We're not gonna be able to get, I don't think, as far, as ambitious as I was. The text there, that's finishing 27 and getting into 28. We'll probably get into 28, but we won't get very far into 28. But Deuteronomy chapter number 27, page number 100, and we're gonna be beginning with verse number nine, so that'll be page 169. Deuteronomy 27, verse number nine, page 169 in the Pew Bible. And Moses and the priests, the Levites, spake unto all Israel, saying, Take heed and hearken, O Israel, this day thou art become the people of the Lord thy God. Had they not been the people of the Lord before? I don't think we could put it in those terms. I think that that would be kind of framed in this context. They've just erected what? What we see last week. Great what? Stones. And the law was put upon those stones and they were to be uncut stones. They were to be you know, natural stones, and they were to whitewash them, you know, with lime and write the, that's what you see in the first half of chapter 27 that we, well, I say first half, the first third of chapter 27. But in that context, I think it would be, here's what God has given unto you, here's what God's called you unto, here's if you'll do these things, what's the equation that we've, I've mentioned several times from the book of Deuteronomy, Hearing plus what? Anybody? Doing. You say doing? Wow. Equals blessing. Hearing plus doing equals blessing. So there's the equation. Is it enough to hear? I mean, everybody can hear, right? I mean, you can hear it, but that's not enough. You know, it's just like, you know, two plus and equals four. I mean, you could fill in like you did in school, having to fill in the missing part of the equation. But, but, you know, hearing it's not two is not going to equal four without the other two. But hearing plus doing equals blessing. You know, that's that's where the blessing is. Now, you may not feel blessed by the way the world treats you by doing what God's called you unto. but that's not the blessing you're looking for, is it? Are you looking for the admiration of men? I mean, we saw the Pharisees, and that's what they were looking for, is the praise of men, the adoration of men, and what the Lord say, you have your reward. If that's the only reward you're looking for, you got it. But hearing plus doing, it was a blessing. The blessing we're looking for is not to be well thought of by the world. Because if you live godly in Christ Jesus, you will suffer what? Persecution. That's what God's word says. So, you know, if you're gonna live godly, you're gonna be persecuted. But I'm not looking for my blessing to come from the world. I'm not looking for my blessing to come from the world's goods. I'm thankful for what we have of it. You know, we've got some nice things even, you know, here in the church, and these nice pews, and we got a nice building to meet in. You know, not everybody has that. We can sing out loud. There are churches in China underground they can't they're just mouth I told you that before they're just moving their lips you know they got the hymn book but there's moving their lips because they can't sing out loud that they'll be found out and they'll all be arrested and taken into prison so I mean there's my blessing though is not coming from the world I'm looking for my blessing to come from God My acceptance, I'm not looking for from the world, though we all want to be accepted. We all want to be received. You know, we don't like not being accepted, but more than not liking, you know, the fact that we're not being accepted by the world is that we want the blessing of God. We want the favor of God. You know, we want to glorify God more than we are concerned about being persecuted by the world. At least that's what ought to be in our hearts. If it's not, if we have too great of a fear of man, then we need to be asking Lord to give us more boldness. Think about Paul. Pretty bold guy, probably, right? I mean, he was stoned, he was shipwrecked, he was beaten. But yet, at the end of Ephesus, or Ephesians, what do we find? He's in prison, and he's asking the church to pray for him that he might have boldness I mean, he had boldness that got him put in jail, but that he might have boldness to speak as he ought. So you don't need to be ashamed of asking for boldness, because it's something certainly that we all need. Most of us don't possess. Naturally, there are a few souls that seem to be a little different in that regard, equipped a little differently. People like Peter, we talked about Peter earlier. that we would seek the Lord that we might serve Him acceptably, as the scripture says, with reverence and godly fear, that we might do that. My fear for God, and not just my fear of Him in a fear that He might do something unto me if I don't do what's right, but my fear that I would offend Him, my fear that there would be something that would come between us. I mean, I'm sure that that the married couples here, including myself, you know, not really a real pleasant thing when there's something between you. I don't think, really, is it not an enjoyable thing, don't like living in that environment. I don't either. I don't want there to be anything between us, you know. You know, sometimes she'll say something to me, ask me to do something, and I'll just go right ahead. I didn't mean for you to do it right now, you know. I don't want to forget about it later and there'll be something between us, because I'm prone, you know, to do that. How long did that job end up taking you, that you did? Two and a half weeks? I spent about half of that time under my sink this past week. And I told Teresa, I said, when we got the thing that I installed, which was a water purifying type thing, you know, it said, we highly recommend getting a plumber. I can do it. Of course, I'm doing this after work, you know, and getting home late sometimes, and then thinking that I had everything from Home Depot and finding out that I didn't, you know, and had to wait a day to go and get the other stuff, you know. So, I spent half of that time under my sink this week cooking up that. I told her next time, when I finished it yesterday, I hollered across, she was in a different room, and I said, lady, next time, fire a plumber. It just so happens we know one, you know, we could have hired, but anyway. But hearing and doing, let's go back to where we were, hearing and doing equals blessing. So when I ask you, what did we learn from Habakkuk? And you say, the just shall live by faith, by his faith, actually what Habakkuk says. We see it shortened in other places in scripture. But when I ask you, what did we learn from Deuteronomy? You know, we can say this, hearing plus doing equals blessing. I know this is old covenant stuff here, but it's new covenant stuff, too. You know, it's not just old covenant. This is for us. Hearing plus doing equals blessing. God still calls us under the new covenant to do what he's called us to do. So there's nothing nothing changed necessarily there as far as the doing of things. But Let me go back to verse number one, because we left off verse number one last week, but I felt like it was more pertinent to what we're looking at this week. So we kind of skipped over it, but verse number one says, Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded the people saying, keep all the commandments which I command you this day. Now that becomes relevant as we read further. So Moses charges the people. He tells him in verse number 10, thou shalt therefore obey the voice of the Lord thy God and do his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day. If you skip over or make sure you're on the same page, you go to verse number one of chapter 28. It says, and it shall come to pass if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, so that's hearing, to observe and do all his commandments, there's the doing, which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee high above all the nations of the earth." There's the blessing, right? And even more so, look at verse number two. Look what it says. And all these blessings, of course, that's the blessings that will follow in chapter 28, which we probably won't have time to get into, but we'll try. All these blessings shall come on thee. Look at the next part. What does it say in the next three words? And overtake thee. God's going to chase you down and bless you. So you think about something overtaking you, right? It probably wouldn't happen now, but there was a time when Andrew thought he was faster than me. I overtook him. The girls still think that sometimes, and I overtake them. I still outrun them. I probably could outrun him anymore. But being overtaken by something, that's the thought there. That's the idea there. Well, what's connected to it, though, is a blessing, that God's going to overtake. You think about judgment, it's going to overtake people, certainly. You think about the ark, and you think about the people that are outside the ark, and the water started to come, and their shoes got wet, or sandals got wet, you know, and then it got up to their knees, and then it got up to their waist, and then it got up, you know, to water, just to swim in, and there was no place, you know, to, I mean, how long can you tread water? Judgment overtook them. But you that are Christians that are in Christ, blessing has overtaken you. It's not a curse that's overtaken you, but blessing that's overtaken you. God causes all things to work together for your good. You do wrong. What comes upon you? Judgment or chastisement? There's a difference, isn't there? There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. And there's no judgment for those that are in Christ Jesus. But chastisement, something that she's been a partaker of and he's been a partaker of and they've been a partaker of, chastening, discipline, instruction, you know, is really what it is. To them, they didn't think it was. They wanted their way. I mean, that one was the first one, and boy, let me tell you, we learned with her. You know, God gave us a good dose of a person who was a strong-willed child. You wouldn't know that now. God's overtaken her. The blessing of God's overtaken her. But when she was little, my favorite story, and she knows what it is before I even get to it, but she's standing there, and I've probably told all of y'all before, but she's standing there in the living room, and I tell her, don't touch that. She's looking at me like, you really mean it? Still kind of, don't you do it. I'm going to whip you if you do. She's still looking at me, and she does it. And after she does it, she had a little dress on, and she raised up her skirt like, come on, buddy. You want to whip me? I got my way. So that's where she was when she was little. She's not that way anymore. But I don't know if any of y'all had, maybe I was a kid like that. I don't know. I'd have to ask my mom and dad. But it says here in verse number 11 that Moses charged the people the same day saying, these shall stand upon Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you come over Jordan, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. shall stand on Mount Ebal to curse Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali. And the Levite shall speak and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice, Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image or abomination unto the Lord, the work of the hands of the craftsmen, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people." So this guy's got an idol, he's hiding it from everybody. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen, right? So have you ever given any thought to? I know it doesn't happen much here, but sometimes Brother Doug does it sometimes when we go to do it, but you have to really be moved to do it. And most of us were raised when you come and you sit in the congregation, you don't say anything. You know, that's the way things were for me. But some of the old churches, I mean, they'd hear something they really and we have meetings, you'll hear a lot more. You know, and Brother Barney, if he gets real stirred up, he'll shout. I don't know if you ever heard that before, but he'll shout out. It's it's kind of like a motor and you start it because you'll hear him for a while saying, well. Well, and then when he finally can't take it anymore, it's well, glory to God, you know, he'll shout out, you know, but most of the time you hear people say. Not that, but Brother Conrad, here's what he would do. He would always say, right. If he heard something that just sounded off with him, that just really, you know, spoke to him, you'd hear him up there saying, right, right, right. And then if he got real stirred up, and it'd scare everybody in the congregation when he did it, because it just really wasn't in his character. Most of the time, whenever I had a conversation with Billy Conrad, it was one-sided. You know, and you'd stand beside him. He wouldn't say a whole lot. Really, he wouldn't say anything unless he had something to say. I mean, he didn't stand around and have idle chit-chat, you know, for the most part. Some people he might do that with that he's known for a long time, you know, but for the most part, he'd just stand there. But sometimes when he got really stirred up, he'd shout out hallelujah so loud that it just, you know, you weren't expecting it. And everybody just kind of jumped and startled, you know. But I did that to Teresa last night and shout hallelujah. I just walked into the room and said something. She was like unnerved, you know, because she wasn't looking at me. But anyway, you think about this, this thing here. We're going to see this over and over again as we're reading through here. You see the molten image, the idol there, and verse 15, amen. As you go through all those verses all the way down to 26, at the end of each verse, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. So have you ever given any thought about where that comes from? Right here. As far as I can tell in scripture, you know, as far as in a congregational setting like we have right here, You know, I think that from what I can see in scripture, that's kind of where this has come from, you know, as instruction that God had given them in regards to, you know, when, when this is said, this is what you say. So anybody want to tell me what amen means? It's not just something you say at the end of a prayer. So be it. Yes. So be it. That that's, that's essentially the meaning, you know, of amen or, you know, truth. You know, that's true. So be it. That is so. And that's what they're saying to each one of these things. Cursed be this person that's going to make themselves an idol and worship it instead of the true and living God. And so all the people, you know, would say amen. And have you ever heard that in the context of a sermon when some preacher would say that and he would pause at the end waiting for the congregation to say amen? This is where we're at. You know, this is why. You know, here. So, verse number 16. Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother, and all the people shall say amen. I don't think that's a lamp, you know, or a candle. You're setting a light by mom and dad, you know. That's not really what that's saying there. But verse number 17. Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark. We've seen that before, haven't we? And can't we trace these things back to the Ten Commandments? I mean, we're just kind of giving, we're giving an expanded, this is like an expanded edition, you know, we're giving here some, we're giving some examples, you know, some of these things. This guy moving his landmark, what will we say that would be? It's theft, right? He's stealing something. Thou shalt not steal. You know, that's what he's doing. Or we could put it in terms of coveting, couldn't we? Thou shalt not covet. And so this guy's like, you know, I need that piece of land. And he moves his neighbor's landmark. He's coveting, he's stealing. Verse 18. Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. I can remember kids in school doing stuff like that, you know. They thought it was funny. And all the people shall say amen. Cursed be he, verse 19, that pervert the judgment of the stranger, fatherless or widow. And all the people shall say amen. We've seen that lately a lot, you know, where they were to bring these tithes. And it was to be given unto the stranger, it would be given unto the fatherless, the orphan, in other words, given unto the widow. So we saw all that before. Verse 20, cursed be he that lieth with his father's wife. That wouldn't necessarily be his mother, but his father may have had more than one wife, you know, because he uncovereth his father's skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast, and all the people shall say, Amen. Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say amen. Why the distinction there? Daughter of father, daughter of mother. Well, the father could have more than one wife, you know. But that person's going to have only one, you know, mother. Verse 23. Cursed be he that lieth with his mother-in-law. And all the people shall say amen. Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbor secretly. So someone lying in wait. to kill someone else. And all the people shall say Amen. Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say Amen. And cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. If you fail at one point, you fail at all, because you're cursed. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them, and all the people shall say, Amen. So the curses... are found in verse number 27. Again, in verse number 28, and we find, you know, the blessings. As we skip over there, we've already read the first couple of verses, you know, there, but let's see, come down to verse number three, blessed, if you're going to follow that formula, hearing, doing, blessing, or the hearing and doing, if you're the doer, and that's really the word that's being used there in verse number one, observe and do. You know, that seems to carry a little stronger weight, you know, maybe with us than when you just read, keep these commandments like you see in verse number one of chapter 27. Keep all the commandments. But when you're actually told do, that seems to carry a little more meaning maybe to you. But verse number three, if you would do, it says verse number three, blessed thou shalt be or shalt thou be in the city and blessed shalt thou be in the field. And I'm in chapter 28, verse number three. Verse four, blessed shall be the fruit of thy body. and the fruit of thy ground. And think of these things as we're going through them in the terms of what's being spoken there when God says these blessings are going to, you know, overtake you. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, the fruit of the ground, the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kind, the flocks of thy sheep, You think about people like Job. I mean, he had and had and had and had a lot, you know, blessing and overtaking him in that regard. Am I saying unto you that if you will obey the Lord that you're going to be wealthy? No. I'm not saying that. Could that be the case? Sure. Have there been wealthy people in scripture? Abraham, Job, sure, there have been. But if that kind of blessing would not be good for you, then God may withhold that from you. I know Christians that are very poor, but what would the health and wealth gospel people tell you? You just don't have enough faith. If you had more faith, then you'd have more stuff. It's not about the stuff. My faith's not in the stuff. My faith's in Christ. But he says, blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed will thou be when thou goest out. I think about Solomon there, and remember the Lord told him, said, ask of me what you will. What do you want? Anything. You name it. Sky's the limit. What do you want? What'd he say? He wanted wisdom. He said, I'm like a little child. I don't know how to go out or how to come in. I need this so that I can go out and come in. Go out to battle, come back victorious, put whatever you want to in there. Queen Yeshiva came and she said the half, I heard, but only the half was told me. So, verse number six, blessed shall thou be when they comest out, or coming in when you go out. Verse seven, the Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face. They shall come out against thee one way, and that would be normal. I mean, an army would come against you, they come at you, you know, one way usually. But the Lord says here, they shall flee before you seven ways. It was either Lydia or Anna that said to me yesterday, Wasps. What good are they? Why do we have wasps? I said, well, you're starting from the wrong premise to begin with. We know that everything that God has created has a purpose or He wouldn't have created it. Just because we don't understand it doesn't mean there's not one. I said, so, you know, you're starting from the wrong place. I said, but I can think about a story in scripture where God used a bunch of hornets to drive out the enemy from Israel, you know. So, it made me think about it when they come against you one way and flee before you seven ways. And you can imagine if a, if a, if a armada, I don't know, that would be a Navy term. What would it be in the Air Force? I don't know. Anyway, if a great number of Hornets came against you in your camp, people aren't going to be running in one direction. every way they can, so flee seven ways. Verse number eight, the Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thy hand unto, and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. The Lord shall establish the unholy people unto himself as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God and walk in his ways. And all the people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of thee. There are people now that don't want to talk to you because they know that you, you know, that you're a Christian. They're not going to come ask you to do certain things because they know you're a Christian. And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods and the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy cattle, the fruit of thy ground, and the land which the Lord swear unto thy fathers to give thee. And this kind of touches upon the border of what we were talking about earlier in Matthew in the Bible study time. And we were talking about the fact that God is the one that grants life, whether it's the opening of the womb, the closing of the womb, whether it's the trees that are out there and the fruit that appears upon them. You see this here and talk about all this blessing overtaking you. God's the one that's in charge of these things. Verse number 12. The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand, and that thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the Lord shall make thee," boy, this is one here that the health and wealth, prosperity gospel people love to tout. And the Lord shall make thee the head and not the tail. You think Job felt much like a head or more like a tail in the end of all the things that he suffered. And thou shalt be above only and thou shalt not be beneath. That was Job's experience, the way that he felt things he was going through. But yet, where was God in it all? God was the one that was working in Job's life to bring about blessing. And he was doing that through the things that Job would suffer. So, think about our Lord. Did he not suffer? And were we not blessed, you know, as a result? Whenever you feel like the tail, you're still the head. You're still the head. God's the one that has, in that circumstance, whatever those people are doing unto you, whatever's going on around you, whatever you're suffering, whatever you're enduring, you're still the head. God's still got his eye upon you. You are still the apple of his eye. He's still concerned about you, and he's doing something. He's doing something in your life. He's doing something in my life. It doesn't feel comfortable. We'd like to be out from under it. We feel like we're beneath, but you're not really, you're above. It's really where you are because God has his eye upon you and he's doing these things for your good. It's only for your good. If that thou hearken unto the commandments of the Lord thy God which I command thee this day to observe and to do them. There's the language again that we saw there in verse number one. And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day to the right hand or to the left to go after other gods and serve them. but it shall come to pass if thou will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day that all these curses shall come upon thee and same word same words being used back there about the blessing and over Remember there's that guy in scripture that he was running for something, got away from it, got to his house, put his hand upon the door post and an asp, which would be a snake, deadly snake, bit him, he dies. So, talk about something overtaking you. You got away from it, you thought. but it overtakes you. How many people are running from God, think they're going to be able to get away from Him, but there's going to come a judgment day and it's going to overtake them, you know. Vice versa for you as a Christian. You've known blessing, certainly. Just the relationship, the fellowship that we have with God and with his people, the things that God has opened unto us and given unto us, the salvation that's ours in Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the condemnation that's no longer upon us. I'm not saying we never feel guilty about things that we've done, but there is therefore not no condemnation. Talking about the judgment of God, the condemnation of God. I heard one guy was preaching the other day, I don't know if I would necessarily use this illustration, but You know about your sins being blotted out. You read that in scripture. Your sins have been blotted out. You know, as close as we can come to that, to understanding what they were talking about, you know, you've got wide out that you use. But this guy was using this illustration where the records are being searched. You know, there's got to be something against this guy, but nothing is found. You know, and the column over here, you know, of deficits and the column over here of the judgment that would fall upon you is gone. You know, it's been removed. Christ has taken the curse upon himself that you might receive and that this blessing might overcome you. So these are some of the things that we see as we just kind of a cursory reading of what we read there. But you can see there's two mountains there on the bulletin. There was Mount Gerizim, there was Mount Ebel. And you had half of the tribes of Israel, six were over here, six were over there, and one was speaking the things that were the blessing, one was speaking the things that were the curse, and all the people would say, amen, you know, kind of a situation. But I guess we'll try just to touch on one point at the outset to consider the fact, here's the law being given, you know, unto the people. I thought about Galatians 3.21 is the law then against the promises of God. Paul says, God forbid, for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. So we know that we can understand from what we're reading here that blessing is going to come unto us solely in the sense of our eternal welfare, our eternal well-being as far as salvation just by doing things. We know that's not the case. But the scripture, verse 22, hath concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. You think about them. They were slaughtering animals in order to make a propitiation for their sins. But we understand, and some of them could see, that this would be the type of Christ who would come and be the propitiation for our sins. But again, but before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith, which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster. There we are back to where we were this morning in our Bible study time. Wherefore, the law was our schoolmaster to So what good is the law? To bring us unto Christ. To bring us unto Christ. That we might be justified by faith. But after that faith has come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. The law, it's written in our hearts. You know, it's not an external thing. Gotta do this. You know, there's the negative command. Thou shalt not. I can't do that. Thou shalt. I've gotta do this. You know, it was all external. But when God gives us a new heart, gives us the mind of Christ, and gives unto us his spirit, then these things are written within. These things are no longer, I'd really like to do that, but I can't. I don't want to do that, but I have to. It's not that anymore for us. You know, for us now is, I desire. And not only that, but when you think about the negative, thou shalt not commit adultery. and I'm getting a little ahead, we'll have to finish this next week, but thou shalt not commit adultery. Well, there's the negative. I just gotta keep myself from that, I'll be okay. Well, no, there's a positive implied, isn't there? I mean, you got the negative on one side, but there's a positive on the other side. You need to love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, you know. If you're doing that, then you're gonna be kept from this, you know, but in other words, Lord, how can I? Here's this command that you've given unto me. How can I go beyond, you know, that, you know, I gave the illustration of Rebecca, and when she was little, and the way that she, you know, the way that she was, she was a really strong-willed child. You know, we went and bought the book. What was the name of that book? It was called The Strong-Willed Child. We went and bought the book, because we had one, and we needed a manual to know how to deal with it. Of course, we already had this. When you spare the rod, you spoil the child. There was lots of that going on, as far as the rod was concerned. But there's been a change, you know, in her. There's no longer that strong-willed child that exists. You know, now it's meek and it's humble and it desires to please, you know, instead of being forced to do. You know, and that's when we were kids. We were hemmed in by that, weren't we? Don't do this. Don't do that. You can't go out in the street. You gotta be home by the time the street light, you know, goes off. Um, you know, eat all of your, your, uh, the food on your plate, you know. And I'm still suffering from that now because I try to do that today. And sometimes I put too much on my plate to eat, you know. But, you know, you gotta eat everything that's there, right? That's the way we were taught when we were growing up. But we were hemmed in by all these things. And maybe you were there when you first became a Christian. Okay, I can't do that, I gotta do this. I wanna please God, and that's my desire. But as you grow and mature, you get beyond those things. I don't have to spank Rebecca anymore. You know, as far as I go, I don't speak English anymore, you know. And these two are kind of like she was. She told me when she was growing up that her parents would say something to her and she just breaks down, you know, starts crying, you know, just fall apart. You know, and you're like, how can I whip them now? You know, they're just already falling apart. You know, they've just been telling them what they can't do, you know. But anyway, you know, you're hemmed in by those things. Then when you get older, you aren't really hemmed in by those things anymore. You understood. Oh, that's why they didn't want me to do that. I understand now, you know, and some of that came through. Don't touch and you touched, you know, the big old blister. Remember that on your finger from the sugar syrup that we were making? Yeah. But you grow mature. And so now where does that leave me as a Christian? Lord, how can I? I understand these things are written. Here's the shalls. Thou shalt do these things. And here's the shalt nots over here. But I want to more perfectly understand these things. I want to more perfectly do them. I don't want to be hemmed in by just what I'm not supposed to do or what I'm supposed to do. I want to please you in all things, whether I eat, drink, whatsoever I do, I want to do all the glory of God. So we have that sort of thing here. Think about how many people would bring their sacrifice And their heart wasn't really in it. They'd bring their sacrifice to the altar. That's what I'm supposed to do. I've done it. We get to a point later in the Old Testament where God says, I'm sick of your sacrifices. You're bringing these things before me. You're not worshiping me. You're doing these things. You're just fulfilling these things. In other words, what kind of terminology, what label would we put on that? Legalistic. It's all legalism. Just doing and not doing. It's just legalistic. But there's no heart. They draw nine to me with their mouth, scripture says, but their heart is far from me. And the Lord says, you wash the outside of the cup, but inside it's full of iniquity. You know, outside a beautiful sepulcher, inside dead men's bones. So it's, it's, These things can be that sort of thing even you know for us or not I'm not saying for you, but I'm saying for people today That could be the case So what's the law good for? What are these commandments good for? Because you know what? We've broken them They lead us to Christ because we have need of a Savior That's, that's, that's the law to lead you to Christ because you've broken the law. You can't, you can't keep all of these things. You can't do them. You can try to do them and externally that white, you know, the cup that was, the white washed up liquor, the, the, the cup that was clean on the outside, you know, those sort of things, the analogies the Lord used, you know, on the outside they were, they were keeping these things. But what was Paul's problem? Do you remember what got him in Romans 7? So, you know, all the external stuff, you know, he was able to keep. I haven't done that. I haven't killed anybody, you know. I haven't done it. I haven't committed adultery, you know. I haven't stolen anything. I'm good. It's kind of like the rich young ruler. I've done all those things since my youth. We'll go into all of that. Same sort of problem that Paul identifies that the rich young ruler identifies or is identified in the rich young ruler. So, what was it? Go in and say, all that you have, give it to the poor and come and follow me. He went away very sad because he had great riches. What was the issue? What was the problem? Hmm? Covetousness. Paul says that. He said, when I saw that and I understood that, and how did he understand it? Internally. When I could see that this was an issue within that I had, I haven't kept. I couldn't keep. It was there. It was coming at me from all different directions all the time. You know, the rich young ruler, I can't go sell all my stuff. I want to keep my stuff. I don't want to give my stuff up. But for Paul, it was covetousness. He saw that. He said, sin revived, I died. I saw my sin for what it was. Because that happens, is the law evil? No. The law is good. The law is holy. The law is just. I'm the one that's got the problem. It's the evil within me. And then the Lord, you know, further explains to all these people that thought that they were keeping these things, you know, perfectly, you know, we are Abraham's seed. We've kept all these things. You look upon a woman, lust after her, you've committed adultery in your heart. He's internalizing all these things that here, great stones, all the law written, external. But we see on the inside there's an issue and only God can change that and give a person a new heart. And we can only have that because of the sacrifice that Christ has made in becoming a curse for us. So we're really out of time. But that's kind of a springboard into what we'll be looking at here in Deuteronomy 27 and 28. And again, I'll remind you that we're getting closer. Maybe we would finish Deuteronomy 28 next week. There's 33 chapters, so we're getting close to the end of Deuteronomy. It's been a journey. It's taken a while for us to get here. be in prayer about where we know the Lord has us in Matthew for our Bible study time after we finish Jude, you know, but where will we be, you know, next in this hour? What book will we go to next? So be in prayer with me, you know, about that. I don't just say that. I mean, I'm sincerely asking you to pray with me because I want to know. I don't want to just open the Bible and say, you know, Right there. That's where we're gonna be next. I don't want to do that. You know, I want to know where the Lord would have us because he knows better than I do where we need to be. He knows what's gonna happen tomorrow. I don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. He knows what's gonna happen a year from now, which likely we'd probably be in that book, you know, still, depending on how big it is, a year from now. He knows what's gonna be happening in Brother Wiseman's life a year from now and what he would need to hear, you know. or what I would need to hear, what you would need to hear, where would we need to be? God knows that. I don't know that. I confess that and so by that confession I want God to tell us where should we be, what should we be studying, you know. So pray with me about it as you pray for one another and pray for yourself, pray about where we should be next after Deuteronomy. All right, any comments or questions or problem that I created in something I said in your mind that maybe you understood what I said or maybe you didn't understand what I said and then you corrected, you know. anything like that. I'm not trying to drag anything out of you, I'm just asking. I don't want you to feel like you're forced to say something. Or if I don't say something, you know, then somebody's going to think something about me. Or if I do say something, somebody's going to think something about me. All right. Well, let's stand and we'll go to the Lord in prayer.