Category: Deuteronomy

It’s not hard to understand why God was frequently angry with the Israelites. He called them His people, but were they ever really His? What kind of hearts did their frequent rebellions reveal? As we have seen earlier, they never gave up worshiping idols, and the only worship of God is exclusive worship. What do you learn about God in His willingness not only to continue in relationship with such people, but also to go before them into the Promised Land as a consuming fire, subduing the peoples living there so that they might defeat them quickly? We have seen His swift and deadly judgment in some circumstances, and the entire adult generation refused entry into the Promised Land in consequence of their refusal to obey, and we’ll see plenty more of His judgment and consequences; but He wants to reveal His patience in this account. Hopefully this inspires in us greater love for Him, rather than a desire to relax our carefulness in maintaining our relationships with Him. Can He reveal His patience without our putting that patience to the test?

Remember that God’s requirements and desires for His Old Testament people should instruct us about His desires for us. So take note of what He gives them in a nutshell. I find it helpful to make a list. He requires them to:

• Revere Him
• Walk in all His ways
• Love Him
• Serve Him with all their hearts and souls (not just with lip service or as a checklist.) What does it mean to serve Him with your heart and soul? What does it look like? How do you do it?
• Keep His commandments and statutes.

From what we saw in yesterday’s reading, the obedience would be in service to knowing and remembering God. He didn’t want their obedience for the sake of obedience, but for the sake of relationship with Him. All of these requirements speak to His desire for relationship with them. What do these requirements reveal to you about what God wants from you?

I take note when Scripture praises God, because I understand that praise is one way we have been given to know God, and I rather stink at it. So when Moses, the man of God who spoke to God face to face, who saw God’s glory in response to his request (and thus would know a lot about what God is like), offers praise to God, I pay attention and learn. He praises God for

• What He owns. What are the implications of that for you?
• His superiority. Over other gods (including the gods we worship today – what would they be?), over other powers.
• His character and characteristics. Which of these inspires your admiration and appreciation the most?
• What He has done and what He does. What has God done for you that you can praise Him for? That should be treasured up, by the way, so that Satan doesn’t snatch it from your memory.

By the way, is God instructing His people to swear? Remember that He tells them not to take His name in vain, so the whole counsel of Scripture teaches that we aren’t to curse using His name, as our culture perceives swearing. Rather, He is instructing here that His name is their highest authority, the ultimate source of truth.

Moses warned them to be prepared to keep God’s commands so that they would be strong. What, if anything, does that advise for our maintaining the strength we need? We don’t need to seek to keep commands to be legalistic, but we do need to be strong for battle and in our faith.

The warning Moses gave them here was both for taking possession of the land and maintaining possession of the land. Both taking possession of and living in the land of God’s promise required strength found in keeping His commands, holding fast to Him in intimate relationship, and depending on Him to drive out the enemy before them as they moved forward. The keeping needed to happen both in times of crisis and in daily routine. What does that say to you about your living in God’s promises? That’s one of the reasons we’re in God’s word daily!

Moses points out that the Promised Land was different from Egypt. In that day it was different than it is today, as well. Egypt, unlike most of our experience, was a green strip of land along the banks of the Nile only because they worked hard to control the river’s annual flooding for their benefit, and to irrigate the desert land. The Promised Land was different and would be a new experience for them, being watered by rain. Cultivation would be a lot easier for them there! Remember how often the Israelites longed to return to Egypt and all it offered? What God had for them in the Promised Land was so much better! What a wonderful object lesson for us about living in the place of God’s promises! We may not know what He has in store for us, but we can bet that it is good, and certainly better than living without His promises. Moses described the Promised Land as a place of abundance provided by God, and life there one where their needs and even their desires would be fulfilled. How is that like our living in God’s promises today?

Thriving in the Promised Land, and continuing to live there, were contingent on their continuing to keep His commands so as to enjoy relationship with Him. How can they continue to do that rather than be led astray by the deceit of their hearts, or turn away? What Moses tells them is good advice for us today:

• Impress His truth on our hearts – study His word!
• Apply His commands, statutes, judgments to our everyday lives; live by them so that they guide every part of our lives.
• Teach them to our children.
• Talk of them. We talk about what is important to us; they should be important enough to us to talk of them as part of normal conversation.
• Make sure that they reign in our homes.

One final note: the choice of receiving God’s blessing or judgment was theirs. It wasn’t dependent on God’s capriciousness, nor on His choice, but on theirs. God is also predictable in giving us New Testament people what He has promised us, depending on our choices.

Here is a summary of what God commanded the Israelites in this passage:

• Listen to the commands. But he also told them, “Be careful to do.” Listening means more than just hearing, but also heeding.
• Love the Lord. “These words I’m commanding you shall be on your heart.” This command implies that they are the ones to do the keeping on their hearts. What does that mean? How does one do that? The commands aren’t supposed to just be items on a checklist that represent the bare minimum one has to do to please God. On their hearts implies care, value, love, deep feeling. The commands represent relationship. Isn’t it amazing that keeping commands can affect our feelings?
• Beyond doing them, they were given other ways to remember them and keep them. Teach them. Keep them ready at hand and right in front of your eyes as constant reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that you will be reminded of them coming and going.
• Watch yourself lest you forget the Lord.
• Fear only Him, worship Him and only Him. Don’t test Him.
• Diligently keep His commandments. Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord. “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment, just as He commanded us.” His commandments equaled good and right.
• Do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord,…that you may possess. There were conditions to their possession. “When God delivers the people into your hand … you shall utterly destroy them.” “If you keep the commands to do them, the Lord your God will keep with you His covenant and His lovingkindness.” And He will love you and bless you and multiply you. You shall be blessed above all peoples. Does God set conditions on His New Testament people’s possession of His promises?

Fear might keep the Israelites from “consuming” (ref. verse 7:16) the people inhabiting the land before them. The antidote he offered for the fear was remembering what God had done in the past. The reason they didn’t need to dread them was that the Lord their God was “in their midst, a great and awesome God.” We need to remember as much as God’s Old Testament people did, and keep our eyes on Him as much as His Old Testament people needed to.

Moses warned them against forgetting God. What could possibly make them forget God?

• Satisfaction. Isn’t that sobering, that enjoyment of God’s blessings could be their downfall? This reminds us that we need to be careful ourselves, that we love the Giver more than we love His gifts. No wonder we are told to be on our guard!
• Not keeping His commands. Keeping His commands was connected with loving Him; failure to keep His commands would make them forget God. They couldn’t just fail to keep and still remember God so that one day they could turn back to Him when it would be convenient; their not keeping would result in forgetting. This is also sobering. We can’t choose the consequences of our sin, and often we can’t imagine what the consequences will be, cannot understand how horrible they will be.
• Pride. Are we guilty of thinking that we are the ones who have built what we have, because we possess the ability, we have done the work? Did you catch what God has to say about that? Whose conception of the truth is accurate; ours or God’s?

If these things would make them forget God, how can we learn from them not to forget Him ourselves? How can we use that information to be careful to remember God?

A key element to remembering is teaching the next generations. He charged them with teaching their sons and grandsons. Note how that was to take place: in every learning opportunity life afforded. That these words were on their hearts and precious to them would be evident in their speaking of them over the breakfast table and supper table, while they were working, while they were walking, and while they were resting. How precious are they to you, as evidenced by your speech? What are you teaching your children and grandchildren thus?

Moses reminded the Israelites often that God was angry with him on account of the people. This humble man blamed the people for God’s preventing him from entering the Promised Land! How humble does that strike you? The lesson from his example is that we are all prone to blame-shifting to avoid responsibility for our own actions. Praise God for the transforming work of His Holy Spirit in us!

Rather than allowing Moses to wallow in self-pity over the consequences of his sin, God told him to focus on someone else, to prepare Joshua to assume the leadership role Moses would leave behind.

We understand that God didn’t want the people to take away commandments from the Law. But He also didn’t want them adding commandments that He didn’t give. We think of doing more as acts of devotion; doesn’t God want more than the minimum in our worship? I believe that the principles He gives throughout His word demonstrate that He does delight in our lavish devotion; however, He doesn’t impose more than is necessary in His requirements, and He doesn’t want man imposing extra requirements on us. That means that the requirements He did impose in the Law are important to Him. That should make them important to us.

God said that their keeping the Law would be their wisdom and understanding, such remarkable wisdom and understanding that people of other nations would not only notice, but marvel at their wisdom and understanding. The Law also trains them in righteousness. These are lovely in the sight of men. Consider the opposite; living in a society characterized by those traits is not desirable to anyone. Wisdom, understanding and righteousness. Where and when we New Covenant people of God feel the lack of a law, seeking to do God’s will is difficult. Let the principles governing His Old Covenant Law guide us. Others may marvel at our wisdom, understanding and righteousness. At the least, we will be distinct.

Moses foresaw the Israelites’ serving other gods and doing other corrupt things in violation of their covenant with God, and suffering the consequences of being removed from the place of God’s promise. But he also anticipated that they would reach a low point at which they would turn to God. Even when outside the place of God’s promise and fellowship, suffering distress, diminishment and God’s anger, they would not be beyond His compassion and faithfulness. If they would “search for Him with all their hearts and with all their souls,” they would be permitted to return to Him. Notice that returning to Him meant listening to Him. Listening implies effort, hearing, and heeding with action. Do you suppose that God might offer the same opportunity to His New Covenant people?

Moses told the Israelites to “know therefore today and take it to your heart that the Lord, He is God… and there is no other.” A good reminder for each of us. Not only do we need to consider, we need to choose. Life in this sin-cursed world wears us down; weariness leads to the next thing, and the next…. We need to choose when we are in our right minds, that the Lord is God and God is our Lord, and there is no other. Then we need to choose again when we are presented with a reminder like this in our Bible reading or in a sermon or in the testimony of another, so that we are ready to choose again when a crisis comes, rather than turning our backs on God in discouragement and defeat.

The Israelites’ experience also teaches us that God can do new things. The Law and the possibility of relationship with God that it provided were new in their day. Might God want to do new things today? Should we be expecting the unexpected from God, that we and others “might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him?”

God chose these people as the people of His ultimate promise, to bless all nations with knowledge of God and ultimately, with Messiah – not because He loved these people, but because He loved their fathers. Imagine the blessings each of us can give our children, our grandchildren, and beyond, by enjoying intimate relationship with God. I have become more intentional about seeking God’s blessings for my children and their yet future children, as I consider the implications of such statements.

The book of Deuteronomy is Moses’ last words to the Israelites before He died, and is God’s words to the nation before they entered the Promised Land. It was given to Israel as they camped on the Plains of Moab next to the Jordan River in preparation for crossing into the Promised Land, toward the end of their fortieth year after leaving Egypt. The book is part of the Law and reiterates highlights of the Law, but it is much more interesting reading to me than the Law given in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers. I believe that you will find it easier reading than what we have been reading.

This book is full of warnings that they would have to be careful and diligent to keep their relationship with God. It might be helpful to you to find a way to mark distinctively each instance of that kind of warning: be diligent, be on your guard, be careful, beware, watch yourself, take heed…. Include in your markings describing words that tell how thorough their keeping was to be, such as “all the commandments,” “just as the Lord has commanded you,” “carefully” and “diligently.” Another help might be to find a way to mark connections in the text between something they might do or not do, and the consequences that will happen as a result. Indicator words that will alert you to these connections will be “then” and “so that.” These markings will help you get the message of Deuteronomy.

Keep in mind as you read about the Israelites’ taking possession of the Promised Land, that it is an object lesson for us. We also have received God’s promises, promises such as everything we need for life and godliness, and that He will be faithful to complete the work He has begun in us…. Like the Israelites, we have got to take possession of the promises God has given us, or we will never enjoy them. Living in the place of God’s promise is wonderful, but it doesn’t come easily even though God is doing most of the work. There are many analogies there. While we must be careful not to over-spiritualize the Israelites’ experience, we don’t want to miss the opportunity to understand the lessons for us. God is good to give us these lessons because having lived all of our lives subject to our fallen human nature, and living in a fallen, sin-cursed world even after we are restored, we do not understand how we are to live set free from sin. God has many instructions for us in His word, and this object lesson is one of them.

Deuteronomy is so rich that this blog will not be able to offer commentary on all of it. I will hit what strikes me as most vital. I may not comment on what you think is important. Please seek understanding from God on what you may find difficult, and trust Him to help you understand. This is one of my goals for this year in this blog, to train you to be a student of the Bible and find understanding from God of difficult passages. Of course, it is early in the year and you perhaps haven’t had much opportunity for training, so if you have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Numbers 13 gives a different account of whose idea it was to send spies into Canaan, that “the Lord spoke to Moses saying ‘Send out spies….’” Does this mean that the Bible contradicts itself? Not at all. You will see throughout Deuteronomy Moses giving more details as he recounts events covered in the book of Numbers. A difference in the details doesn’t mean a contradiction, but a fuller picture of what happened. This account is the same.

Moses’ summary of their refusal to take possession of the Promised Land is a reminder to us that we have two choices in our relationships with God: we can move ahead under His leadership and fight our battles alongside of Him as we gain victory and take new ground, or we can fall back to familiar territory, which has as much appeal and comfort as the wilderness the Israelites lived (and died) in for forty years. Those are the choices. God wants us to draw closer, ever closer to Him. He wants us to be transformed ever more into His image, and to climb new heights of victory as He accomplishes that work in us. If we don’t allow Him that, we don’t simply plant roots in a place that satisfies us; no, we move backward to the wilderness. If we are rebellious enough, He may allow us to find our way back into the place of slavery to sin. Satan will try to convince us that there are more than two choices in the matter: that we can have it our way and go as far as we desire with God; that if we choose to go only so far, refusal to follow God farther will not come between us and God. The only two options we hear about from Jesus are “Well done, Good and Faithful Servant” and “Depart from me; I never knew you.” Is there an in-between option? Scripture doesn’t tell of any that I know of.

Notice the ways God worked on behalf of His people to help them take possession of the land. He “put the dread and fear of (them) upon the peoples everywhere.” That is a huge part of their battle won right there! He also “hardened (King Sihon’s) spirit and made his heart obstinate,” which probably made him do foolish things – you know how irrational stubborn people are. God moves in mysterious ways, ways we could never imagine. Might He move in situations similarly today on our behalf? Might He do even more than we could think of asking? Yes! So why, when we pray, do we tell Him what to do? Why don’t we leave it to His higher ways and thoughts to know what to do?

Notice also that King Og of Bashan was one of those giants (and probably reigned over giants) that they were so afraid of in Numbers 13. They made pretty short work of them, didn’t they? God can do the same with the giants we face.