THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Let us read together, dear soul, with faith by the Spirit of Christ that is within you and with trembling and with respect and reverence to the word of the one who created the heavens and the earth. Deuteronomy chapter 20.

May the Lord lead us as we read and may the Lord lead us as we meditate upon these things. This is Deuteronomy chapter 20. This is the word of the Lord. When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them, here, O Israel, today, You are drawing near for battle against your enemies.

Let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them. For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you the victory. Then the officer shall speak to the people, saying, Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.

And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man enjoy its fruit. And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her. And the officer shall speak further to the people and say, is there any man who is fearful and faint-hearted?

Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellow melt like his own. And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, the commander shall be appointed at the head of the people. When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, that makes war against you, then you shall beseech it.

And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its mail to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves, and you shall enjoy the spoils of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here, but in the cities of these people that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction. the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may now teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their guts. And so you sin against the Lord your God. When you beseech a city for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, You shall not destroy streets by wielding an axe against them.

You may eat from them, but you shall not cut them down. Are the trees in the field human, that they should be besieged by you? Only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down. For food you may destroy and cut down, that you may build siege works against the city that makes war with you until false. This is the word of the Lord, my dear brother, my dear sister, my dear soul within the sound of my voice, my Desire was to share with you just a very simple thought, as we have just right here from Deuteronomy chapter 20.

We continue with this narrative in which the people of Israel are about to enter into the promised land. They're about to see the land that the Lord had promised them. And Moses is about to depart. He's about to die that he knows. And the only intention that I had in my heart this morning was to share with you the fact from the scriptures that God establishes His kingdom through war.

God establishes His kingdom through war. And one would be able to change the tense of that statement and say that God will establish His kingdom through war. The example that we have in the Old Testament with the people of Israel is an example that was written not only for our instruction, but also for the hope of the church and the people who genuinely by grace through faith have been saved and inserted into the person of Jesus Christ. the God of this universe, the one who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, the one who is giving you breath to breathe today, the one that is keeping you by his providence, the one that is sustaining your heart within you, the one that is giving you one more second of life, the one who has allowed that we come together by virtue of his hand, the one who has allowed that we open our mouth to sing to him, the one who has allowed to have thoughts of him, the one who has spoken to us through his word and has liberated us from sin, that God is the one who is going to establish his kingdom, not with negotiation, not with terms of peace humanly made, not just by simply speaking his kingdom into coming on the earth, that this God of the universe, Almighty, the one who knows it all, the one that can see it absolutely all, that there's no place that can hide us, this God will establish His kingdom through word. That is the example, that is the commandment, that is the instruction that was given to the people of Israel under the Old Covenant.

They were told very carefully that once they make it into the promised land, they were supposed to destroy all the enemies. Every single enemy that was within the land, they were supposed to put him to death and to destroy them, utterly destroy them and consecrate them to destruction for the Lord. The Lord had decided that his kingdom was going to establish through war. And there's a couple of things that I want to show you from this passage. My dear brother and sister and soul, and I hope that the Spirit of God will help us, help me to speak to you with clarity and to your soul, perhaps to receive by faith.

And if there's anyone among you who generally is not in Christ, that you may know that this God who sees it all sees your heart and that you will come to the Savior, this Lord Jesus Christ of ours. There's a couple of things that I want to show you from this passage. The first one of those is that war, the word that was commanded and given to the people of Israel under the old covenant, was meant to be a war that was ordained and completely guided by the Lord alone. The people of Israel were going to engage in war. Actually, these people of Israel had already experienced war.

When they were liberated from the land of Egypt, they had already faced enemies. They had been defeated. They had experienced victory. They had seen the end of the Lord. And at times they had seen the absence of the end of the Lord.

And one thing we learn when Moses is given these instructions for the war that the people of Israel will face in the promised land. And that is that all these wars were supposed to be initiated, commanded, or approved by God himself. And the fact that all wars were supposed to be ordained, commanded, or approved by God were supposed to produce something in the heart of the people of Israel. That was full assurance and peace. The people of Israel were going to face people that were stronger than they were.

The people of Israel were going to face armies that were larger than the one that they had. The people of Israel were going to see things that indeed were going to cause fear in the heart of the people of Israel, but at the fact and the conclusion and the word given through Moses that the word was supposed to be commanded, ordained, or approved, and with the blessing of God, that was supposed to cause in the heart of the people of Israel, absolute certainty. That if this God is the one that is going before us, if it's this God, the one who liberated us from Egypt, if it's this God who is the creator of heaven and earth, the one that is before us, then how are we going to have any manifestations of fear, of lack or trust in our hearts, the word of the Lord had been spoken through Moses. And this was not only speaking of the future or what's coming in the promised land, but it was also preparing the heart of the people of Israel in absolute faith and certainty. that every time that they hear the command of the Lord of going and destroying, of going and taking, of going and taking the promised land, that that word of the Lord was supposed to be the cause of absolute faith and certainty in the heart of them.

And that was the case, that every time that they were going to work, the priest was supposed to sound the trumpets and let them know that they were going in the name of the Lord. These feeble and weak hearts of the people of Israel, who were so likely to forget the commandments and instructions of the Lord, were to be reminded by the priest and just the presence of the priest, the one that was representing God himself, that they were going to take possession of the land. not by virtue of their might or their power or their ability to conquer, but the conquering was completely because and through the Lord himself that was supposed to give them the victory already in their minds. The same promise is the one that we have, the Psalm 46, and that we put in our mouths is the same promise given to them, given to us, that this God of the universe who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, just as gave the promise to the people of Israel that they were going to conquer every time that he gave the instruction, he has given us so many promises to us, the church, about what is taking place and what will take place. And the heart of the Christian is to respond in the same way.

but full assurance and certainty, not of our victory, but the victory of the Lord, that he is the Lord God of Israel, the Lord God Jesus Christ, the Lord of the church, the one that is before us and in front of us, the one that is going to conquer and to destroy all the enemies. The heart of the Israelites were supposed to respond in full completeness, wholehearted. Their hearts were supposed to be given completely to the fact that they were being instructed by God to go and take possession of the land. For that reason, the Lord made sure that a commandment is given to the people of Israel, at least to the soldiers. that if there is any reason of division, if your heart is not fully given to this cause that the Lord is commanding of taking possession of the land, if there is any matter either of your life or if there's any fear that abides within your heart, then you are to stay.

because you are to be in full agreement with the commandment of the Lord of taking possession of the land. If you have something that you have started to build, if you have a house, if you have a vineyard, or if you have a woman that you have not married yet, then you are to go back. If there's any matter that is taking your heart and not giving you full assurance of this commandment and this instruction that the Lord has given you to move ahead and to take possession of the land, then you are to remain. And if there's any fear of your heart, then that means that the commandment given to you by Moses, that the Lord is the one that is before you and in front of you, has not pierced your heart as He was supposed to do it. And you have allowed not your eyes to be set in this promise of the Lord, that He is the one that is going to fight for you and for the people of Israel, but rather you have set your eyes in the signs of the enemy, in the nations that you're going to take possession, and in the situation that you're about to face, and for that reason, You have not allowed the certainty of the promise and of the word of God to dwell fully and completely in your heart, giving you absolute peace and certainty of the words of the Lord, but rather the Canaanites have already taken possession of your heart and have invaded you with fear, have taken your assurance and your certainty of it.

And if that is the case, if there is any fear in you, lest you may pass that on to the other people, the other soldiers and just go back home. The Lord here also makes a distinction, and I hope that you can see it. This shows us something very interesting about the establishment of the kingdom of God through war. And that is that this establishment of the kingdom of God through war was something that was meant to be progressive. The Lord God, through His war, makes a distinction of two different types of people in the passage that we have.

You may see here the distinction that is made in verse 15. It says, thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here. A distinction has been made between the enemies of the people of Israel. He says, those nations that are very far from here The here means the canonized, which are listed in verse 16. It says, but in the cities of these people, namely here, that the Lord your God is giving you for inheritance, you shall save a life, nothing that breaks.

Brother, dear sister and friend, pay attention to what I'm going to say here. The establishment of the kingdom of God in the Old Testament was meant to be through war and progressively by the conquering and the taking possession of the land that the Lord had given in promise to the people of Israel. When they were going to enter through the Jordan River into the Canaanites, the Jebusites and all of these tribes, when they were entering into that land, They were supposed to destroy them, absolutely all of them. The judgment of the Lord was coming upon the nations through the hand of His people, the people of Israel. The people of Israel were supposed to be the vessels, the instruments by which the judgment of God will come upon this hidden nation who had violated and broken the law of the God who had created the heavens and the earth.

whose conscience is testified to them that there was a God, yet they gave themselves to their own gods. So the people of Israel were meant to be the instruments in the hand of this God to bring the judgment that they deserved upon that land and to conquer that land and not to leave anyone. alive at the promise of the establishment of the kingdom of Israel in the kingdom of God through this war on the other side of the Jordan, had the expectation that upon obedience to the commandments and to the statutes of the Lord, the people of Israel will extend the land in such a way that the kingdom of God upon the earth was going to be established through the people of Israel. They were supposed to give themselves in obedience to the commandments that they had received. And they were supposed to execute justice in their heart and among them as a community.

And whatever they were, they were supposed to establish the justice and the judgments of the Lord. And as they did that, they were going to be given more lines and more land. For that reason, in the previous chapter, we're told that if they continue to obey the covenant, three more cities of refuge will be given to them. And here we have the terms of war for those cities that are far away from them. If you come to them, Before destroying them, offer them terms of peace.

If they surrender to you, then you will take them as servants and they will be your forced laborers. If they do not surrender to you, then you're going to take them by the word that the Lord has commanded you. The Lord had genuinely intended through the covenant given to Moses to establish his kingdom upon the earth. This required that the people who received this covenant, that is namely the law, would obey sufficiently in every one of the requirements. The establishment of the people of Israel upon the land will be the fulfillment not only of the promise given to Abraham, but also will be the establishment of the kingdom of God upon the earth.

depended entirely upon the obedience of these Israelites. If they obey the commandments in their hearts, they will be committed individually to the Lord. If they are committed individually to the Lord, they will be able to co-exist as a nation in the ceremonial law and then co-exist, applying the justice and the judgments of the Lord perfectly among the people and in the land. If that was the case, then the full possession of the land would be given to them. And if that continue to be the case, then the land given to Israel will extend and extend and extend.

They will have victory upon their enemies and the kingdom of God will be established upon the earth through the perfect obedience of his people to the commandments that were given. Then the justice of the Lord will take possession of the earth. It only takes that we open our eyes and see the environment in which we live. to see that they were unable to fulfill that. More importantly, it only takes that we continue to read the story of redemption and we will see the ongoing and the continuous failures of the people of Israel.

Justice initially given to the prophet, the prophet Moses. He dies before making it into the promised land. This promise given to Joshua for him to go and conquer the land and take possession of it. Failed, he is not able to take the fullness of the land. Then that promise given to the elders for 12 or 13 years, unable to take possession of the full land.

Then this promise given to the judges to administer the system of righteous justice of God, unable to do so. Then Lord, give us a king like the nations, a king that will take us in battle, a king that will make us powerful to take the nations and to extend our kingdom. David, Solomon, all of them, kingdom broken, all of these things coming to an end, promise given to Abraham, broken, promise given to David, broken through the hands of these human vessels who were unable to establish the kingdom of God upon the earth. With which purpose? What is the purpose?

To show humanity that humanity is utterly unable to bring to fulfillment the requirements of the Lord in and of themselves, that even when God genuinely enters into fellowship, coming down from heaven to establish a covenant, like the covenant given to Moses, that that shows the inability of humans and even the people of Israel taken out of the nations to fulfill the requirements of the Lord, that will be the means by which the kingdom of God will be established upon the earth. But secondly, and more importantly, also not only to show the inability of humans but to point to the necessity of one that will be able to come to in full obedience, in submission to the God of this universe, take the justice and the righteousness of God and fulfill it in such a way that in Him alone, the kingdom of God will be able to be established upon this world. So then the only begotten of the Father, the loved of the Father, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, 2000 years ago, come to this world. And when he comes, he does not bring the kingdom alone. He is the king.

The king comes to dwelt among us. And when he dwells among us, he, the kingdom, is at hand. Go and preach the gospel, because now showing the insufficiency of the previous covenant and showing the insufficiency in the inability of people to fulfill the requirements of the Lord, this Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, by going to that cross, brother, sister, does not only come to establish the kingdom of God on earth, but as I said before, through war, establishes that kingdom. dying upon the cross, receiving the fullness of the wrath of God, the justice of God that men could not behold, not even obey, receiving the fullness of the wrath of God on that cross to destroy sin, to destroy death, and to destroy the works of Satan through heavenly loving word, dying upon the cross, saying upon that cross, it is finished. The work of salvation has started, has begun, so that we have the promise in Revelation chapter 21, that when he comes to finally establish and culminate his kingdom, he will say, it is done.

Brother and sister, my dear friend, God is going to establish his kingdom through word And the first word that one is required to experience in order to be part of that kingdom is the word of the flesh. hears the proclamation of the gospel and the visitation of the Lord with a preaching of the offense of the cross. The soul is left in the presence of this King that is Savior, almighty and powerful. The soul of the person is presented before this glorious message of salvation. And when the grace of God pierces and wounds the heart of the one who hears This King, this glorious Savior, is not like the kings of old who will leave their victims just dying there, but rather in the love of the Father, in the love of the Spirit, and in the love of Christ.

This King of kings, once he has wounded the heart as a warrior, he's also the one that provides the healing to restore them to give not only life, but his eternal life. This is the glorious promise, brother and sister, that we have that Jesus Christ will establish his kingdom through war. He has already started that work in our hearts. And you know what? Lord Jesus, win the war.

Win the war within me. Win this war within me against my flesh, against my passions, against who I am. Take possession, be enthroned entirely within me. And you know what is the glorious thing that we have in scripture? Is that scripture says that the Lord will conquer.

The Lord will conquer fully and completely your heart if by grace through faith you are in Christ. All of the canonites that are within you, all of these hidden practices and all of these fleshly things that are within us are going to be utterly removed, consecrated to the Lord. by the one who comes and conquers, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the light that is already shining in darkness. This is the enthroning and the conquering of Jesus Christ in the heart.

But beyond that is not only left to the imaginations of the heart, we have the promise. That is Christ, the Lamb of God who came 2,000 years humble and meek among his people, rejected by his people. The one who came not to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who came for the first time is coming a second time. And this second time, he's not coming like the lamb of God who takes and took away the sin of the world.

But this second time, he's coming like the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's coming like the branch of Jesse. He's coming like the offspring of David. He's coming like the righteous one to conquer, to bring judgment to the living and to the dead. The rulers and the kings of this world will be mocked.

at the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who is enthroned in heaven, but coming to conquer whenever that place has place in your mind. But he's coming to establish his kingdom, and we're going to be subject to the glorious kingdom, the perfection of the Lord. And you know what? This kingdom is not established in heaven. On earth, this earth that was never able to experience the fullness of the kingdom of God.

New heavens or new earth or whatever you wanna place it, but new heavens, ultimately a new earth, will genuinely experience the consummation and the fullness of the kingdom of God. And indeed that will be accomplished through war. Even to the Israelites, for them to conquer, take the possession of the land and to conquer and extend the kingdom, unable to do so through the Messiah covenant. now given to the Lord Jesus Christ, the promise of eternal life. Praise to the Lord that he is the one that has conquered, will conquer, And then if you are genuinely in Christ, there's going to be a time in which your eyes are going to be closed and they're going to be open to behold the divine intention of the establishment of the kingdom of God upon this earth.

Sin is no more. Death is no more. Corruption is no more. Hope is eternal and rejoicement is always there at the presence of Christ. Better person always chosen, never deviating from the presence of Him because now He has captured us entirely to behold the beauty, the power, and the might of the one who died upon the cross, was worthy to take the scroll and open the seals, and in his ministry of reading this scroll, to execute judgment upon this earth, and giving the two-edged swords to the people of God, you know, to do what?

To do what? It says, Paul, in 2 Corinthians 2, if you come with me, he will say it, of course, better than I can, and I will join his thanksgiving. 2 Corinthians 2. or when you have time, you can read Psalm 149. To do this, my dear soul.

I said 2 Corinthians 2, verse 14. Joining myself now in the Thanksgiving of the Apostle, to speak to you, dear soul. Verse 14, but thanks be to God, who is, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us feeble earthen vessels, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. In other words, establishes his kingdom through the gospel, for we are the aroma of Christ to God, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one, a fragrance from death to death, to the other, a fragrance from life to life.

Of course, he says, who is sufficient for these things? The glorious, brother, sister, the glorious message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When people wanted to establish kingdoms with their mind, with their power, with their chariots and with their horses and with their intellect, it pleased God that through the foolishness of the preaching of the gospel and the message of the cross, put the wisdom and the efforts and the strength and the power of men to mock and to show the world that it is through Jesus Christ and this message that not only salvation is accomplished for the individual, but also that the kingdom of the Lord will be established." Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of visitation for any one of you.

Today is the day in which this message of the gospel is preached to you. Today is the day in which your heart is at war with the God that I'm preaching from this pulpit and from this Bible. Today is the day in which your heart is either pierced By this Jesus Christ, that is Lord of all lords, for today is the day in which your heart is hardened in such a way that you neglect the Savior. Let me tell you one thing, that this Jesus Christ, whom we serve, is the Jesus Christ that is above every single name. And to the name of Jesus Christ, every knee will bow.

Some of you will bow out of the grace that has been given to you, that has transformed you and given you a new heart, that has made you like the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will proclaim from your soul, this is my King, this is my Lord. Some of you, within the sound of my voice, will kneel. will bow on your knees to the same Lord Jesus Christ, not out of the grace that was given to you because you rejected the gospel, but because your knee was broken by the road of iron of this Jesus Christ, who is the begotten of the Father, the one who establishes the kingdom, and every knee will bow to him. Fragrant aroma for those who are alive in him, death unto death for those who are prideful in and of themselves and choose themselves over the Lord Jesus Christ. Anyways, Christ will triumph.

Anyways, Christ is King. Anyways, independently of the feebleness, the weaknesses and the limitations of the church and preachers and things, independently of all of that, Jesus Christ is Lord and he will receive the glory that he deserves. Amen.