Looking Forward/Repetiton

Looking Forward

We need to look forward as well- in faith. God has wonderful things in store for us. He has a great job for us to do. We don't know when we will have to leave this world. But before the Lord comes, we look forward to doing something useful for Him on earth. Most people in the world look to the future with fear and anxiety. But we look forward in faith.

God told Moses in Deuteronomy- to tell the Isrealites to look forward to the time when they would live in Canaan. He prophesied concerning Israel's far-distant future in Deuteronomy.

Repetition

There is one other thing that we see in Deuteronomy- a repetition of many matters that were already written in the earlier books of Moses. We should not be disturbed by repetition. Repetition is necessary for us to be gripped by the truth. That is why God has repeated many things in His Word. The history of the kings of Judah are mentioned twice-first in the  books of Kings and again in the books of Chronicles. Why does the New Testament open with four biographies of Christ and not just one? There is a lot of repetition in the four gospels. Some matters are mentioned four times- in all four gospels. There must be a very good reason for that. many thing are repeated in the the letter to the Colossians which were already mentioned in Ephesians. What we can learn from this is that thee apostles were not ashamed to repeat themselves. Some who give homilies, are afraid to repeat a sermon on the same subject lest they loose their reputation before the people. They are more concerned about what people think about them than about these people's need.

I heard of an evangelist who conducted seven days meetings in a town and preached every day on the subject: "You must be born again". An unconverted man who attended all the meetings got tired of hearing the same theme on all seven days and asked him why he p[reached every day on "You must be born again"? The evangelist replied, "Because you must be born again?" That's the answer. The message had to be repeated until the man was born again. He does not need to hear something else. The patient has to take the same antibiotic until he is cured!

Now if you were to ask me why I keep on saying, "You must get victory over sin", I hope you know the answer: "Because you must get victory over sin."

The Old Testament prophets repeated the same message again and again because Israel needed to hear what God was saying clearly. Jeremiah preached virtually the same ,message for more than 40 years, until he almost got tired of preaching it. But many a time, people need to hear something ten times before the truth sinks in. So we should never be ashamed of preaching on the same subject again and again to the same audience. If we are anointed, the message will still be fresh each time we preach it.

If we seek the honor of people, we will not repeat. But if we seek their good, we will repeat it until they have understood it. This is one of the lessons we learn from Deuteronomy-"the second law"

Deuteronomy begins with this statement in Chapter 1:2: "It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea." It was only a 11-day journey to from Horeb- where the Israelites got the laws of God- to Kadesh-barnea (from where they were to enter the land of Canaan). But they did not enter. That journey of 11 days finally them 38 years. You can finish 12 grades of school in 12 years or 20 years- that depends on you.

What a difference there is between. 11 days and 38 years outside of the will of God for our lives- doing what we wanted to do, living for our own pleasure and comfort and for making money. At the end of it all, you may say, "Lord please forgive me. I have wasted 38 years of my life". Will God forgive you? He certainly will. But can He give you back the 38 years you wasted? No. Even Almighty God cannot give time back to any of us. Can God give us last year and its opportunities back again? No. He can give us next year. But he cannot give us back any of the years gone by. The opportunities we had in the past are gone forever. That is why it is important, that if God wants to do something in your life in 11 days, you must ensure that it doesn't take more than 11 days. Chapter 2:14 says that the Israelites reached Kadesh-barnea two years after they had left Egypt. But it took them 38 more years before they could go into Canaan, making a total of 40 years in the desert.