OBEDIENT TO DECLARE !

OBEDIENT TO DECLARE ! These promises are conditional. Look at verse one: . . . "It shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments. . ." Let me point out this, he is not talking about the 10 Commandments ! The voice of the Lord thy God which we have today is the Word of God spoken. In reading these verses, if you are not careful, you will miss what is actually being said because of the King James language. As I was studying this, the Lord said, "you look up that Hebrew word that is translated hearken." I thought I knew what it meant, but I looked it up. Here is what I found. Hearken first means "to hear intelligently." It also means "to be obedient," and "to declare." Next the Lord said, "look up the word diligently." I thought I knew what it meant to be diligent about something. But to my surprise, I found that the Hebrew word translated diligently means "wholly, completely, far, fast, and louder and louder." The word could be used that way. So allow me to paraphrase the words that way: it shall come to pass, if you shall hear intelligently, be obedient to, declare wholly, completely, far, fast, louder and louder what God has said, to observe and to do all his commandments, then all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you. What God is saying in Deuteronomy is almost exactly what He told Joshua. God says, "just the cloud what I have said. Here it intelligently, begin to declare it wholly, completely, far, fast, louder and louder." He was just telling them to get the Word of God in their mouths. Then God said, "when you do all that, all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you." Well, that doesn't happen overnight. Obedience is first, and then the blessing. Next, God tells of all the curses. Notice that the curses came only after the people were disobedient. Remember, we are talking about faith and confession. This faith force works only in the heart. Not in your head ! And God told Israel how to develop heart faith for the blessing. The secret was to continue to declare God's promises until they possessed them. (2 Peter 1), gives us much insight into possessing new covenant promises. "Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:1). Notice that Peter is talking to those who have obtained like precious faith. He is speaking of born-again believers --- which includes us today. Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. (2 Peter 1:2).