He was a faithful preacher in a hard time. Now he was an odd guy. He dressed differently than others, he was bolder than most, he wasn’t one to show up at the party, and many of those around him even suggested that he had a demon. He might be like that Christian friend who is just odd enough that you or I might not have been quick to identify with him. He was a guy who went out preaching in the open air, calling for others to repent and run from the coming wrath of God. You know the kind of guy I’m talking about, don’t you?
But Jesus said of this guy, John the Baptist, that when he was born there had “arisen no one greater” than him (Matt. 11:11). We’ve noted in numerous studies the reason Jesus said that no one had arisen greater than John at that time. Jesus said, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John” (Matt. 11:13). That is to say, though the Law and the Prophets pointed us to the coming of Jesus Christ, John was the privileged instrument of the Lord who was blessed to be able to point his finger and say, “And there he is.” Well, specifically he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). John was great because he got to introduce Jesus.
But there’s actually something else I want us to consider this morning in that statement Jesus made besides John the Baptist. Jesus said, “For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John.” Now we know that the prophets prophesied about the coming of Christ. Think of Isaiah predicting he’d be born of a virgin (7:14) and bear the punishment for our sins as a sheep to the slaughter (52:13-53:12). Or we might consider Micah declaring that the Christ would be born in Bethlehem (5:2) and Jeremiah telling us that the “righteous Branch” would come from David’s line (23:5). But what about the Law? How did the Law prophesy the coming of Christ?
There are certainly points in the first five books of the Bible where there are explicit predictions of Christ’s coming. Even in the book we’ve been studying over five weeks, Deuteronomy, we’ve seen in chapter 18 how Moses declares that the Lord will raise up another prophet from among his people who will speak the words of the Lord. And we’re right to acknowledge that even if that is partially fulfilled in the arriving of the prophetic line it is ultimately fulfilled when God the Son comes to us as the Word made flesh. But I don’t think that we can reduce the law’s prophetic role merely to such explicit prophecies. After all, the author of Hebrews tells us that when we saw the inability of the sacrificial system to remove sins once for all, without a high priest needing to make a sacrifice year after year, we should have realized that there was more to come.
I think it’s in that similar fashion that we see many places in the law prophesying. As we see the glory and inability of people, institutions, types, and shadows, they both point us to another like them and one infinitely greater than them who is coming. And I think one place we see that clearest is in Deuteronomy 31-34.
Deuteronomy 31-34 is very forward-looking. Obviously it points us forward in the sense that it focuses on Israel getting ready to go in and inherit the promised land. But there’s more here, I believe that is to stir our hearts to look ahead to what God has done in sending his Son so that he might live, die, and be raised, fulfilling everything God promised to do for his people. Therefore, this morning, I want us to see the glory and shortcomings of certain people, institutions, and concepts that points us forward to the glory of Christ and his work for us. First, I want us to note:
When we read these chapters, it’s hard to take your eyes and thoughts off of Moses. This final section begins with Moses speaking and ends with Moses dying. It begins with Moses preparing the people to enter the land and ends with Moses being denied entrance to the land. It begins with Moses telling the people again how they can live long in the land and ends with Moses dying prior to entering the land. And in the middle we have the song of Moses, the blessing from Moses, and the law of Moses. Moses is all over these chapters. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing that we stop and contemplate Moses.
After all, the author of Hebrews tells us to “consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, who was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses was also faithful in all God’s house” (Heb. 3:1-2). And we do see Moses’ faithfulness in this text, don’t we? The section begins with Moses telling the Israelites that he is about to die and will not be able to enter the promised land. We read, “So Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel. And he said to them, ‘I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan’” (Deut. 31:1-2).
Now, we know this wasn’t some kind of ho-hum statement from Moses about not being able to enter the promised land. He desperately wanted to enter the land. In fact, earlier we read in Deuteronomy 3 how Moses told the people that he “pleaded” with the Lord to let him into the land, saying, “Please let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, that good hill country and Lebanon” (3:23-25). Yet, Moses, notes that the Lord was angry with him and would not listen to him.
So, this is not some light thing for Moses to declare and to face. Moreover, not only do the Israelites (many of whom caused Moses great troubles) get to enter, but Moses’ understudy, Joshua, gets to lead them. What then does Moses do? Does he say, “Fine, if I’m not going to get to go, you’re on your own”? No. He prepares those who will get to go in order to make sure they’ll be successful in their charge.
In 31:3-6, he encourages all of Israel to trust the Lord, reminding them that the Lord will go before them, destroy their enemies as he had Og and Sihon, and hand them over to them. He even exhorts them, saying, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you” (31:6). Then, he turns to Joshua and encourages him in nearly the same way (31:7-8). Then, in 31:9-13 he commands them to read the law every seven years to help make sure the Israelites will live well in the land.
And it doesn’t stop there. In 32:48-52, Moses is again told by the Lord that he is going to die and not enter the land. So, what’s the very next thing we see Moses doing? In 33:1 we read, “This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.” And those blessings continue on for the entire chapter, directed at each tribe.
Now, consider this for yourself. How hard is it to rejoice when there’s one spot left that you really want, and your friend gets chosen instead of you? How hard is it when your companion gets that promotion that you wanted instead of you? How difficult is it when someone else makes more money, gets an amazing deal on their dream house, or gets the prestige that you’ve secretly longed for? It’s hard isn’t it?
Let’s ratchet it up a little bit. How do you feel when God does some amazing work but he chooses to do it through someone else besides you or some other church besides ours? If we’re honest, it’s sometimes hard to separate our desire for the Lord’s work to go forward and for the Lord’s work to involve us in a prime position. Perhaps we’ve subtly moved from wanting the growth of the Lord’s kingdom to wanting the growth of the Lord’s kingdom so long as it includes us receiving praise and recognition.
Perhaps one way to test our hearts is to ask if our labors left us without praise, recognition, or honor and another receiving all of those things, what would our hearts feel? If we would feel crushed, then maybe there’s an opportunity for us this morning to repent and ask the Lord to give us grace to truly seek his kingdom. And in this way, Moses is a great example for us, isn’t he? Perhaps our prayer can be, “Lord, let me illustrate the faithfulness in fulfilling your purposes for my life, even when it means I won’t receive some things I desperately long for, just as Moses did, as he was faithful in his calling.” The faithfulness of Moses here is challenging and no doubt convicting for us, isn’t it?
Yet, we can’t help but be reminded that Moses wasn’t perfect, was he? There was a reason he wasn’t going to the promised land. The Lord reminds Moses why in 32:51, saying, “Because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel [you will not enter the land].” Moses wasn’t perfect in his obedience and faithfulness.
And though he was a good example for Israel to follow, for the most part, he wasn’t enough to cause them to live in righteousness. Moses himself says to Israel in 31:27, “For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the LORD. How much more after my death.” Israel needed more than Moses.
Therefore, I think these chapters are to push us to look for the one who was greater than Moses. And if these examples aren’t enough to convince you of that, look who the book of Deuteronomy ends. We’re told, “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel” (34:10-12). Doesn’t that make you want to add, “Until Jesus!”?
And if that’s your thought, you’d be right to think that. The author of Hebrews who of Moses’ faithfulness goes on to write, ‘For Jesus who has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. . . . Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to things that were to be spoken later, but Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our boasting in our hope” (Heb. 3:3-6).
Moses may have been the Lord’s provision to deliver Israel out of bondage to Egypt and to serve as a good example, but Jesus Christ comes to us to deliver us from the bondage to sin and death, and though he is a perfect example, he is no mere example for us. Rather, he is the one who was perfectly faithful and perfectly obedient so that if our faith is in him, his perfect righteousness is credited to us, and he brings us into eternity with him.
But it’s not just Moses who prophesies of Christ’s coming. We also see this section pointing us to the coming of Christ as we see:
Perhaps it’s hard for us to think of the law and the law-covenant as a glorious thing, but it was. In fact, Paul begins a sentence in 2 Corinthians 3:7, saying, “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory . . .” This is a reference, of course, to Moses going up onto the mountain to receive the law and coming down with the glory of the Lord shining from his face so brightly that he had to veil his face from the Israelites.
So, what is glorious about the law? Well, much of what we mentioned last week could be mentioned in response to this question. The law was God’s gracious revelation to his people, and it pointed the people (by exposing and increasing their sinfulness and condemnation) to hope in Christ alone. But we could also note that the law was a prescription for long life in the land. We read in 32:45-47, “And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, he said to them, ‘Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do wall the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you, but your very life, and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.’”
You see, the law wasn’t just a bunch of rules. It was a pathway to live long in the land. Had Israel obeyed the law, they would have been blessed in the land, lived long lives in the land, and been able to stay in the land. The law provided the glorious means of blessing for Israel.
Yet we see already in these chapters in Deuteronomy that Israel was going to fail. They were not going to abide by the law. They were going to rebel against God. The Lord tells Moses in 31:16-17, “Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, ‘Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?’”
Then the Lord instructs Moses to write down words to a song where the Lord predicts that Israel will rebel, “For,” the Lord says, “I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give them” (31:21). Thus, Moses says to them, ‘And in the days to come evil will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands” (31:29b).
Then the song Moses wrote, given to us in chapter 32, recounts God’s faithfulness and their rebellion. One glimpse in 32:20 shows us the idea of the song, as we read, “And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.’”
But, we can ask, what about the law? Can’t the law help them? Won’t having God’s laws continually move their hearts? What will the law do for them? Twice we’re given the answer. First, we read in 31:26, as Moses commands the Levites to put the book of the law by the ark of the covenant, saying, “Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.” And again, we read in 31:19, “Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.”
Paul tells us in Romans 8:3 that the law, which he calls the law of sin and death, was weakened by the flesh (that is by our sinful nature) and could not produce obedience. The law can’t change our hearts. Think for a second, if there were something you desperately wanted behind those doors at the back of the sanctuary. And suppose we imposed a law here at the church that you couldn’t go through those doors, into that room. Well, I would have effectively made a law, that if obeyed, would keep everyone out of that room. But what that law would be unable to do is affect your heart. I might put signs all over those doors saying, “Keep Out,” but that wouldn’t change your heart’s desire, could it?
But God made a promise that he was going to bring along a greater covenant than the law-covenant given through Moses. In Ezekiel 36:24-27 the Lord says, “I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”
Do you see then what the Lord will do? Instead of simply giving another law, he will put his Spirit within us, also giving us new hearts, causing us to walk in his ways. That is, the Lord will change our desires and give us the Spirit to dwell within us so that we will desire obedience to him. This is why when the New Testament contrasts what the law could not do with what God has done for us through his Son, the New Testament continually identifies the Lord’s work in us as the work of the Spirit.
So, going back to Romans 8:2-4, “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
By putting the Spirit within us, the Lord causes us to walk according to his commands – not perfectly of course, but that’s our desire as believers. Similarly, in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11, Paul contrasts the “ministry of death, carved in letters on stone” and the “ministry of condemnation” with the “ministry of the Spirit” and the “ministry of righteousness.” The reason the New Covenant, brought through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, can be called a ministry of the Spirit and of righteousness is because the Lord credits us with his perfect righteousness, gives us the Spirit so that we desire to obey him, and causes us then to walk in righteousness (longing for that day when we will be made perfectly righteous). This is why we must not forget what the Lord has done for us in Christ through his Spirit. Then, finally, we see:
Because the Lord tied his name to Israel, they were allowed to profane his name. One reason the Lord was committed to judging Israel when they sinned and forsook him in the land is because he had tied himself to Israel, and now they were going after other gods. And when they did that, they were profaning the Lord’s name, provoking him to judgment. It was as if Israel’s rebellion said to the other nations that God was not worthy of their devotion, his laws not good enough for obedience, and his works not deserving of their worship. This is why the Lord repeatedly says that Israel has profaned his name among the nations.
We read that the Israelites would provoke the Lord to judgment, then, as they rebelled in the land. In 32:16 and 19, “They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. . . . The LORD saw it and spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.” The Lord had tied himself to this nation, and therefore was provoked to judge them as they profaned his name.
However, his tying himself to them also meant that he would vindicate them. So, we read in 32:26-27, “I would have said, ‘I will cut them to pieces; I will wipe them from human memory,’ had I not feared provocation by the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is triumphant, it was not the LORD who did all this.’”
That is, the Lord could have just wiped Israel out altogether, but he didn’t want the other nations to look at think that they’d conquered Israel by their own power. The only reason any nation ever conquered Israel was because they were an instrument of the Lord’s hand of judgment. Therefore, in order that the other nations do not think wrongly of God’s great name, he promises to vindicate his people. We read in 32:36, “For the LORD will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free.”
The Lord will judge them, driving them out of the land, and then he promises to vindicate them, gathering them back to himself. It’s beautiful, in one sense, isn’t it, to see the role Israel gets to play? They are a picture of the Lord before the world. But they were also insufficient, weren’t they? After all, the Lord’s purpose was never to show himself king of one nation. The whole earth is his footstool. This is why the Lord Jesus Christ proclaimed after his resurrection that all authority in heaven and on earth was his and sent his disciples into all of the world to make disciples of every nation under heaven. It’s because Israel was an insufficient people. The Lord doesn’t reign over one nation but over every nation.
Therefore, if anyone will bow the knee to Jesus Christ, whether they are from Israel or Jackson, TN (and every other place on the globe), they will be part of God’s people, ready for a salvation to be revealed in the last time. Eventually, there will be people bowing the knee from every tribe, tongue, and nation on the face of the earth so that it may be made clear that Christ is the Lord of all.
And when he returns, he’ll not bring us into a strip of land in the Middle East. The land represented rest, but it was always only a shadow of the rest Jesus Christ promised when he said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). It is a rest we will know when Jesus Christ returns to take all of his people to dwell with him forever in a new heavens and new earth.
Therefore, this morning, as we think about Deuteronomy 31-34, let the law prophesy for you this morning. Note the glory of Moses, the law, Israel, and the land, but also note their weakness, inability, and insufficiency. And let that point you to the greater glory of Christ, his Spirit, his redemption, and our eternal hope. Let us in fact give thanks for these things now as we come to the table. Amen.