Cited in sermons
Alan Harmon
7 sermons · All people cited
Deuteronomy 14:1-29 - Laws of Death, Diet, and Tithing
Deuteronomy 14 regulates mourning rites, dietary practices, and tithing for Old Covenant Israel — not as arbitrary impositions but as expressions of a holy people set apart by God from the nations around them. The chapter's controlling logic is covenantal identity: because Israel bore the status of God's firstborn son, every dimension of daily life, from the menu to the method of mourning, was to reflect that consecration. The dietary laws, now abrogated under the New Covenant as ceremonial law fulfilled in Christ, nevertheless carry a permanent New Covenant counterpart: the people of God are still to be distinguished from the world in holiness, presenting their bodies as living sacrifices. The tithing section closes the chapter with a call to generous, joyful giving that cares for the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow — a call that carries into the New Covenant era as well.
The Promise of the Conquest
Exodus 23:20–33 records God's promises and warnings to Israel on the eve of the conquest of Canaan. The passage presents God as the divine initiator of the conquest — sending the Angel of the Lord (identified as the pre-incarnate Christ) to guide and fight for Israel — and then enumerates blessings contingent on covenant obedience: provision, health, fruitfulness, and the gradual dispossession of the Canaanites. The sermon exposes the Mosaic covenant as a covenant of works in which blessings follow obedience and curses follow infidelity, and closes by contrasting Israel's inevitable failure under that arrangement with the covenant of grace secured by Christ on behalf of his people.
The Divine Provision of Eternal Life
Isaiah 55 presents God's gracious and urgent invitation to sinners to receive the fullness of salvation — the refreshment, gladness, and nourishment of the gospel — entirely without cost, because the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 has already satisfied the purchase price. The sermon expounds the chapter in two movements: the invitation to come (vv. 1–5), grounded in the new covenant and secured by the Davidic king, and the call to faith and repentance (vv. 6–13), sustained by the sovereign power of God's Word. Believers are urged to treasure the abundance of every spiritual blessing already given in Christ, and unbelievers are warned not to squander their lives on what cannot satisfy while the Lord may yet be found.
Beware of Forgetting God in the Land
Deuteronomy 8:6–20 presents Israel on the plains of Moab receiving Moses' final warning before entering Canaan: the land of promise will itself become the land of temptation. The abundance of water, food, and mineral wealth that God graciously provides carries within it the seed of self-sufficiency — the prideful declaration of verse 17, 'my power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.' The sermon traces the anatomy of spiritual forgetfulness, showing that disobedience is its inevitable symptom, idolatry its destination, and covenantal destruction its consequence. The appointed remedy is remembrance: to rehearse God's redemptive acts, receive his gifts with thanksgiving, and live by the indicative of grace as the foundation for all obedience.
Necessary Precautions for Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 sets three concrete dangers before Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan, and the same dangers confront the covenant community today: forgetting God in prosperity, forsaking God through idolatry, and testing God in difficulty. The passage is read against the backdrop of sovereign, covenantal grace — Israel received cities, houses, wells, and vineyards they did not build or earn, and ingratitude is therefore the root of all three failures. The appointed remedy for each danger is the same: fear God, serve him, and rest in the sufficiency of Christ rather than in material blessing, religious feeling, or favorable circumstance.
The Potential Dangers Facing Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 sets before Israel three concrete dangers they will face upon entering the promised land, dangers that map directly onto the experience of the new covenant church. Prosperity tempts God's people to forget the giver and embrace practical atheism; the gods of surrounding nations tempt them to forsaking covenant loyalty for idolatry; and hardship tempts them to test God's faithfulness by calling his word into question. The sermon calls believers to respond to God's grace with fear, service, and oath-bound covenant loyalty — and to resist the governing power of emotion, circumstance, and felt experience in favour of the unchanging word.
The Potential Dangers Facing Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 identifies three covenant dangers Moses sets before Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan: the danger of forgetting God in prosperity, the danger of forsaking God through idolatry, and the danger of testing God in hardship. The sermon traces how each danger flows from a failure to reckon rightly with the sovereign grace that underlies every blessing Israel received — cities they did not build, wells they did not dig, vineyards they did not plant. Drawing on the New Testament parallels of 1 Timothy 6 and the temptation narrative in Matthew 4, the study presses the same warnings upon the church: guard against practical atheism in affluence, resist the idol-factory of the heart, and refuse to condition covenant loyalty on favourable circumstances.