For all his ways are judgment

Recap :)

Deut-{31:24} And it came to pass, when Moses had made anend of writing the words of this law in a book, until theywere finished{31:25} That Moses commanded the Levites,which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying,{31:26} Take this book of the law, and put it in the side ofthe ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it maybe there for a witness against thee.{31:27} For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alivewith you this day, ye have been rebellious against theLORD; and how much more after my death?{31:28} Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, andyour officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, andcall heaven and earth to record against them.{31:29} For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt[yourselves,] and turn aside from the way which I havecommanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days;because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provokehim to anger through the work of your hands. {31:30} And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel thewords of this song, until they were ended.{32:1} Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear,O earth, the words of my mouth. {32:2} My doctrine shalldrop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as thesmall rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon thegrass{32:3} Because I will publish the name of the LORD:ascribe ye greatness unto our God. {32:4} [He is] the Rock,his work [is] perfect: for all his ways [are] judgment: a Godof truth and without iniquity, just and right [is] he.

**
Moses is talking here, telling the people about how after he's gone they'll be prone to even more evil than they were when he was alive.

He says this about God--

{32:3} Because I will publish the name of the LORD:ascribe ye greatness unto our God. {32:4} [He is] the Rock,his work [is] perfect: for all his ways [are] judgment: a Godof truth and without iniquity, just and right [is] he.
**
A God of truth without iniquity, just and right is he.

This goes without saying really, or should especially to those who had witnessed God's miracles first hand.

Witnessing God's miracles. Yesterday I talked about how we tend to believe that if we were alive then we wouldn't have disobeyed, if we'd been the ones to see and live those miracles it'd be different. The same holds true for people who talk about Jesus. They say if they were one of His disciples they wouldn't have denied Him. They say if they could only live back then with Jesus they'd be able to follow Him better. If only...If only...If only...

So many 'if onlies' and they all manage to keep us from realizing our own spiritual walk as an individual is just as important, just as remarkable even though we aren't living in the time of Moses or Jesus. If onlies are excuses that we could do without because in the long run they only hurt us. If you find yourself caught up in the 'if only this... or if only that', try to stop yourself and say 'if only hurts'. If onlies hurt and we need to try and get away from them- now don't you say 'if only I could stop if only-ing' what a trap is that! Talk about being caught in a vicious cycle. We need to try and give this problem to God if we have it, ask Him to help us stop making excuses and to live here and now content with the time we live in, the circumstance we are alive in and help us to find Him and follow Him as He would have us to.

**
Continuing on with that passage in Deuteronomy-- Remember Moses is speaking of to those who God has set free from the Egyptian rule and taken into the wilderness, God's chosen people, those who agreed wholeheartedly to the covenant He proposed to them.

{32:5} They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

**Moses is telling it like it is. It's not like the movie Ten Commandments where the people cross over into the promised land and the illusion is that they were of a majority following God like Moses had been. They were corrupt, they were perverse and crooked. Again we can start with the excuses if we wanted and say stuff like- well it's not their fault they were used to captivity, it's not their fault they were raised as slaves around those who worship idols and such- excuses- excuses- excuses.

{32:6} Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
**God the Father. God who made them, established them, bought them. Just like us. We're no different.
{32:7} Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. {32:8} When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. {32:9} For the LORD’S portion [is] his people; Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance.{32:10} He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. {32:11} As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings{32:12} [So] the LORD alone did lead him, and [there was] no strange god with him.{32:13} He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock{32:14} Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape

**How wonderful this is, God taking care of His people. Unfortunately God's people time and again seem to take it for granted that God will provide. They seem to forget that it is God giving them so much. Often it takes losing what we have to realize just how much we have. When we don't lose it, often we'll just consider it our just due and sometimes even want more...more...more, never having enough and not giving God the thanks and praise we should.

{32:15} But Jeshurun (My Note- meaning the people of Israel/Jacob) waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered [with fatness;] then he forsook God [which] made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.{32:16} They provoked him to jealousy with strange [gods,] with abominations provoked they him to anger.

**Provoked God to jealousy with strange gods!

Here He is giving them all He can and they provoke Him. They take on strange Gods, abominations!

{32:17} They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new [gods that] came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

**Sacrificed to devils- not to God!

Unbelievable? No, sadly not.

We're the same today aren't we? What? You're not sacrificing unto the devil, to other gods? Tell me, if God is not being worshipped by you, what are you worshipping? If you say you don't worship to anyone or anything, then you are admitting you're not worshipping God. Is it any better to worship no one? No, not really because then by omission we are putting ourselves before God, basically saying we have no need of God, He's not worthy of worship. Having no other gods before God includes the god of self.

{32:18} Of the Rock [that] begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. {32:19} And when the LORD saw [it,] he abhorred [them,] because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. {32:20} And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end [shall be:] for they [are] a very froward generation, children in whom [is] no faith. {32:21} They have moved me to jealousy with [that which is] not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with [those which are] not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.{32:22} For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. {32:23} I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. {32:24} [They shall be] burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. {32:25} The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling [also] with the man of gray hairs.{32:26} I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:{32:27} Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, [and] lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.

**Covenant breaking is serious stuff.The Covenant first and foremost says 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me'Covenant breakers.

In our world we don't treat covenant breakers so seriously do we?

So many liars, we're used to liars aren't we?

We're used to being lied to by just about everyone. And we're used to lying. It's sad. So sad.
Our government leaders lie to us and we just shake our heads, but we're not shocked anymore.
Being lied to hurts, we don't expect loved ones to lie to us but they do too and sadly we might be hurt, but we're not overly shocked-- not really. Deep down we accept lies. We are told to give liars second chances, third chances, fourth, fifth...sixth... endless chances. Jesus even tells us we have to forgive endlessly. God forgives endlessly and yet God shapes, He molds, and makes us, He created us and wants us to live in love.

The only thing we have to really say is parents- if you are a parent you know in a small way the love God has for us, as we have for our children. Sometimes our love is shown in ways a child perceives as hurtful, hateful, the opposite of love, but in truth it is the deepest love that inflicts, watches and suffers through the pain with those being chastised.

Too many people want to stop at God is hateful because of all He has done, and all he does. They want to say once more that God changed, Jesus made God new, and the new God isn't like the old one. Equating a God who shapes through adversity, who tries to draw His people back to Him, wanting them to know that He is love- His covenant is love.

{32:28} For they [are] a nation void of counsel, neither [is there any] understanding in them.{32:29} O that they were wise, [that] they understood this, [that] they would consider their latter end!{32:30} How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up? {32:31} For their rock [is] not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves [being] judges. {32:32} For their vine [is] of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes [are] grapes of gall, their clusters [are] bitter: {32:33} Their wine [is] the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.{32:34} [Is] not this laid up in store with me, [and] sealed up among my treasures?{32:35} To me [belongeth] vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in [due] time: for the day of their calamity [is] at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. {32:36} For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that [their] power is gone, and [there is] none shut up, orleft. {32:37} And he shall say, Where [are] their gods, [their] rock in whom they trusted, {32:38} Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, [and] drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, [and] be your protection. {32:39} See now that I, [even] I, [am] he, and [there is] no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither [is there any] that can deliver out of my hand. {32:40} For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.{32:41} If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.{32:42} I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; [and that] with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. {32:43} Rejoice, O ye nations, [with] his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, [and] to his people.
**
Wow!
Wow!

{32:44} And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. {32:45} And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel{32:46} And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. {32:47} For it [is] not a vain thing for you; because it [is] your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong [your] days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

**There is so much that could be said about all this, so much.

Moses said it all, all those words that seem so violent, so un-God-like in the way we want God to be soft and cuddly, sweet and all. Truthfully, being forgiving, being filled with love doesn't mean giving up priciples, standards, truth. It doesn't mean succumbing to evil and allowing it endlessly. Even Jesus turned over the money changer's tables in anger didn't He? Why? If we are supposed to be only cuddly and sweet?

There is so much to explore here, so much.
Truth and grace.
Jesus came with truth and grace.
There is no deception, no confusion with Him as He manifest His Father to us all. Love is at the root of all God has ever done. Love for a creation, for a creature, love that goes beyond our comprehension. The truth and grace of Jesus is given to us, all truth, all grace.

Remember at the beginning of that passage--

{32:3} Because I will publish the name of the LORDascribe ye greatness unto our God {32:4} He is the Rock his work is perfect for all his ways are judgment a God of truthand without iniquityjust and right is he.

**All true.

A God of truth.
May we come to understand the truth as we accept the grace given to us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, Son of God, now and forever.
Amen.