Ray Bentley

John McKay, the former president of Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote to this book of Ephesians, I owe my life. And he went on to explain that in July of 1903, when he was a boy of 14, he experienced through reading the book of Ephesians what he says as a boyish rapture in the Highland hills.

And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan. So here's what's happened. Moses has led them from Egypt and the Passover and across the wilderness, and they're now at the edge of the Promised Land, which is the Jordan River. But Moses is not allowed to go in, because there was a time in the wilderness where Moses got angry.

So we are now in the last month of the 40th year. That's the book of Deuteronomy is about 30. It covers 30 days. Literally, Moses is just a few weeks away from climbing a mountain and dying and the Lord burying him. But before he goes, he gives this last great speech, exhortation to the new generation that had all been born during the last 40 years to their parents who, you know, died in the wilderness.

Moses says, give ear, oh heavens, and I will speak. And here on earth the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the rain drops on the tender herb. As showers on the grass. For I proclaim the name of the Lord Yahweh. Ascribe greatness to God. He is the rock.

But life, all of life, is a school teaching us about the character of God. All of the things that you and I will experience, all the things that we will go through in life, have, have this purpose in mind. God wants you to know what he is like. He wants to reveal to you through your circumstances to come through for you, to bless you, to come through your circumstances so that you go, wow, God, you are amazing.

And I just want to say this morning that I think this is a very appropriate message for our time. So there's a word for us, the Lord, through Moses, is challenging them and us two things. And that's what we're going to hear this morning to walk in our identity and secondly, in our authority. Moses, in this speech and the book of Deuteronomy, is exhorting a new generation.

Two things. And that's what we're going to hear this morning. To walk in our identity and secondly, in our authority. Moses, in this speech. The book of Deuteronomy is exhorting a new generation. He is reminding them that it's very important that you know who you are, and that you are intentional about your own unique identity. You have a divine destiny, and you need to know your identity, who you are as a chosen people, the sons and daughters of God.

beginning in verse one of chapter 26, here's what he says, and it shall be when you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and you possess it, and dwell in it, that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you shall bring from your land, that the Lord your God has given you, and put it in a basket, and then go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to make his name abide.And you shall go to the one who is priest in those days, and say to him, I declare to the Lord your God that I have come to the country which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us. So the idea is, you're to take the first fruits, put it in a basket, bring it to the place God would show, which ultimately will be Jerusalem, and then get the priest.

Really? How many of you would love to even be more happy than you are right now? Okay, well, here it is. It's interesting that as we get into this and what it talks about is actually a recipe for happiness. Okay, so we're going to be following along in the, in the what I call life lesson. So here's the first life lesson.

So if a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and they have borne him children, both the loved and the unloved. And if the firstborn son is of her who is unloved, then it shall be on the day he bequeathed his possessions to his sons, that he must not bestow firstborn status on the son of the loved wife, in preference to the son of the unloved, the true firstborn.But he shall acknowledge the son of the unloved wife as the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his. So this is God's word, God's law. It is given to Moses. And now the divine Supreme creator of the universe is adjudicating a man and a situation that he's brought himself into with more than one wife and one that he really loves.