeated in unbelief.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 Last Monday evening after supper, on my "day off" as I was helping my wife by drying the supper dishes she was washing, I was thinking about the Deuteronomy passage I was to begin to use in forming this sermon, and I was honing in on applying it to overcoming the "giant" foe issue some believers face, that of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or "PTSD." This is a very draining, ongoing disorder that results in great anxiety rising from memory of a difficult past event(s).

My thoughts shifted to recall that each of Christ's messages to the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 promised future blessing for overcoming current problems by heeding Scripture. Indeed, I knew of such blessing in my own life in heeding Christ's Word for our era of Church History, that of the Laodicean Church era, Revelation 3:14-22.

Suddenly, my wife interrupted my thoughts to report about a psychologist she had heard earlier that day on the Mary Jones radio talk show. He specialized in PTSD, and had found it profitable to get his patients to cease focusing on the past by planning for a better, brighter future! The past can not be changed, its evils and hurts are part of real, unchangeable history, but we can plan for a much better future!

This testimony of what Nadine had heard earlier that day given just as I was thinking about PTSD and Revelation 2-3 left me assured that God was using her words to reinforce what I had just been thinking: the dreadful "giants" of one's past especially relative to PTSD are overcome by heeding Scripture for future blessing, and I was to share this reality in the application part of this sermon.

Obviously, this secular psychologist was limited in the degree of hope he could offer for the future unlike the believer who has God's sure promises of Scripture to use. However, our need to focus on the future was the emphasis God wanted me to grasp from Nadine's report, which idea, being intensely Biblical by way of Revelation 2-3, I was to use to help other believers overcome their "giant" PTSD issues.

Thus, I began to write this sermon on Tuesday with this focus.

As He did for Israel in her wilderness travels, God has gone before each of us to provide testimonies in the lives of others of the Biblical direction we should take to gain victory over our own past "giant" foe issues. Thus, may we use such encouraging testimonies in light of Scripture's promises for future victory over our "giant" foes, whatever or whoever they may be!