31-8-2009 : Don’t make God angry

31-8-2009 : Don’t make God angry

Scripture

Deuteronomy 32: 1-43 (Amplified Bible)

1GIVE EAR, O heavens, and I [Moses] will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

2My message shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the light rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.

3For I will proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord. Concede and ascribe greatness to our God.

4He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He.

5They [Israel] have spoiled themselves. They are not sons to Him, and that is their blemish--a perverse and crooked generation!

6Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father Who acquired you for His own, Who made and established you [as a nation]?

7Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.

8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.

9For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance.

10He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.

11As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions.(A)

12So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him.

13He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock,

14Butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape.

15But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged and sleek! Then he forsook God Who made him and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation.

16They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked Him to anger.

17They sacrificed to demons, not to God--to gods whom they knew not, to new gods lately come up, whom your fathers never knew or feared.

18Of the Rock Who bore you; you were unmindful; you forgot the God Who travailed in your birth.

19And the Lord saw it and He spurned and rejected them, out of indignation with His sons and His daughters.

20And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

21They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation.

22For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them.

24They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured with burning heat and poisonous pestilence; and the teeth of beasts will I send against them, with the poison of crawling things of the dust.

25From without the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs.

26I said, I would scatter them afar and I would have made the remembrance of them to cease from among men,

27Had I not feared the provocation of the foe, lest their enemies misconstrue it and lest they should say, Our own hand has prevailed; all this was not the work of the Lord.

28For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.

29O that they were wise and would see through this [present triumph] to their ultimate fate!

30How could one have chased a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up?

31For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this.

32For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of [poisonous] gall, their clusters are bitter.

33Their wine is the [furious] venom of serpents, and the pitiless poison of vipers.

34Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?

35Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, in the time when their foot shall slide; for the day of their disaster is at hand and their doom comes speedily.

36For the Lord will revoke sentence for His people and relent for His servants' sake when He sees that their power is gone and none remains, whether bond or free.

37And He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

38Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!

39See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand.

40For I lift up My hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever,

41If I whet My lightning sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will wreak vengeance on My foes and recompense those who hate Me.

42I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the foe.

43Rejoice [with] His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land of His people.

Observation

We anger God simply by worshipping someone else. We also incur his wrath by giving glory to ourselves or others for His works and efforts. It is sad how we forget god. God emphasizes His anger by giving us gory details of his punishments. We only see some of these things in horror movies. I sometimes cannot comprehend why our God does these things. God only does this to instill fear in His people so that the next generation won’t repeat their father’s, friends or grandfather’s mistakes. Having done all these, we still fall like flies. Our love for money, sex and entertainment deviates us from God. When God punishes, he askes us “ where is the God you worshipped and spent your time and spent your money on? Let him/her/it rescue you. “ Satan’s pleasures have a bitter aftertaste but God’s pleasures are eternal.

Application

I must remember God always.

I must not turn away from temporal pleasures of the world

I must always turn to God.

Response

Lord, I’m sorry I’ve sinned. You alone are my source of hope. Let me always remember to turn back to you. Help me always remember your words. Amen.