When Israel settled into the Promised Land at first, they enjoyed a time of freedom the likes of which no people had ever enjoyed up until that time. The bad news is, no one since that time has enjoyed that level of freedom again.
I don’t think very many people understand the basis of that freedom and what it took to maintain the freedom that Israel enjoyed in those few years. It wasn’t merely a matter of God handing them everything on a silver platter: You’re my people; you just do the right thing, and I’ll take care of everything else.
That’s not really the way it was. They had to fight for the land, they had to fight for their freedom, and they had to work like the devil for their prosperity.
Now, if you are a Bible reader, and you’ve really given this much of a thought in the light of your experience of your life, you’re going to understand and know that’s true. God just doesn’t rain it on you. He doesn’t just hand it to you on a silver platter. He doesn’t wait on you hand and foot. What God does is open doors for you, but you still got to do the fighting, you still got to do the work. None of the things that they had in those early years of freedom would have worked without the foundation of freedom. Moses gave a speech that I want to come to. Israel was given a Law and a system of worship designed to maintain the Law, to implant it in their national memory, to shape the national conscience. (And there is such a thing as a national conscience.) Here’s what Moses had to say in Deuteronomy, chapter 4…