IIT UBF - University Bible Fellowship at IIT

Daily Bread

He is the Rock; All His Ways Are Just

Date: Dec. 9, 2020

Passage

Deuteronomy 31:30-32:27 (ESV)

30 Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel:

  “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak,
    and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
  May my teaching drop as the rain,
    my speech distill as the dew,
  like gentle rain upon the tender grass,
    and like showers upon the herb.
  For I will proclaim the name of the LORD;
    ascribe greatness to our God!
  “The Rock, his work is perfect,
    for all his ways are justice.
  A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
    just and upright is he.
  They have dealt corruptly with him;
    they are no longer his children because they are blemished;
    they are a crooked and twisted generation.
  Do you thus repay the LORD,
    you foolish and senseless people?
  Is not he your father, who created you,
    who made you and established you?
  Remember 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.
  When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
    when he divided mankind,
  he fixed the borders of the peoples
    according to the number of the sons of God.
  But the LORD’s portion is his people,
    Jacob his allotted heritage.
10   “He found him in a desert land,
    and in the howling waste of the wilderness;
  he encircled him, he cared for him,
    he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11   Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
    that flutters over its young,
  spreading out its wings, catching them,
    bearing them on its pinions,
12   the LORD alone guided him,
    no foreign god was with him.
13   He made him ride on the high places of the land,
    and he ate the produce of the field,
  and he suckled him with honey out of the rock,
    and oil out of the flinty rock.
14   Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
    with fat of lambs,
  rams of Bashan and goats,
    with the very finest of the wheat—
    and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape.
15   “But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;
    you grew fat, stout, and sleek;
  then he forsook God who made him
    and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
16   They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods;
    with abominations they provoked him to anger.
17   They sacrificed to demons that were not God,
    to gods they had never known,
  to new gods that had come recently,
    whom your fathers had never dreaded.
18   You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you,
    and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19   “The LORD saw it and spurned them,
    because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20   And 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.
21   They have made me jealous with what is no god;
    they have provoked me to anger with their idols.
  So I will make them jealous with those who are no people;
    I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22   For a fire is kindled by my anger,
    and it burns to the depths of Sheol,
  devours the earth and its increase,
    and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23   “‘And I will heap disasters upon them;
    I will spend my arrows on them;
24   they shall be wasted with hunger,
    and devoured by plague
    and poisonous pestilence;
  I will send the teeth of beasts against them,
    with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.
25   Outdoors the sword shall bereave,
    and indoors terror,
  for young man and woman alike,
    the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.
26   I would have said, “I will cut them to pieces;
    I will wipe them from human memory,”
27   had I not feared provocation by the enemy,
    lest their adversaries should misunderstand,
  lest they should say, “Our hand is triumphant,
    it was not the LORD who did all this.”’

Daily Bread

Key Verse: 31:32:4

Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished, in the ears of all the assembly of Israel:

1. Is he not your Father, your Creator (31:30-32:14)

Moses' song reminds us of who God is and what he has done for us. Who is our God? He is the Rock who works perfectly and justly and does no wrong. He is Creator; he is Father. In contrast, his people are continually corrupt, warped, and crooked. It was God who chose Israel, caring and providing for them as the apple of his eye. He watched over and raised them like a mother eagle. He alone led them day by day. Like a good Father, he provided all the best things for his beloved children.

2. They rejected the Rock their Savior (15-27)

But when God's people grow fat on God's blessings, they abandon and reject the God who made and saved them. Like an unfaithful spouse, they turn to idols of the contemporary culture; they forgot the God who gave them life. Moses saw God's anger, wrath, and calamities from this perspective: a jealous God seeking to turn his people back. This was not based on their own merits: They deserved to be scattered and erased from history, but by his mercy, God revealed his good character to all nations of the world (26-27).

Prayer: Father, you are our just Creator and gracious Father. Help me remember you today.

One Word: The LORD is our Father

Daily Bread

The New Jerusalem

Revelation 21:9-27

Key Verse: 21:22

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

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Intro Daily