After the Sermon: Deuteronomy 7:1-8:10

3/3/26 | Will DuVal | DEUTERONOMY: Remembering God's Faithfulness; Responding in Obedience

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Welcome to the After the Sermon podcast, where Pastor Will answers follow-up questions and we share your personal applications from the sermon for the benefit of the church. I'm Brian. I'm here with our lead pastor, Will. Hey. And we want to remind you with this podcast that sermons are not just a Sunday thing. So a question from Victoria from Sunday's sermon. She wrote, "What's a modern way of handling destruction of idols/carved images of others in the workplace?"

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Grab them off the desk, throw it in the trash, rip it off the wall in their office, burn it in front of them. No, I'm just kidding. It's an interesting question. I'm trying to put myself ... Obviously, Brian, we work in the church and even now we're out of our church building and we're over here renting space from another church. But I think about, yeah, if we'd had to rent space from some corporate building and I don't know, I don't know. I'm trying to put myself in the place of Victoria or any of our members of our church who might have to deal with this on a daily basis and work in a cubicle, for instance, right beside a coworker who has a statue of the Buddha or has examples. Yeah, Buddha. Their prayer mat for their Muslim or rolled up in their kind of cubicle or I don't know, just any number of probably more Eastern kind of new agey types of crystals and stuff like that.

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Astrological, I don't know. So I think context is everything. And so in the Old Testament and what we're reading about in Deuteronomy seven and eight here, God is talking to his covenant people and it's a specific time and place where they're coming into this land. I mean, that probably should have been reiterated just with all the kind of commands to devote them to utterly be destroyed is like, again, very specific time place. God is not telling you or me to go and utterly destroy your next door neighbors who aren't Christians or something like that. Hopefully most of us don't need those reminders every single time we come across a text like this. But anyway, yeah, I think it's different for a number of reasons, but one of which being it's this land that they're called to purge and it's a special land for God's special people in this special time and place.

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However, today it's very different for us. Part of the other thing for them too is some of those exportations in Deuteronomy seven are specifically about protecting the holiness, the set apartness, distinctness of Israel as a people. And so a lot of the commands there are don't take their stuff, their gold, their silver, their idols, and bring them into your home, bring them into my community, bring them into the midst of my people. And so it's not just like their very existence has to be completely ... God didn't send Israel all over the world to destroy the idols of every pagan nation. It's like the point is this land that they're in right now, I'm giving to you. And I don't want their pagan wicked practices or idols being any part of it. And so I want you to get rid of them, the people, and get rid of all their idols, the paraphernalia and the practices.

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And so again, I would say even if you want to apply that kind of a principle in your workplace, in your office, for instance, it's like, well, God has given you that coworker their cubicle beside you. Now, if they try and decorate your cubicle for you and, "Hey, I thought you'd like some crystals and whatever." It's like, no, God has given that cubicle to you. Throw it in the trash. No, thanks. Thanks for know that. And so the principle certainly would be you're not going to adopt their practices and bring them into your own home or your own cubicle or your own heart, certainly.

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So yeah, but I think, again, you look at so much of even what Paul says in the New Testament, again, under the New Covenant with regard to how we think about idols. And even you see this in the Old Testament with certain prophets, I think of Isaiah talks about idolatry is just ridiculous. He almost mocks it and laughs at it. It's like you cut down a tree and you use half of it for firewood and you use the other half and you carve it into this God, this quote, so- called God, like it's ridiculous, makes no sense. And Paul sort of says somewhat of the same thing in the New Testament where he's talking about, look, those of us who really understand the way the world works and who God is, we know these idols, there's no substance to them. There's not another God. They're just these little trinkets and it's silly and sad that people would have that crystal and think that it has some power or pray to it or whatever they do with it.

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  And so we don't need to get all been out of shape about it and go on some Holy War to rid the office of it or something like that. But if anything, I would say if I was Victoria, I let that be a visible reminder to me every day as I'm coming in the office and I walk by that poster on my coworker's wall as I'm walking by their office and it's got some quote from the, again, whoever, the Bahagagita or I don't know, whatever religion they might be. And it's a reminder to me, "Hey, that's a person who needs prayer. That's a person who needs targeted personal evangelism and I need to ... " I'm going to say a prayer for them every morning that I walk by their office. So yeah, that's what I would try and challenge her with. Hope that's helpful.

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  And she wrote an application, "I will bless God more and thank him after I eat." That was a great thought. I thank God for my food right before I eat it. It's like, "Man, I'm really grateful after I eat it too. Why don't I thank God after I eat?"

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  And how many other-

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  I was hopeful.

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  How many other applications of that same kind of principle? I think you just got back from a vacation and we leave it on family vacation, it's like we're pulling out of the garage, we always stop who wants to say a prayer for us that God would get us there safely on this drive and we pray. And then it's like, do we stop when we get there before we get out of the car and unload? I know we're all tired, but why don't we just take a moment and pray and thank God. That's a miracle. We just drove for four and a half hours and didn't flip the car. Like that's a miracle. All the things that could have gone wrong between here and there and God is good, thank him for it. Anyways, I think that was something that just came out of a lot of the sermons I listened to on Dear Dromeny 8:10 that I thought, what a great principle for me to think about not only praying for that blessing before, but thanking for the blessing in hindsight.

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  It's helpful. Yeah. And we'd love more questions, more applications. Please do submit those. That was the only one that was written in, but will you add some maybe that came to mind or you wish that were asked?

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  Yeah, I do. Well, to your point, we always want more. So maybe it's another, it's probably once a month I'm going to have to just like harp on people, try and be not always like guilting people. Why don't you ask more questions? But encouraging like, "Hey, Fed, we just got done recording the Ask the Pastors and we want more questions. We want to answer. We want to help you grow Monday through Friday and not just on Sunday mornings." And so especially when we've walked through a text that in some ways there's so much more that we just don't, I don't have time to get to everything. And in other ways, yeah, there's some real questions that I think the faithful listener ought to be wrestling through as they're sitting there and marinating in God's words. So just a handful of them that came to mind for me that I'm like, "Oh, I'm kind of surprised, disappointed, whatever, that someone didn't ask about this.

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  " So obviously we talked a lot. I mean, Victoria touched on it, but just I do think that there's a place for Christians every time we're reading about the utter destruction of these peoples and the text, God is even more clear in other places. Let me be clear about what I mean, man, woman and child, even their animals. Tony, kill their animals. We're making a clean sweep of it here. And again, I think there's room for us every time we read that to really, in a good way, in the kind of way that I think God intends, when he says in Genesis nine to Noah, whoever sheds man's blood is going to be guilty and by ... His blood must be shed. So feeling that tension of, man, how can a good loving God really command ... I mean, you're talking about their babies? I mean, if you really picture that in your mind as we're reading these texts, you ought to feel something that ought to really, I think, cause you to wrestle and question that.

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  And another question, I was pretty quick to make the link, the leap to the spiritual analogy metaphor of, again, God calling us today to make a clean sweep of our sin and to put it to utter destruction, make no compromise with sin, all of that, which I think is true and part of the main thing that God wants to convey to us through this. But I think one question that could come out of that is, is there a danger or a risk whenever we potentially over spiritualize the text and draw those kinds of analogies or symbols. Obviously, we, again, just got done recording the after Ask the Pastors podcast and the theological triage one, and we spent quite a bit of time talking about the historical Adam and Eve and the dangers of symbolizing ... Well, what if Adam and Eve are just symbols for sin?

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  And is it really important that it was a real historical person? I think there's implications for how we treat and talk about and interpret what's going on here with Israel and the Canaanites as they're coming into the land. So yeah, I think that's another good, fair question. Verse 12, part of what I said very clearly in the sermon was that it is because we are chosen and blessed that we respond to God in obedience and holiness, not the other way around. And I think that's true, but then you get some of these verses, like verse 12 of chapter seven in particular, and this passage says, "Because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you

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  The

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  Covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers." And I kind of breezed over that and nobody called me on it. Nobody submitted a question and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You said that it's because we are chosen and blessed that we therefore obey if A, then be. " But this seems to be saying, "If be, then A. " This seems to be saying, because if you listen and obey, then the Lord your God will keep with you his covenant and the steadfast love. And he says it again later. Oh, what verse is it?

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  Yeah. Anyway, I'll leave that with that one. I think I expected maybe a little bit more of a close reading on that from some people pushing back or like, "What do we do with that? " I'm not going to answer any of these questions now. I'm just going to toss out the kinds of questions that I think a critical hero of the word who's really seeking to take this text seriously ought to be asking. Another one, another question I think I didn't necessarily anticipate from our church demographic, but that I think is fair, is a fair question of other Christians asking is, well, why not directly apply Israel's blessings in the physical material sense to us today? Because I made the point with point number two about God blessing with prosperity and protection. And I said, "Well, look, God blesses us with eternal spiritual prosperity and protection in Christ and we have the hope of heaven and all that, but there's a problem with just directly taking these promises of prosperity to Israel and then applying them to us." And I think somebody could, again, not ... I don't think it's a slam dunk case, obviously, because I don't believe it, but I think somebody could at least fairly ask the question and it's worth the discussion of, "Well, why can't I just directly claim that promise or that blessing for myself?" What is the problem with seeing God's ... If God wanted to bless his Old Testament people, Israel, with prosperity and no diseases and lots of wealth and abundance of livestock and all of that, why shouldn't I expect God's the same yesterday, today, and forever?

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  Why wouldn't I expect God to want to bless me today in the same ways? Why wouldn't I expect health and wealth and happiness in this life? I mean, that's what he was going to give Israel. And I think that's a fair question. I mean, if we want to give the quote unquote prosperity gospel, it's due kind of minute of consideration, it's worth it, at least answering the question.

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  We do that with other promises. I mean, you'll hear Christians, Jeremiah 29:11, "I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord plans to prosper you and give you a hope and a future." Not just prosperity gospel. I mean, I'll quote that in sermons and say, "God has a plan for you, has a future for you. " It's like, well, okay, you're taking that Old Testament promise to a specific people, Israel and saying it applies directly to Christians today. And I can look at you and other Christian today and say, God has a plan for you. God wants to prosper you. God wants to give you a future and a hope and not just cast you out. You'll take that promise of God. But then as soon as he starts talking about blessing your flocks and your children and making you abundant and no infertility and no barrenness and no whatever, and why not grab all those promises?

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  And so I think it's worth consideration and what's the argument?

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  Hornets in verse 20, I tossed out Warren Weirsby's interpretation of the hornets elsewhere in the Bible, God uses the metaphor of hornets for other nations, or not hornet, but insects. And so he talks somewhere in the book of Isaiah, I forget now, about like I'm going to send the fly from Egypt to deal with Babylon. I'm going to send the biting insect from Asyria down to deal with them, or I guess it's to deal with Israel and to judge. And so this interpretation of, well, maybe God sent in the hornets in verse 20 aren't literal biting insects to afflict the Canaanites and Parasites and Amorites and all the Its termites, maybe send some termites to get the Its, but the bugs, but maybe not literal, but maybe other nations that are going to come and sort of start the job of afflicting them and then therefore make it easier for Israel to finish the job.

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  I guess a couple of thoughts on that. One is again, the whole literal spiritual thing and just argue why not take God literally when he says hornets.

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  I didn't say that I agree with that interpretation, by the way. I just threw it out like this is one thing some commentators say. But the other maybe bigger point would be, does that downplay the victory then that God gave them? Because it seems like elsewhere, the thrust of what God's saying is these nations are bigger and mightier than you, and yet I'm so big and mighty that I can beat them. So if God needed to bring these other nations to help clear the path for Israel to beat a weaker nation, does that sort of downplay the victory he gave them?

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  Obviously the historical things of like, why don't we see more evidence historically, archeologically, whatever, of wars leading up to the war with Israel? Why don't we see more evidence of the war with Israel for that matter as they came into the Holy Land? So there's questions there, but part of what I would say if someone had asked that is like, is that I think it's cool that God can use these quote unquote ordinary means of accomplishing his will. Like even I think about the passage in Exodus 14 where God leads them out of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea and one of the details that people often forget in that story, maybe not as much because maybe you've seen the Prince of Egypt or whatever the one with Charleton Heston is, and you see it's like this big supernatural thing and there's wind blowing, but the text actually says that God sent, I can't remember if it's an east wind, I think, a wind from some direction to actually blow the waves back.

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  And you think about that and you're like, okay, I mean, God could have just Moses sticks his staff in and boop, there it goes, there's the water. I mean, doesn't that make God seem more powerful than as opposed to staff goes in, God sends a wind to blow back the waters, but God often uses these kinds of natural means to accomplish his will and miracles. And so if God wanted to send, whether it's literal hornets, bugs to help out Israel or other armies to help weaken them, either way, maybe it doesn't diminish God's sovereignty, but it actually magnifies it that God is sovereign even over those other nations that he's sending and he uses ... Anyway, it helps us see God's hand more in everything that happens around us because we don't see miracles in the same way, sadly, anymore. Is it just because we're looking in the wrong places?

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  We're not seeing, again, I referenced a minute ago, like the miracle of arriving safely in my car. It's like, well, maybe that's the miracle is that God has given us the ability to create cars and tires and whatever that can do things like this and that's miraculous. So anyway, I'm off on a tangent now, but let me just quickly mention a couple others. Gold and silver. So verses 25:26 where God says, "Burn the carved images of their gods with fire. Don't take their silver or gold for yourselves." It is devoted to destruction. You'll become devoted to destruction if you take it. I guess one question there is like, well, why did God let Israel take Egypt's plunder or other ... There are sometimes when God says, "Kill them all and take their stuff." And then there's other times when God and the Bible says, "Kill them all and don't even touch their stuff." And why?

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  What's the difference? I mean, sometimes it's clear like, "Well, these were idols and used for demonic practices and whatever." Other times it seems like, well, those are idols too, but you're letting us take it and melt it down and reuse it. So I think there's a question to be had there. How do we know when God, getting into chapter 10 now, and I had point number three was God blesses us actually by pruning us, by disciplining us, by cutting away spiritual fat, so to speak, sin in our lives. And one question there would be, how do we know when God is disciplining us versus when maybe it's not, maybe it's Satan, maybe it's just our own sin and don't blame this on God, that's just your ... Or maybe it's just crap happens, as they say. And so maybe this particular traffic jam isn't like, "Well, I sinned and now God is punishing me for it.

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  " Maybe it's like, well, maybe it's just a traffic jam and maybe it's not all about you and all of what happens all around you isn't ... Don't be so narcissistic is to think that everything that happens in your life is God having you in mind as opposed to, there's a bigger plan here and you're just a small part of it. And so, but when should we intentionally read in, no, no, no, this is God disciplining me, pruning me, testing me to see what's in my heart, like the text says, when's that appropriate? When is it in overreach? It's a fair question. How do we know ... This is our last one. How do we know ... Because I made the point with the pruning in a particular God testing us in absence, like in the wilderness, hunger and thirst, but God also testing us in abundance, maybe even more so like when God says, "You're going to come into the land, you're going to get lots of good stuff and then don't forget about me.

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  " And I made the point, if you're there or if you're in the red line, like on the verge of even possibly forgetting about God in all of your comfort, there's not enough lack in your life to remember your need for a God to provide, then you'd be better off selling all your stuff. I guess just one, again, to make it practical and personal for people, I imagine myself being on the other side of the pulpit in the congregation, hearing that, having six, seven, whatever figures in the bank account and thinking, "How do I know? How do I know if I'm there? What are the warning signs? How much is too much?" Again, it's relative for some people having a hundred bucks, thousand bucks, it might be more spiritually dangerous for them than for others having a million.

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  And so, yeah, but how do I know personally for me whether or not my abundance has become spiritually detrimental and is causing a hindrance to my focusing on the spiritual blessings of who I am in Christ, the hope I have in him, no, I've actually put, I'm putting too much hope in earthly things and blessings now. How do I know? What are some signs? I think that's probably more of our West County first world congregants in our church ought to be asking that because I see it, I see it. I mean, there are some where I kind of want to pull them aside and say, "Hey,

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  I think you're heading down a dangerous path that could terminate in Rich Young Ruler." So yeah, those are the kinds of questions that I'd like to think if I was in my own pew and on the other side of the pulpit and the pastor asked me, "Hey, would you submit some questions that help make this even more personal for you and force me to go deeper and think deeper and explain more?" Those are the kinds of questions I think people ought to be asking. And there's probably a dozen more that others could and should come up with. So yeah, just an encouragement. Please keep being a critical listener on Sundays and let's keep the conversation going beyond Sundays.

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  Yeah. That's good. We hope this has been an edifying listen for you as you do. Seek to be changed and to love God more Monday through Saturday, not just Sunday, as you apply God's word after the sermon. So go apply the sermon, continue to make disciples and Lord willing, we'll catch you right back here next week. Amen.