There are times we need to reorient ourselves, aren’t there? Perhaps we find ourselves at a point or place in life, wonder how in the world we’ve gotten there, and stopped and thought, “I need to reassess my priorities.” Or perhaps it’s not that you’re in a bad place, you simply feel the pull toward forgetting what’s important, and you stop and remind yourself. Maybe it’s that everything is going well, and you understand that this can be an occasion to lose sight of what’s most important in the midst of your bliss, so you stop, remind yourself of what’s important, and walk forward with a good base.
The book of Deuteronomy as a whole and 4:44-11:32 in particular seems to serve that purpose. The events of the book take place just prior to the people of Israel entering the promised land. And ironically, the Israelites find themselves in almost every scenario I’ve just described. On the one hand, they’ve wound up in a rough place. They should have gone into the promised land 38 years earlier, but they forgot who God was, lost sight of trusting him, and rebelled. So, they can look and say, “We need to give good thought to how we got here.”
On the other hand, they are about to face the same temptations that they had fallen prey to at other times. They’re about to encounter false gods, after having already carved an image out of gold in their past and been judged by the Lord. They’re about to have to walk forward in faith against a great enemy, when their own parents had turned back. It is therefore, important for them to orient themselves to truths, to priorities, to what is right.
And, finally, they’re about to walk into a glorious time. They’re about to enter the promised land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and such times can be particularly dangerous, causing us to forget the giver and merely delight in the Lord’s gifts. So, any of these three settings would call for Israel to stop and reorient themselves to what is right, what is important, and what their priorities should be. The fact that all three situations are applicable to them only highlights the need for a time of reorientation even more. And it is for this reason that Moses reminds them in 4:44-11:32 of the relationship their have with the Lord, what is expected of them as God’s people, and what will come to them should they obey or disobey.
In the first section of Deuteronomy that we looked at last week, Moses had mainly been providing them a narrative. In chapter 4, he then changed to exhorting them. Chapter 4 begins, “And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.” And so he continues for a good while through the book. But what happens is that for a while, sections of the book can be divided in terms of greater detail. So, for example, our text this morning, begins with the note that we’re about to be given details of what Moses laid out to the people. So, it reads, “This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel.”
And so it runs through the end of chapter 11. But this section, you’ll find, is still more general than what follows. So, we’ll see in two weeks that starting in chapter 12 and running through chapter 26, Moses provides a number of very specific commandments, commandments given in much greater detail than what we find in 4:44-11:32. Thus, we’re probably best to think of Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32 as the beginning of Moses’ exhortations, focusing more broadly so that the people of Israel might remember the big pictures of who they are, what is expected of them, and how they should live as they go forward.
And just as these chapters serve in this manner of reorienting Israel to fundamental truths, so I think it should serve in a similar manner for us. Therefore, I want to note some of these basic themes that Moses holds up and show how they’re equally true from where we stand in redemptive history in hopes that we might see today as an opportunity to reorient ourselves to what is true and what should be our priority in life.
However, before diving into this, I need to note a point of discontinuity with this text. I won’t do this with every sermon throughout Deuteronomy, but I do think it is important to do as we come to this text, and I’ll try to show you why. The first thing I want you to recognize as a believer in Christ is:
Now, let me explain what I mean by this statement. When Moses begins speaking to Israel in chapter 5, he addresses the people of Israel as those who were in a covenant with the Lord, specifically a covenant that God made with them. So, he says in 5:2-3, “The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the LORD make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today.” Therefore, Moses sees the people as being bound in a covenant relationship with the Lord, even as their fathers had been.
So, let’s think of this in a very basic way for a second. God rescued the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, and entered into a covenant relationship with the people (I’m referring to this as the Mosaic Covenant). In this covenant relationship, there were certain terms, commands, promises, blessings, curses, etc. that characterized the covenant relationship with Israel and the Lord. And this covenant relationship was structured in certain ways that seem odd to us.
One of the ways the covenant relationship was structured is that God related to his people through specially ordained leaders. Moses references in 5:4 the fact that he stood between the Lord and the people, and mediated God’s Word to them. In 5:22-27, he recounts that the people did not want to hear God’s voice but wanted God to speak to Moses, and then Moses could speak to them. And whereas we might think to ourselves, “Well, that’s not good. What’s wrong with the people?” Moses tells us in 5:28, ‘And the LORD heard your words, when you spoke to me. And the LORD said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken.’”
So, though it seems odd to us, this was the nature of God’s relationship with his people under the Mosaic Covenant. Now, I could also mention a number of other aspects of this covenant, such as the sacrificial system so that if they sinned they had to offer the blood of bulls, goats, etc. I could mention that they had a high priest who would intercede on their behalf, that they would celebrate feasts, and holy days. We could note that the Lord seemed to deal with them in a tribal fashion so that one’s line of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren could be either blessed or cursed because of what someone did. And indeed, all of these elements were part of this nature of the relationship with the Lord and his people under the Mosaic Covenant. But for the sake of time and with special regard for our text this morning, I simply want to note one other element of the nature of this relationship between God and his people under the Mosaic Covenant. It is that God promised certain blessings for obedience and certain curses for disobedience within this covenant.
For example, listen to some of these promises that God gives them if they’ll obey. In 7:12-15 we read, “And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that he swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.”1
Now, what I want you to recognize if you’re a believer this morning is that you and I are not under the Mosaic Covenant, but we are under a new and better covenant that God made with us through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the covenant that the Lord promised to bring about in Jeremiah 31:31-34 that we heard read earlier. In the New Covenant, we don’t offer animal sacrifices for sins because Christ has offered himself once for all. We don’t have specially endowed leaders that must stand between us and God. We can all pray to the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord. And I could say much more about the nature of the New Covenant relationship with have with our Lord. But it’s important for us to note that we’re under the New Covenant and not under the Mosaic Covenant so that you don’t try to apply the prescriptions, terms, promises, blessings, and cursings that were in effect under the Mosaic Covenant (but not not) to us.
In other words, Israel knew if they obeyed the Lord, they would live a long life in the land and not have diseases because those were the terms of the Mosaic Covenant. They knew that if they obeyed the Lord, they would not struggle with infertility because those were the terms of the Mosaic Covenant. They knew that if they obeyed, their crops would do well because those were the terms of the Mosaic Covenant.
But we need to recognize that God’s work of redemption throughout history has progressed. The Bible’s storyline developed. Why, for example, can Moses write in Genesis 1:31 that man is “very good” while Paul writes of all of mankind in Romans 3:12 that there is none who does good? The answer, of course, is that the Bible’s storyline and God’s work of redemption has progressed and developed between Genesis 1 and Romans 3, and one big event that took place between those two texts that changed everything was the fall in Genesis 3. Or, we could look at a time in the Old Testament when only a few special leaders had the Spirit of God on them or in the first chapter of Acts where the apostles believed but did not yet have the Spirit of God and compare it to Paul saying in Romans 8:9, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him,” meaning that all Christians have the Spirit. How do we reconcile these realities of some having saving faith in the OT while not having the Spirit or the apostles having faith in Christ but no Spirit, with Paul’s words in Romans 8:9? Well, we recognize that there was a development in the plotline of the Bible between these two things – God’s work of redemption took some steps forward, and in Acts 2, he began pouring out his Spirit on all who believed so that by the time Paul wrote Romans 8:9, if you were a believer, you had the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.
Well, we have the same phenomenon happening when we study a book like Deuteronomy. Because there were specific promises, blessings, and cursings under the Mosaic Covenant, which is now no longer in effect, we cannot apply the promises to us as if they apply to us. We need to recognize that this was how God worked with his people under a specific covenant during a specific time. If a couple is infertile now, it doesn’t mean they’re cursed. If a couple is fruitful, it doesn’t mean they’re obedient. If someone gets cancer and dies young, it doesn’t mean they must have not been very obedient as a child. All that was the case under the Mosaic Covenant, but for those of us who live on this side of the death and resurrection of Christ and on this side of Pentecost, we are no longer under that covenant.
In fact, that covenant and his specific prescriptions were always meant to be temporary until Jesus Christ came. But Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all that this covenant pointed to. The Mosaic Covenant was like scaffolding on a building. It is essential and helpful for a time. But once the building is completed, it has done its job and now can be removed.2
So, you could say, “If we’re not under the Mosaic Covenant, then, how do we benefit from studying Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32?” And there are a few answers to that, but one of them is because there are things we see about the nature of our God, how he works with his people, what he demands of us, and how he cares for us that are true now and we can understand more fully when we see these truths both in the New Covenant and the Old. And it is some of these truths that I want to show us this morning. The first of these is that:
The Lord made Israel his special chosen people out of all of the peoples and nations on the face of the earth. I mean, think about it. He could have chosen the Egyptians, the Hittites, or any other people, and he chose Israel. They were the ones who received the special love, care, devotion, and protection of the Lord. Why them? The Lord tells them in 7:6-8, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”
And again in 10:15, “The Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.”Why did God choose Israel? It wasn’t because they were great but simply because he decided to love them. Even Abraham the Lord called to himself from among a pagan family. If you want to know why God chose them, it’s because he loved them. If you want to know why he set his love on them, there simply is no answer. He simply decided to love them.
In this way, you and I can relate. Of all the people on the face of the earth, why did he open your eyes and my eyes to the gospel? Why did he call us to himself? Is it because he knew we were so wise, strong, rich, etc., and would make excellent tools for him to use? No. In fact, Paul reminds the Corinthians that not many of them were wise, powerful, or of noble birth but that God “chose what is weak,” “chose was is low and despised” when he chose them (1 Cor. 2:26-31).
Well, then why? Why us? Why you? Why me? Paul writes in Ephesians 1:4-5, “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” The answer is that he chose you because he loved you. And he loved you just because he loved you. It wasn’t because you were lovable. He just loved us. And he loves us.
Well, then, we can ask, “For what purpose did he choose us to be his special, chosen, covenant people?” Interestingly, the answer is the same with us as it was with Israel:
Let me show you this first in our text in Deuteronomy. Repeatedly the Lord stresses Israel’s need to love him and devote themselves to him. For example:
6:4-5 – “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
10:12-13 – “And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
11:1 – “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.”
11:13 – “And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul
11:22 – “For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and holding fast to him …”
Now, think about how odd this sounds. Do you think the Egyptians thought that they should love their gods? I doubt it. But God tells Israel that they were to love him, to devote themselves to him. In fact, he warned them multiple times in chapter 7 not to intermarry or bring abominable things into their homes because they could be led away to false gods or would be showing themselves to try to be devoted to God and to other gods. But he’ll not have it. He’s a jealous God.
And the same is true for us. God calls us to himself so that we might love him and devote ourselves to him. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love our God. We are to devote our entire selves to him, Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2, as a spiritual act of worship to him.
Is this your aim in life? If someone asks you what is most important in your life right now, is your answer, loving God? If not, why not? God called you to himself because he wants you to make your life about him. We are to be a people consumed with God, proclaiming his excellencies, giving him thanks and praise, obeying him, and pursuing his honor and glory. Why don’t we make it our prayer this week – “Father, help me to love you more and devote myself to you more fully.”
So, he chose us because he loves us, and he chose us so that we might love him and devote ourselves to him. What then does loving him look like? Again, as with Israel, so with us:
In the many references in the text we’ve read already, you heard this refrain to love him and keep his commandments. Again in 11:1, for example: “You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.” And Jesus tells us in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
So, just as Israel should not have thought it possible to claim to love God while disregarding obedience to his commandments, so we must obey him as well if we claim to love him.
But how do we find strength to love God and keep his commandments, especially amidst temptations to do otherwise? Let me answer that as our concluding note this morning.
Both of these elements of remembering his love and care and knowing he wants our good are seen throughout Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32. The Lord repeatedly warns his people against forgetting his love and care for them, especially shown as he delivered them from bondage in Egypt. So, we read, for example in 6:10-12, “And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
And again in 8:11-16, “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.”
In both texts, the Lord warns them against forgetting who he is toward them and what he has done for them. If they forget his clear demonstration of his love for them, they will be tempted to remove their eyes from him and love themselves more than him.
And note how he mentions at the end of 8:16 how he worked for their good. A sampling of texts confirm that the Lord was always working for Israel’s good. We read repeatedly throughout these chapters commands given by the Lord to his people, “that it might go well” with them (5:29; 6:3, 18), “that your days may be long” (6:2; 11:8-12), “for our good always” (6:24-25), “for your good” (10:13), that your days may be multiplied in the land (11:21), and we could go on. The Lord’s love was shown in that his commandments were for their good.
And so with us, we must remember his love for us and care for us. We are told in 1 John 4:19 that we love him because he first loved us. And he loved us by sending his Son to live, die, and be raised for us. Israel was to remember how God delivered them from Egypt. We are to remember how he has delivered us from his wrath, from Satan, from sin, from death. And we can acknowledge that he always commands us for our good. In fact, he even works our foolishness for our good.
Therefore, as we remember his love and care for us, as we acknowledge that he always wants our good, we are driven to love him. And as we love we obey. And we love and obey because he graciously loved us first and chose us as his own special possession.
It was so important that Israel not lose sight of God’s love and care for them, especially demonstrated in the deliverance from Egypt, that the Lord gave them a meal – the Passover meal – as a continual reminder. They could see and taste a reminder of what he had done for them. Similar, the Lord gave us a meal, reminding us of his covenant promises to forgive us our sins as we have faith in him, the one who gave his body and shed his blood for us. Therefore, let us remember him now as we come to the table. Amen.