Do it! Do it Now!
Drash on Parashah 44; D’varim (Words)
MMin Kevin “Oriyan” Phipps; July 2009

 People are interesting creatures indeed. We are never satisfied, no matter what the circumstances, resulting in an almost constant barrage of complaints and requests for something better. We always like to think we are in control, but then cast the blame elsewhere when things go wrong.  When it comes to faith, we cry out to God to save us from our sin, then proceed to tell Him what we plan to do for Him. We expect the Creator of the universe to work in our timing do conform His will to our level of comfort and perceived ability to carry it out.

 As we begin D’varim/Deuteronomy, we see some exciting things that God wants to do on behalf of His people, but we see problems concerning the execution of these plans due to a lack of faith on the part of Israel.

"Adonai spoke to us in Horev. He said, 'You have lived long enough by this mountain.  Turn, get moving and go to the hill-country of the Emori and all the places near there in the `Aravah, the hill-country, the Sh'felah, the Negev and by the seashore - the land of the Kena`ani, and the L'vanon, as far as the great river, the Euphrates River. I have set the land before you! Go in, and take possession of the land Adonai swore to give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya`akov, and their descendants after them.' [D’varim 1:6-8]

 In the military these would be marching orders. Moshe is recounting for the children of Israel certain events that contributed to then being in the wilderness as long as they were. He tells then of the time when it  was  time for Israel to enter the Promised Land. This should have been an exciting time. We would think a massive celebration would ensue accompanied by packing up and heading out to defeat their enemies and take the land God had promised them.

"But you would not go up. Instead you rebelled against the order of Adonai your God; and in your tents you complained, 'It's because Adonai hated us that he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, only to hand us over to the Emori to destroy us. What sort of place is it that we're heading for? Our brothers made our courage fail when they said, "The people are bigger and taller than we are; the cities are great and fortified up to the sky; and finally, we have seen `Anakim there." ' [D’varim 1:26-28]

 This was after they sent the twelve spies into the land to check things out and agreed that it was indeed good land. This was actually their first mistake. God told them to jump in and they decided to test the waters first. They were impressed by the goodness of the land, but they feared the people who lived in the land and the magnitude of the cities they lived in.  Now let’s rewind the tape a bit.
They traveled on from Eilim, and the whole community of the people of Isra'el arrived at the Seen Desert, between Eilim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after leaving the land of Egypt. There in the desert the whole community of the people of Isra'el grumbled against Moshe and Aharon. The people of Isra'el said to them, "We wish Adonai had used his own hand to kill us off in Egypt! There we used to sit around the pots with the meat boiling, and we had as much food as we wanted. But you have taken us out into this desert to let this whole assembly starve to death!" [Shmot/Exodus 16:1-3]
 
 The first thing Israel did after being rescued from the Egyptians and slavery to Pharaoh was complain that God had led them out into the wilderness to starve to death. Granted, the accommodations were no Hilton hotel, but God was taking care of them. He even fed them with manna and provided water for them and their livestock. At times they wanted to return to Egypt and become slaves again rather than live the meager lives they were forced to live in the desert. 

 Now it is time for them to go into the land, and they would rather stay where they are at out of fear. They agree that God’s blessings are good, but the obstacles in the way are too much for them to handle. They had grown used to their hardships to the point that they would rather stay there than put forth the effort and trust in God to move to something better. 

 How much do people do the same thing today. There are many people who live in poverty who as much of a distress it was when they first lost their job or house and had to humble themselves to receive help from friends and government sources, they get used to the meager living and even when opportunity arrives to better themselves, they refuse because it’s too much work. Some people even gain a sense of pride in their suffering and may be reluctant to change their situation because to do so causes them to lose their identity. 

 What Israel failed to claim what the fact that God was giving them the Promised Land. God knew what obstacles we in the way. God had a plan to deal with those problems. All He needed was His people to trust in Him and obey His marching orders. He said go, and they needed to go, without regard for the goodness of the land or the giants and walls they would face on the way. At some point they realized this.

"Then you answered me, 'We have sinned against Adonai. Now we will go up and fight, in accordance with everything Adonai our God ordered us.' And every man among you put on his arms, considering it an easy matter to go up into the hill-country. [D’varim 1:41]

 So after being rebuked by God for their disobedience, they got together and must have had some kind of revival  meeting/pep rally, and mustered up the courage to do what God told them to do and go slay some giants. With swords and spears in hand they began to go to battle to defeat their enemies so Israel could enter the Promised Land. Yay! Go Israel! Right? Well, not quite.

But Adonai said to me, 'Tell them, "Don't go up, and don't fight, because I am not there with you; if you do, your enemies will defeat you." ' [D’varim 1:42]

 There is another verse that goes along with this one.

Seek Adonai while he is available, call on him while he is still nearby. [Yesha’yahu/Isaiah 55:6]

This verse is sometimes linked with salvation and misinterpreted. However, if we understand this verse with the story we’ve been going through, I think we see a clearer understanding of what this verse and the story are teaching us about God. In the military, there is much intelligence (believe it or not) which goes into the planning for an attack on the enemy. Most if not all the information is known to the generals and others making the decisions. When they give a command to aim in a particular direction and fire at a certain time, there is need for immediate response. Hesitation can be the difference between a rocket hitting a truck with enemy soldiers and a bus of school children.

 When God gives us instructions concerning His will, we are to act immediately. If we first reject His will, then later decide on our own to accept it, then it is no longer His will but ours. Israel’s hesitation meant the difference between going with God and going without Him. It was God giving them victory, not their own strength or intelligence. To go without God meant destruction and that is what happened.

 In the movie Amadeus, Mozart is at a party and one of his colleagues plays  a piece on the harpsichord that he had been working on for quite awhile. He’s is proud of what he had accomplished and wants to know what Mozart thinks. Mozart then proceeds to get on the harpsichord and plays perfectly what the man played for him. He then starts adding chord structures and various riffs and other additions to essentially make it his own and something better. This made the other composer quite upset and Mozart succeeded at a great show of his musical talent, but at a greater disrespect for the original composer. 

 The point of this is that if we take God’s will and change or add anything to it, then it is no longer God’s will, it’s ours. Not only that, but we show God disrespect as our King by combining our convenience with His will.

From: Shim`on Kefa, a slave and emissary of Yeshua the Messiah To: Those who, through the righteousness of our God and of our Deliverer Yeshua the Messiah, have been given the same kind of trust as ours: May grace and shalom be yours in full measure, as you come to a full knowledge of God and Yeshua our Lord. God's power has given us everything we need for life and godliness, through our knowing the One who called us to his own glory and goodness. By these he has given us valuable and superlatively great promises, so that through them you might come to share in God's nature and escape the corruption which evil desires have brought into the world. For this very reason, try your hardest to furnish your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge,  knowledge with self-control, self-control with perseverance, perseverance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if you have these qualities in abundance, they keep you from being barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. Indeed, whoever lacks them is blind, so shortsighted that he forgets that his past sins have been washed away.  Therefore, brothers, try even harder to make your being called and chosen a certainty. For if you keep doing this, you will never stumble. Thus you will be generously supplied with everything you need to enter the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Deliverer, Yeshua the Messiah. [2Kefa/Peter 1:1-11]

 Judging by the message of the Gospel, we might think that Yeshua’s primary teaching would be salvation. The word salvation only appears twice in the Gospels in the CJB and 6 times in the KJV. The word saved appears 14 times in the CJB and 20 times in the KJV. Conversely, the word kingdom appears 110 times in the CJB and 127 times in the KJV. It is not that Yeshua didn’t teach about salvation, but the Kingdom of God is the primary theme of many of His teachings and virtually all of the parables. Yeshua is the King of the Kingdom and through faith in Him He gives the keys to His Kingdom. He prayed that God’s Kingdom would exist on earth as it is in Heaven and taught us to do the same. 

 The Kingdom is our Promised Land. Land is that which you build you life and well being on. Spiritually, those who have faith already live in the Kingdom. Physically, we live as those striving toward a Kingdom still yet to come. There are many hardships along the way, which God is fully aware of and already has a plan for getting us through it. It is these trial that enable us to allow God to shine His light and show His power in our world through our trust in Him. 

 He has given us His Word which gives us our marching orders. Through prayer and study He reveals to each of us through His Spirit specific instructions beyond His Word to accomplish. When God tells us to go, we go. When He tells us to do something we do it. When He tells us to speak, we say what the Spirit gives us to say. If we wait until things seem to be a better time, it is no longer His will, but ours. He is our King, and if He tells us to follow Him, we drop everything and follow Him. If we wait until tomorrow He will be gone. If He is not gone, we might be. Some people wait until the end of their life to “get religious” or they wait until life is so bad that God is their only hope. Y’hoshua told Israel to choose this day whom they would serve. Not tomorrow, but today! How many people actually plan when they will die? Most who do only accomplish that through suicide, which in itself is sin. Many people die every day in accidents, violent crimes, or sudden unexpected medical traumas, such as with Kevin Wood. If such people choose to wait to answer the call of God in their life, their opportunity will be too late. Every beat of our heart is a gift from God, given to us by His grace. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness today, before it is too late. Do it, do it now!