I find it very interesting that just the thumbnail of Monte made me click the link to which it was associated. There is something about Monte making a good deal that fascinates us all. I spend quite a bit of time with a friend “looking for deals.” It seems to be the norm for most of us.  My daughter-in-law and wife like seeing how many free bottles of shampoo they can get from one intelligently clipped coupon. There seems to be good deals if you know how to make them. So Let’s Make a Deal with God.

Somewhere along the lines we thought we could make a deal with God. We decided that this “deal” would look something like this:

Party A (us, the church) agrees with party B (Adonai our God) that A will claim all of B’s promises to bless A and make A prosper and in turn B will fulfill all these promises and blessings but negate all the negative promises and consequences which the original deal (Torah) included.

Oh YA!!! I like that deal, sign me up! As a matter of fact you don’t even need to pay me, I like that deal real good! It’s a dern good one.

This week’s Torah portion, Parashah 45: Va’etchana (I Pleaded) D’verim 3:23-7:11 (Deut. 3:23-7:11), taught me a huge lesson about Adonai and His deals. As the church we have an obligation to follow the Words of Adonai. This is something I don’t think any of us will disagree with.  This weeks portion starts out with Moses confirming this in  Deut. 4:1-2 “Now, Isra’el, listen to the laws and rulings I am teaching you, in order to follow them, so that you will live; then you will go in and take possession of the land that ADONAI, the God of your fathers, is giving you. 2 In order to obey the mitzvot (commandments) of ADONAI your God which I am giving you, do not add to what I am saying (Rabbinical Judaism), and do not subtract from it (the Church) (CJB emphasis added).

Read Parashah 45 (Duet 3:23-7:1) at this time.

Wow, these are powerful words. So I asked myself how I can reconcile these commands with what I have been taught. I was taught that we didn’t need to apply this part of the scriptures to our lives because it was “old testament.” Ok, I can accept that, I guess. But didn’t Moses just say do not subtract from it? This really started me thinking about the “deal” God has made with His people. If we are His people then this deal or covenant is for us.

A few weeks ago I was watching a certain television preacher say that we needed to “remind God of His promises and blessings, then by faith claim them.” That all sounded real good and judging by his TEXAS SIZED church I guess others thought this sounded real good too. But, if we are going to claim the promises and blessings, don’t we have to claim all the promises?

Wait! There are negative promises too! Sorry, that is a little harsh; we don’t want anyone to think that God isn’t nice ALL the time. Then they won’t come to church.

But HOLD UP! Promises are promises and if we are holding God accountable for His end of the promise and blessing deal, don’t you think we need to find out what our responsibility or promise to this deal is? There are promises that He will bless us, but there are also promises from Him that curse us if we do not follow the stipulations set forth in the deal. I just cannot reconcile in my heart how we preach in our churches today that we need to remind Him of His promise to bless us, without following through on the requirements to get the blessings which the deal set forth right up front. Moses plainly spells out what the requirements of the deal are. We have polluted this teaching and made a prosperity-name it-claim it deal which isn’t working! Just look at our country.  We have hand picked what we like about Adonai and conveniently chosen to forget the things we don’t.  My friends We are breaking the Second Commandment and creating unto ourselves an image of God.  This image fits the image in our minds which we created based upon false teaching rather than re-creating ourselves into His image.

It is waxing cold and ominous in these last days.  It is time we start to take Adonai seriously and listen to Torah and the Prophets.

Monte sold us on the lie behind door number two, the sad thing is that we think we actually made a deal with Adonai!  This deal isn’t the Full Monte (pun intended).