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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap.
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Yesterday Moses finished telling me Israelites about the blessings for keeping their covenant
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with God and the curses for breaking it.
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Today he opens by basically telling them, look, you're going to break this covenant.
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God knows it, I know it, you know it.
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So here's what you need to remember when that happens.
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Turn back to God, he won't abandon you, he will restore everything you lost when
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you turned your back on him.
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Yesterday we read in 29-4 that God has not yet given them a heart to understand or eyes
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to see or ears to hear, but today we read about what will happen when they do sin and
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are carried into captivity.
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God will use those circumstances to change their hearts.
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Chapter 30 verse 6 says, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart
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of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and
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with all your soul that you may live.
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God promises that he will change their hearts, then they will turn to him and begin to obey
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Finally, that's what happens when God gives someone a new heart, their desires change.
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Remember that the word heart here is a mingling of the words we use for heart and mind.
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It's where desire and will overlap, and it's what drives our actions.
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Without a new heart, it's impossible to walk in ways that are pleasing to God.
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The only way for their choices and decisions to reflect the things of God's heart are
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if he changes their hearts.
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And since what he's after is our hearts, then even if our actions appear to be good on
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the surface, none of it matters if the heart isn't engaged.
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Only when he changes our hearts will our actions be ones that are responding to him rightly.
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Remember how he always starts out by reminding them of the relationship he has with them
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before he tells them to obey.
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It serves as evidence that he doesn't just want to be obeyed.
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He wants to be known and loved.
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Moses appeals to them again to obey God's commands and warns what will happen if their
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hearts turn away from God.
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He wants them to experience not just the land God has promised them, but also the life
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that is found in relationship with God.
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Moses can only speak on the experience of one of those things.
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Moses doesn't get to enter the promised land.
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Once the day he met God, his assignment has been to live in the desert with sinners.
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But because he knows God, his experience contains a surprising piece and an irreplaceable intimacy.
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Even without the earthly benefits, his relationship with God is joy-inducing.
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And despite how hard the Israelites have made his life, Moses wants joy and freedom for
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them too, he knows that a relationship with God is transformative and they need to be transformed.
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Moses tells the Israelites he's about to die and that he's not going to get to go into
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This is probably terrifying for them.
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All they've ever known is Moses.
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He's been their leader for 40 years.
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For some of them that's been their entire lives, he probably wants to calm their fears
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because he knows firsthand how much fear can lead to rebellion.
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So he starts by reminding them that God is actually their leader.
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God himself will go before them into the promised land.
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He will fight against the nations that live there and he will win.
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Then Moses calls Joshua up in front of all the people and says, lots of the same things
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He reminds Joshua not to fear, just like he reminded the Israelites not to fear.
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And in both instances, the antidote to fear was not to think about how awesome they are
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or to believe in their dreams, but to remember the nearness of God.
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That's what Moses suggests as the antidote to fear.
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And I'm guessing he's had plenty of opportunities to learn that.
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After Moses commissioned Joshua for the job of leading the Israelites, he tells them that
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they should read the law aloud, all of it, every seven years during the feast of booths,
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which will take place in the city where God establishes the tabernacle.
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All the Israelites and even the so-journers living among them will travel to that location
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once every seven years and they'll be reminded of all the laws.
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Then God speaks to Moses and calls a meeting with him and Joshua.
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God doesn't have great news.
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Moses, you're about to die.
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Joshua, you're about to lead these people and guess what, they're about to rebel.
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This reminds me of when God first called Moses to go talk to Pharaoh about releasing the Israelites.
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Remember what God told him?
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He basically said, go ask Pharaoh to do this thing and by the way, I'm going to harden
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his heart so that he says no to the thing I'm telling you to go ask him to do.
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It says a lot about their trust in God that they did these things after he told them
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that amount to apparent failure at first.
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Most of us have the idea that if God tells us to do something, it's guaranteed to succeed.
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He will bless the people with plenty, then they will get comfortable in their easy lives
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and they'll break the covenant.
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They rebelled in the lack of the wilderness and they will rebel in the abundance of the
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God will be angry with them and they will be devoured.
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Instead of remembering that things Moses just said to them and repenting of their idolatry,
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they'll question God's love for them and his nearness to them.
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Then God commissions Joshua just like Moses had already done and God reminds him, I will
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Joshua is going to need that reminder soon when his mentor dies and everything goes south
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with the people he's leading.
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We ended today with God telling Moses to write a song about all of this so the Israelites
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will have this song as a reminder.
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Tomorrow we'll read this song, but as for today, what was your God shot?
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I can't get over the kind of love that knows how much betrayal it will endure, knows
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it will be doubted, forgotten and falsely accused of abandonment, but still it persists
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Knowing the future and especially a future like that could easily threaten a lesser love,
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but not Yahweh, he enters in with full knowledge of the pain he will endure, knowing we will
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not be worth it and still he doesn't let go.
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We can't change his mind or talk him out of his choice to set his heart on us.
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No one else loves like him.
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He's where the joy is.
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Did you know we have versions of the Bible recap and other languages?
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We're currently available in Spanish and American Sign Language and our YouTube channel has
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the videos for both.
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Not only that, we have the Bible recap book in Spanish and our Spanish language podcast
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and reading plan are on the Bible app.
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The Spanish version is called Las Anapsas de la Biblia and you'll need to adjust your
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language settings to Spanish before you search for it.
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We hope to keep adding to this list so that more people can join us in reading, understanding
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and loving the Bible more.
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Check out the language tab on our website, thebibelicap.com, or more info, or click the link in the
