Why is Israel so smokin’ hot? S29e64 Dt26:16

What is so unique about Israel? 

It is God’s choice. God’s intent. God’s plan. God’s presence. and God’s value.

He is preparing an undeserving people, Israel,  by demonstrating His kindness so that eventually, He can demonstrate His kindness to an undeserving world, full of undeserving people like you and me.

         That is why Israel is so smokin’ hot. Listen 7 minutes today and subscribe for tomorrow: 

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Transcript

Deuteronomy

Why is Israel so smokin’ hot? S29e64 Dt26:16

What is so unique about Israel? We got one facet of it yesterday

Regarding the Israel/Palestinian conflict, you best read your BIBLE before you read your newspaper.

Israel, specifically Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahau, to her great credit, HAS NOT FORGOTTEN something the Lord told them 3500 years ago and specifically reminded them YOU SHALL NOT FORGET.

YOU SHALL NOT FORGET Amalek.

Dt is applicable. Practical. Must understand Dt. To understand Israel, you must understand Dt. To understand our world, you must under. Dt.

Things we’ve learned in Dt.:

He has Set His love on you and chose you

 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, you 

14 Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp,

So you shall purge the evil from your midst. BEHAVIOR MUST BE DIFFERENT

Dt is the story of God moving out of the mist of smoke and fire and moving into the midst  ****

Dt is the story of God moving out of the mist of smoke and fire and moving into the midst  of a planetary people that needed a lot of help,  to assist a planet full of people that need a lot of help.

Thinking of the passage in Exodus 20:18 

18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 

The mountain  where God dwelt was smoking. holy

Now, theoretically, the people are to be smoking.

So that they could bring a smoking Savior to the world

There is something special about Israel in the OT. Why are we spending time studying and responding to the history of ISRAEL this morning rather than the history of let’s say IRELAND?

Because the history of Israel is the history of God. It is HIS-story

He treated them differently than He treated other people. 

Hey Israel, you have commands and statutes and rules.

         Not because God hates you, but because He loves you and is using you to eventually be a blessing for all the world.

With such favor comes responsibility

Big picture, He’s preparing a place for the Savior 1500 years later.      

Dt 26:16 “This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17 You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. 18 And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, 19 and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lordyour God, as he promised.”

You are a smokin’ hot people. Holy

26:18 You are a people for His treasured possession

         You are VIEWED differently

You are to keep His commandments

         You are to ACT differently

You are a people holy to the Lord

         You are SET APART differently

You are set in praise and fame and honor above all nations

         You are VALUED differently Is Israel diff than Ireland? Yes. Why?

He chose you not because you were more numerous or shiney than everybody else, Dt7:6 6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments., to a thousand generations, 10 and repays to their face those who hate him, by destroying them.

What makes Israel so special? Heb 12:18 listen to this description of holiness

18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. 20 For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” 21 Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

         Why is Israel so smokin’ hot?

God’s choice. God’s intent. God’s plan. God’s presence. God’s value

He is preparing an undeserving people, Israel,  by demonstrating His kindness so that eventually He can demonstrate His kindness to an undeserving world, full of undeserving people like you and me.

         That is why Israel is so smokin’ hot?