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Full Episode
Hey Bible Readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Today we drop back in on Moses' speech to the new generation of Israelites before they enter the promised land. This is his final locker room talk. He's recounting all the ways they've made bad plays in the past, and he's going over the plays they want to execute well in the future.
He tells them that the wilderness was a test to refine them, and it's clear that the promised land will be a test as well. It's not some kind of end game for them, some kind of reward where they can just kick back and do whatever they want. They personally won't retain the land unless they respond to God's covenant promise by worshiping Him alone.
The promised land is just another part of God's process to restore wicked humanity in relationship with Himself. And He knows how this next step will turn out too. He's not testing them for His sake. He's testing them for their sake. This generation had yet to encounter anything that was really a result of their own actions.
They had to endure at least a portion of the 38 years of wilderness that their parents received as punishment, but they weren't complicit in the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea. So this wasn't a punishment for them, even though they had to endure it just like their parents did. I'm sure it felt like punishment at times, but it wasn't in response to anything they had done. For them, it was discipline.
It was training in how to respond to hardship and how to trust God. It's important to make a distinction between punishment and discipline. And in fact, for those of us who know Christ, all our punishment has been absorbed by Him on the cross. If you've been adopted into God's family, you are His forever, and you can rest assured that He is never punishing you.
He might be disciplining you as any good father does, but you will never, ever, ever see His wrath. Not ever. Christ absorbed it all on the cross. It's not that we don't deserve punishment. We absolutely do. It's all we deserve. But Christ took what we deserved and gave us what we could never earn, eternal love and acceptance into God's family forever.
The Israelites needed to be humbled despite 400 years of slavery. They needed to be tested to see what was in their own hearts, to see who they really are. They also needed to see his provision to see who he really is. He tested them and he provided for them. They always had food and clothes and even their feet didn't swell. I've been in that desert and I can tell you that is a miracle.
I was there for 24 hours and my ankles were the size of my knees. They were there for 40 years. Moses wants to remind them of all God has done because honestly, given their track record, he knows what to expect from them. Yesterday he warned them against one particular kind of wrong thinking, and I mentioned that we'd encounter two more today.
Yesterday's first warning was against fear and mistrusting God. Do you remember what the antidote to fear was? I'll give you a second. He told them to recall who God is and what He has done for them. We see him reference the same antidote today for two entirely different kinds of wrong thinking—
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