Deuteronomy

[0:00] let me open us up in a word of prayer before we begin our father in heaven lord we pray that you would sanctify us by your word your word is truth father we pray that you open our eyes to see wondrous things in your word lord let the meditations of our hearts and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sights oh lord our rock and iron routine i pray this in your precious son's name amen so good morning um please open up your bibles to deuteronomy so today as we conclude our overview of the pentateuch we'll encounter one of the greatest transitions in the bible as the people of israel prepare to enter into the promised land and by its own admission in the first verse chapter one moses is the author of this book so why is the book called deuteronomy the name comes from the greek for second law oh yeah there's a handout right there my mr stringenters so why is the book called deuteronomy the name comes from the greek for second law since the book is a second giving of the law that we've already seen in the pentateuch deutero equals seconds and onomy equals law and the name actually comes from a reference in chapter 17 stating since they didn't have photocopiers back then that when a king sat on his throne he would have to word for word write out the book of deuteronomy and that would a serve as his own copy of the scriptures for the rest of his life but also be it would teach him how to revere yahweh and for him to follow the law as israel's king but this book is a lot more about just the mere giving the law it's a summary of god's covenant with israel so it's actually a prerequisite to understanding what is unfolding for the rest of the bible the authors in the old testament continue to come back to this one book more than any other in the pentateuch they continue to come back to deuteronomy it's the key to understanding joshua and judges first and second samuel first and second kings and in the new testament deuteronomy is alluded to close to 100 times and in fact jesus quotes deuteronomy more than any other book in the old testament you know for example you remember jesus quotes deuteronomy to satan in the wilderness he says you shall not tempt the lord your god and man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of mouth of god so you get the picture this book is central to the rest of scripture and you can think about it deuteronomy is like the romans of the old testament so let's talk about the context of deuteronomy in the pentateuch so the basic story up to deuteronomy has been this god created everything and then all of creation became cursed and after the curse came the covenant that god made with abraham and from abraham to moses is about 430 years where god saved his people out of egypt and in exodus we saw the obligations abraham's descendants were bound to in a new covenant namely the 10 commandments and the laws in exodus 20 to 24 this covenant called the mosaic covenant was a gracious step forward in god's redemptive plan it made the people into a nation it revealed god's holy character through his law and it established a sacrificial system that prepared the way for christ's atonement on the cross

[4:00] but it also placed a formal obligation on the nation of israel to be holy as god is holy with the curse of death if they fell short so it's this mosaic covenant that's being expounded and ratified here in deuteronomy and after god saves the people from the land of slavery in number four numbers 14 reminiscent of the garden of the garden in the fall we see the people get cold feet before entering into the promised land and they rebel against god accusing him of conspiring to murder them in wilderness god judges them and tells them only their children will enter the promised land so 40 years later the old generation dies and deuteronomy begins with these children now adults standing next to the river jordan about to enter into the promised land in addition god tells moses that he himself will not enter the promised land and he will die in the wilderness so here we are at the end of that 40 year period on the plains of moab moses knows that he will die shortly and he will he himself will not go with them into the promised land so moses in deuteronomy is like an old veteran recounting a great war that happened 40 years ago or he's like an old pastor delivering one final exhortation to his congregation or depending on how you view the structure two or three sermons so a sermon series to the people that have known him to be their shepherd their entire life and he will not be with them so looking at this book from the perspective of moses impending death deuteronomy actually is an early catechism where moses will teach his people how to remain faithful to yahweh in a pluralistic land so since it's a catechism that's why you expect to see that famous passage of deuteronomy 6 direct to parents where it says these words i am commanding you today are upon your hearts you shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise tie them as reminders on your hands and bind them on your foreheads write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates so moses is catechizing these parents and in turn they're to catechize their children so with that important context in place let's take a look at how the covenant shapes the actual structure of this book so you remember a covenant is a binding agreement between two parties with terms and conditions covenants are common today probably the most well-known covenant is the covenant of marriage when you make vows you're entering into a covenant to love honor and cherish your husband or wife until death do us part you've entered into a covenant deuteronomy is a different kind of covenant this is a covenant of life and death administered by a king to his subjects the king doesn't negotiate over the terms of the agreement and scholars tell us that in the ancient near east it was common for kings to use covenants to guarantee their alliances so normally these terms we laid down in a document following the five-part formula first the historical context of the covenant second identifying the parties to the covenant third the stipulations or the terms of the agreement fourth the blessing if the covenant is followed or the curses if the covenant is broken and lastly provisions for continuing the covenant if it's broken so in fact if you turn to the handout which is on the chair there you'll see that deuteronomy follows the format of a covenant document commonly found in the ancient near east so for the rest of our class today we'll walk through this covenant document section by section so for the first part we begin with the historical prologue in chapters one to four

[8:01] where moses recounts god's past faithfulness to the people and the theme for this section is yahweh is the only true god is utterly sovereign and has shown himself to be just and merciful so the history recounts in chapter one is the same as we saw in the book of numbers last week in chapter one verse 26 it says yet you would not go up but rebelled against the command of the lord your god verse 32 the people lack trust in god's power and as a result god refused to let the first generation enter the land god was just but god also showed them mercy in chapter two verse seven it tells us that god graciously provided by being with the people for 40 years in the desert and they lacked nothing god showed them mercy and god's absolute sovereignty is why moses is recounting the past military victories against king sion and king ab told you originally back in numbers 21 now remember the israelites who were shepherds in the land of egypt were again up against a well-trained and well-equipped army it'd be like if all of us here in this room had some pitchforks and shovels and we're up against the well-trained army of king leonidas's first spartan warriors from the ancient greek city state of sparta humanly speaking there's no way we're ever going to win that fight uh however moses is telling the people here that it was as easy for god to hand deliver these nations over to you as it is for me just to hand my keys to you like this moses chapter 4 verse 22 says you shall not fear them why for it is the lord your god who fights for you it is the lord your god who fights for you the battle is the lord he will fight for you so don't be afraid god rules over these nations later on god says see now that i even i am he and there is no god besides me i kill and i make alive i wound and i heal and there is none that can deliver out of my hands god is absolutely sovereign and the god this book is about is the only god there is so while we're in this section i want to address an objection that many have about this book an atheist like richard dawkins will point to this section and say it is actually immoral to believe in the god of the bible since here god is commanding genocide so you look in chapter 3 god commands israel to wipe out the people in the land of canaan men women and children and you know sometimes even mistaken christians will try to put the god of the new testament against the god of the old testament saying that christ would never condone such violence so how do we make sense of what's going on here so first there's a common refrain that's been said over and over again we must remember what stage of redemptive history we are in israel was a special political nation that god used to execute his righteous judgment of the surrounding nations no such nation exists today and you know this point hit home this week watching the violence on the news about the dispute between israel and the palestinians fighting about who has the divine right to the promised land in the middle east but as jesus explained to the woman in samaria he says woman believe me the hour is coming but neither on this mountain nor in jerusalem will you worship the father you know as christians we know the meeting point between god and man is no longer a place

[12:01] whether a reconstructed temple or a geographic area in the middle east instead it's the meeting point between god and man is a risen and reigning and soon returning person the lord jesus christ who will bring new heavens and new earth christians don't need to travel to jerusalem to commune with god but second let's take a let's take the objection that god of the new testament is different than the old testament the new testament does not have any ethical reservations about the conquest of the canaanites at all you know in fact jesus name is the greek version of the hebrew name joshua so think about that god himself wanted the incarnate son of god to have the same name as the person who conquered israel's enemies and led the people into the promised land so something about joshua what he did tells us something important about jesus and hebrews teaches us that joshua's conquering was just a shadow of what jesus himself comes to the true and better joshua who conquered the greatest enemy god's wrath against sin led his people back to the promised land and secured the long-awaited rest for god's people next let's take up the charge of genocide and the fact is god is not some racist here race and ethnicity were irrelevant this had everything to do with idolatry though back in genesis chapter 15 verse 16 when the lord promised to give abraham his descendants the land of canaan he said that there would be delay of 400 years because quote the iniquity of the amorites is not yet complete and this iniquity is detailed for us actually in leviticus 18 the iniquity god is referring to were wicked sexual practices of incest and bestiality after saying that god's people must not engage in these things the text reads that god punished the iniquity and the land vomited out its inhabitants so in some way not only did god but even the land itself rejected the people and you remember god gave the canaanites at least 400 years to repent and they refused to do so and later on in joshua we learned that the people welcomed rahab an ethnic canaanite once she bowed her knee to the god of israel and rahab is included in the hall of faith in hebrews 11 as a as as an example to us and a faith in new testament which doesn't make sense if god hated ethnic canaanites so to say this is genocide is to not understand what's happening here and then finally this judgment of the surrounding nations is a dim picture of the final judgment for those who refuse to turn from their sins moses was to offer some of these cities terms of surrender and and realize even offering terms of surrender was another chance for these canines to repent and if they didn't accept those terms god will destroy them so let's get getting back to deuteronomy the main verse summarizing this entire section is chapter 4 verse 35 which says to you it was shown that you might know that the lord is god there is no other besides him know therefore today and lay it to your heart the lord is god in heaven above and on earth beneath there is no other moses continues therefore you shall keep his statutes and his commandments which i command you today that it may go well with you and with your children after you that you may prolong your days in the land the lord your god has given you for all time so that's the history god has been gracious and that's the charge therefore follow god alone so what will it look like for the people to obey that charge once they're in god's land in the land god tells them by giving them the covenant stipulations in the next section so these general stipulations of the covenant begin in chapter 5 and run through chapter 11

[16:05] so if you turn to chapter 5 you'll see a restatement of the ten commandments now one of the central aspects of this book is that it helps us to understand the role of the law and of grace in our salvation you know some people have said that in the old testament people are saved by works and in the new by grace but we know that's not true romans 3 makes it clear that salvation has only and ever been by grace and we see the relationship laid out in deuteronomy is by grace alone at the heart of the ten commandments is a story of love look at chapter 6 verses 4 to 6 hear oh 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 and these words that i command you today shall be on your hearts this is the famous shema which is the hebrew word for here when jesus was asked what commandment is the most important of all in mark 12 jesus quotes the shema the most important thing for the israelites to hear to shema is that yahweh is one god he is the only god and the proper response to yahweh is the total and exclusive worship of his people and this looks like the commandment to be upon their hearts which the israelite would have understood the heart to be the mind will emotions everything on the inside of a person israel was to engage with its covenant god in total exclusive love but and here's the thing they were to love god because god had loved them first listen to these amazing words about god's election or his unilateral love for his people just a chapter later in chapter 7 verses 7 to 8 god says this 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 the fewest of all peoples but it is because the because the lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swords 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 god did not love them because of anything good within them it was simply because he just loved them their relationship with god was entirely based on god's grace you know ephesians 1 says the same thing it says blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ who has blessed us in christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world so if you're here and you love the lord jesus christ now granted our love isn't perfect it falls short but if you love him sincerely that's because god has loved you first what an encouragement you love god by first tasting that gracious electing love toward us and one other thing to notice about the relationship between law and grace here it's important to notice the timing of when the law is given so in deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 6 god first reminded the people that he saved them from egypt out of the land of slavery before he revealed his covenant law to them and this is an important pattern that is found throughout the bible salvation always comes before obedience put in another way the indicatives in the bible always come before the imperatives the indicative refers to god's great work of salvation to save his people and the imperative refers to the call of obedience to live in light of god's saving work so if you're new to read the bible this is absolutely essential saint always tries to reverse the order and tell and try and try to convince us that obedience leads to salvation but we are justified by faith and faith alone now as just like back then so another prominent theme in chapters 5 to 11 is moses teaching the israelites about the nature and danger of idolatry so what comes to mind when you hear the word idolatry

[20:12] wood carvings statues perhaps moses helps the people to understand the essence of the idolatry and it's this it's anything that rivals the exclusive worship of yahweh idolatry is inclining our hearts to anything before god that's why moses instructs the people to destroy foreign idols in chapter 7 that idolatry can even look like worshiping our own self-righteousness or our ability to amass wealth to never forget god's faithfulness and to remember that idolatry is deadly in chapters 8 through 9 and here moses helps to identify what is counterfeit idolatrous worship that is man-made religion and the true worship of the god of israel and and it's this the true god can be heard but he cannot be seen whereas idols can be seen but they cannot be heard the true god can be heard but he cannot be seen whereas idols can be seen but cannot be heard remember the famous shaman chapter 6 is calling for the israelites to hear the emphasis is on israelites to hear god's words and it's the same today faith comes by hearing in hearing through the word of christ romans will say faith comes by shemaing so even today hearing the word of god by faith is what we do as christians true worship of the triune god always emphasizes the priority of the preaching of god's word and the importance for christians to hear that preached word the proclamation of the word so it's not some clever idea that someone came up with at one point this has always been a defining and distinctive mark of god's people the way we're able to know him to love him to believe him are only through his words you know it's interesting to notice the means by which god was to be worshipped in deuteronomy yes think about it that second commandment the lord clearly forbade the making of any carved images in any form but in chapter 27 the lord commanded people to get a big stone put plaster all over it and then to write the laws on it and display it publicly for everyone to see so it's almost as if god's law is better at depicting his character than a form than you and i could fashion with your own hands and the words that inscribe on the rock help the people to know their god and moses continues to explain why idolatry is dangerous not only what it is chapter 4 verse 23 23 says be careful not to forget the covenant of the lord your god that he made with you do not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything that the lord your god has forbidden for the lord your god is a consuming fire a jealous god what does it mean when it says that god is a jealous god you know some people have said that they cannot worship the god of the bible when they hear that god is jealous of them but is that what this means that god is jealous of us no scripture consistently views god's jealousy as an aspect of his covenant love for his people that's why in other places like in the book of hosea the worship of idols is likened to spiritual adultery provoking god's jealousy and vengeance you know john calvin i think hit the nail on the head when he explained it this way the lord very frequently addresses us in the character of a husband as he performs all the offices of a true and faithful husband so he requires love and chastity from us that is we do not prosecute ourselves to satan as the pure and chaste her husband is the more grievously he is offended when he sees his wife inclining to a rival so like a husband loves his wife god loves his people with a jealous love and if you look over the cut the section of the covenant stipulations you see a

[24:14] critical part of loving god is obeying that first commandment having no other gods than him so what is idolatry according to the book this book when moses says that the people shall love the lord your god with all your hearts in the shema what it ultimately comes down to is what we treasure the most the covenant demanded that god was to be enjoyed as the people's supreme treasure that's what it means to love god john piper i think when let's explain it this way which i think fairly summarizes deuteronomy's teaching on this so what is it sin is this the glory of god not honored the holiness of god not reverence the greatness of god not admired the power of god not praised the truth of god not sought the wisdom of god not esteemed the beauty of god not treasured the goodness of god not savor the faithfulness of god not trusted the promises of god not believed the commandments of god not obeyed the justice of god not respected the wrath of god not feared the grace of god not cherish the presence of god not prize the person of god not love that is the nature of sin and idolatry god will not share his glory with worthless idols god demanded that israel pursue their highest joy in god anything less is sin which leads to idolatry so in one of the striking i think verses in this whole book is later on in chapter 28 verse 47 the people were cursed because quote you did not serve the lord your god with joyfulness and gladness of heart you might say well that's not fair we can't control our emotions how can joyful service be commanded in the covenant the old covenant well god has the right to command anything that is right for us to do and i think here is where we begin to see the nature of the law in deuteronomy the law was not a to-do list instead the law demanded perfection on the ever on everything on the inside of a person romans 8 verse 7 8 says this about the law the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to god for it doesn't submit to god's law indeed it cannot and those who are in the flesh cannot please god i will submit to you that those who are in the flesh cannot find their ultimate joy in god they cannot serve him joyfully in light of who yahweh is it is impossible to find our joy in god we must revere him savor his attributes his love his power his sovereignty his mercy his holiness and let's face it friends the natural person doesn't revere god the natural person resists god it's here where i think the law acts as a mirror the more you stare at the law the more you realize that something profound must change on the inside of us to really do what the law is telling us to do and as we need to be born again we need new hearts which is actually something god says he will give us later in this book praise god so what hope is there for lawbreakers to commune with the holy god i mean israel we need to look away from the law at this point the sacrifices in the Torah i mean the presence of the book of leviticus presupposes that people would break the law right i mean they would need to look at the calendar of israel the blood sprinkled on the mercy seat on the day of atonement the yearly remembering of the passover lamb the constant sacrifices and offerings of the temple later on that mysterious suffering servant of isaiah 53 that would take away the people god would one day solve the problem of sin through a sacrifice and a pattern is being established in the torah for this so with this guiding principle of loving faithfulness and the danger

[28:14] of idolatry in place moses then explains a specific stipulation of the covenant for the nation's life in the promised land chapters 12 to 26 for the most part you can think of this section as an exposition of the 10 commandments and you'll see in the back of your handout it shows how the 10 commandments correspond to specific stipulations moses starts out with a general principle in chapter 12 verse 1 by saying these are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the lord the god of your fathers has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth the point of these 15 chapters is this that as god's people in god's land they will worship god alone reflect god's holiness you represent god's justice but despite this straightforward purpose this is one of the hardest sections to interpret as christians why well there are a lot of commands that don't really seem to apply to us but for example chapters 12 to 13 talk about how to destroy foreign idols and the lord's chosen place to worship for people to make their sacrifices and burnt offerings chapters 14 and onward talk about clean and unclean food tithing lending and borrowing practices national feasts and the basic structure of israel's government so if you're reading deuteronomy in your devotional time this is where you start asking yourself like how am i to make sense of all these laws like what does it have to do anything with me and here are some basic points to help us with this section first it's helpful to keep in mind the basic structure that these specific stipulations are essentially expositions of the 10th commandment so for example the sixth commandment to not murder corresponds with chapters 19 so if you turn to chapter 19 there it's distinguishing between premeditated murder and what we'd understand as involuntary manslaughter where you unintendedly kill someone without a motive there's a law about not moving landmarkers but it's positioned among the laws about not murdering may be intended to stress the life and death nature of moving boundary markers in an agricultural society so the principle to not murder means positively to seek the good of your neighbor and preserve his life by protecting by respecting boundary markers there's a law about needing two or three witnesses to establish that someone has committed a crime um so in a way to not murder means positively protecting the innocent from being convicted and lastly there's the much malign eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth and in the context it's clear this is referring to what we would say the punishment must fit the crime so there's a proportionality requirement in the law in many ways it meant over punishing a crime so when jesus said you've heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth but i tell you do not resist the evil person if someone slaps you on the cheek turn the other cheek as well jesus here is correcting a misapplication of the law so the law meant to restrain judicial excessive punishment not justify personal retaliation as some said in jesus day but seeing how the commandments correspond uh the chapters correspond to the 10 commandments helps but it doesn't get us all the way there because we don't know how to apply them today so here are three suggestions that will help us interpret the laws first every law tells us something about the law giver every law contains a principle that tells us something about god himself in john chapter 5 verse 39 jesus claims that the old testament bears witness about me it's his portrait so to speak so for example in deuteronomy chapter 2 verse 11 it forbids the israelites from mixing wool and linen in the same article of clothing to remind them about god's holiness and the distinct the nation's distinctness from the world we don't have to obey that law today but it does tell us something important about god second we must remember what stage of redemptive

[32:16] history we are in as it's been said here god is fulfilling his promise to abraham by establishing israel as his special people to set the stage for christ god is here setting israel apart and they're the holy nation in which the messiah would descend from so when reading these laws remember god is giving these laws to israel in a specific point in history that we are in a different stage of redemptive history but it doesn't mean the law is irrelevant the law reveals god's flawless character and exposes our need for a savior as martin luther said once the principal purpose of the law in theology is to make men not better but worse that is it shows them their sin that by the recognition of their sin they may be humbled frightened worn down and so may long for grace and for the blessed offspring so here we need a mediator to keep these laws for us jesus said in matthew 5 verse 17 that he didn't come to abolish the law and said he came to fulfill it now in one sense he fulfilled it by obeying it perfectly and so deuteronomy chapter 27 verse 26 says cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them because jesus was the only one who did them he's the only one not under a curse so he's able to die in our place bearing our curse that we may be set free from the curse of the law so the law should increase our appreciation of jesus because he kept every one of these laws and lastly the distinction as tim mentioned a few weeks ago between civil ceremonial and moral laws is helpful here the civil laws apply to the political nation of israel to preserve civil order and restrain sin the ceremonial laws dealt with israel's temple sacrifices and national feasts so those were the shadows shadows pointing ahead to christ so they are no longer buying on christians for example the law is about clean unclean food like we see in deuteronomy chapter 14 and the new testament mark 7 acts 10 teach that christians do not need to follow those rules they are part of the ceremonial law the moral laws however are not limited to an ethnic state and are repeated or even amplified in the new testament so like do not murder are valid for christians today so although there is some interpretive heavy lifting that is needed may we say with the psalmist that blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the sea of the scoffers but his delight is in the law of the lord and on his law who meditates day and night so as we move ahead to the second to last section in chapters 27 to 33 and the blessings of the cup of the covenant and the curses of the covenant is broken we see that god's standards are sky high we learn that life and death are at stake in choosing whether to obey the covenant so if israel devotes themselves to wholeheartedly and trust of yahweh then turn to deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 10 to 11 it says this and the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the lord and they shall be afraid of you and the lord will make you abound in prosperity in the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground within the lord the lord swore your fathers to give you sounds good on the other hand if they are not faithful it is as if creation itself will disintegrate and collapse upon them and ominously the list of curses is much longer than the list of blessings so some of the some of it reads cursed are you in the field cursed are you in the city cursed are you when you come in and when you go out the lord will send on you curses confusion frustration wasting disease drought famine the lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies the lord will strike you with madness and blindness infusion of minds the greatest

[36:16] curse of all exile from the promised land listen to chapter 28 verses 36 37 the lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone and you shall become a whore a proverb and a byword among all the peoples where the lord will lead you away all these curses will come upon you they will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the lord your god and observe the commandments and decrees he gave you so if you're listening to moses we'd be quaking right now this isn't for the faint of heart now i'd probably collapse you know i'm in the back collapsing because of all the curses that are happening here and deuteronomy actually is very realistic about the people's likelihood of keeping the demands of the covenant in fact in chapters 29 to 30 moses directly tells the people that they will fall short that the reason in chapter 29 verse 4 is that but to this day the lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear so the people could only keep the covenant if they're given new hearts and only god can do that but the last part of deuteronomy are some astounding promises of grace and mercy that give the people some hope god promises restoration for those who repent of breaking the covenant and chapter 30 verses 2 to 3 when you return to the lord your god you and your children and obey his voice and all that i command you today with all your heart and with all your soul then the lord your god will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the lord your god has scattered you if only they would repent and trust in god's promises so this is a message of hope for those of those of us who feel weighed down in our sin and second god promises a new heart to his people and back and back in chapter 10 verse 16 the lord commanded people to circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no longer stubborn he wasn't talking about mere externalities the lord is after inward transformation so refreshing news in chapter 30 verse 6 moses declares that even after people go into exile for the disobedience the lord your god will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul that you may live so god does for his people what we are unable to do on our own he will transform their hearts you know jesus would tell nicodemus you are israel's teacher yet you don't understand that one must be born again from the beginning moses told you that god needs to give the people a new heart and naturally our hearts are dead in sin and dead hearts just like dead bodies need to be resurrected to have life god needs to sovereignly regenerate a person's heart before anyone can ever choose to follow god as ephesians 2 says we were dead in our sins before god made us alive in christ god's spirit is the one who changed us so radically that we desire to choose life which is the final plea that moses makes in deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 19 so as we conclude in chapters 31 to 34 remember this is a book of transitions the people now have affirmed god's covenant and now they're preparing to transition into the promised land as moses transitions transfers the authority of joshua but in another sense though the whole bible is transitioning as the torah the books of moses have come to an end so now we wait and see in the next books of history and prophets prophecy exactly how these blessings and curses and promises of grace will play out but before that happens god offers a preview of their future so that the people will be without excuse when they fail to trust him he does this through the song of moses in chapter 32 in fact as you study the old testament it's a

[40:20] great chapter to continue to come back to because in many ways it's a sneak preview for the hundreds of years that are to come in israel's history in it moses looks ahead to future israel and says this you were unmindful of the rock that bore you and you forgot the god who gave you birth john edwards's famous sermon sinners in the hands of an angry god preached in infill connecticut is based on this section addressed to unfaithful israel in chapters 32 verse 35 where the lord said vengeance is mine and recompense for the time when their foot shall slip for the day their day of calamity is at hand and their doom comes swiftly unlike some parents god does not make empty threats and that is a lesson israel had to learn the hard way in the exile but praise the lord israel's unfaithfulness will not be the last word look at deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 43 after the exile god will avenge the blood of his servants and make atonement for his land and people a promise of atonement so the tone here is moses blessed the tribes in chapters 33 and even as he breathes his last breath in chapters 34 is one of hopeful expectations in trusting god's grace god will make all wrongs right god will atone for his people this covenant will not be the last a new covenant is coming and that is the hope that propels the rest of the old testament forward and so what we see here just in a macro sense is that while mosaic covenant required obedience from the people the bedrock gracious disposition toward israel is the covenant that god made with abraham which was an unconditional promise of grace so what is deuteronomy is it a covenant works or is the covenant of grace well it's both isn't it it's the great riddle of the old testament so and to figure out how it all sort of reaches the climax you're gonna have to read the rest of the old and new testament um and as we close there's one more thing in the final verses of deuteronomy that should strengthen our hope in this covenant making and covenant keeping god first turn back quickly to deuteronomy chapters 18 verse 18 in this verse god promises that in the future i will raise up for them a prophet like you moses from among their brothers and i will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that i command him so a prophet who speaks only god's words a prophet even greater than moses and praise god we know that prophet he is jesus christ the word of god made flesh who spoke all that the father gave him to say and confirmed his messages through miracles and ultimately the resurrection and just as the great prophet moses was the mediator of the covenant in deuteronomy the greater prophet jesus is the mediator of a new covenant by his blood so jesus christ in the new covenant takes the mosaic covenant curses in one hand by becoming a curse for us for it is written cursed is anyone who curses everyone who is hanged on a tree so in the language of deuteronomy chapter 27 at the cross the father was saying this to his own son but never said jesus cursed are you because you cast a metal image and the father would say amen jesus cursed are you because you've dishonored your father and your mother and the father said amen jesus cursed are you because you've led the blind astray on the road and the father said amen and jesus cursed are you for withholding justice for the foreigner fatherless and the widow and the father said amen jesus bore the weight of the curse for you and the new covenant and in the new covenant jesus with his other hand gives the eternal blessings that only he deserves forever secured by the resurrection so as second corinthians says for our sake

[44:22] he that is the father made him jesus to be sin who knew no sin so that in jesus we might become the righteousness of god so we see the new covenant is building off jesus keeping the conditions of the covenant that god made with moses for his people um so we have about 10 minutes for questions um so thank you for staying with me everyone uh people on the zoom if you guys want to ask a question in the chat there's a lot in this book so yes sorry oh yes uh the where uh chapter 30 verses two to three yeah he will restore your fortunes and he will gather you again from the peoples from where you're scattered uh uh in that um i'm sorry i was late uh i was wondering if you uh talked about uh the outline of the covenant as we have in deuteronomy compared to the outline of the you know king and uh subject the uh uh structures that that existed at different times than the ancient near east yes yeah i think we may have got to that right before you walked in oh okay no it's uh but the the covenant document of deuteronomy mirrors what the covenant documents look like in the ancient near east and it follows the formula that would have existed um in the ancient near east and there's five parts uh the historical context of the covenant which is chapters one to four uh identifying the parties of the covenant the stipulations of a term to the agreement fourth the blessings of the covenant is followed and the curses of it's broken and lastly the provisions for continuing the covenant so that kind of follows the outline for deuteronomy yep um uh some of the you know higher critical uh argument uh is that ah this you know isn't historical in the sense that uh you know this didn't happen between moses and israel this covenant didn't was given by god back around 1200 bc or 1400 bc it was uh written later by people who you know wanted to invent you know a history and the uh faith of the old testament as we have in the bible right but the uh the covenant structure that we have here doesn't come you know from uh you know 500 bc when supposedly these people would have made up uh this story no it's the covenant structure that existed back you know about 1200 or 1500 bc and so yeah it's uh it leads to be no it's a great point uh a strong argument but the historicity of uh the old testament that happened as it did because if they were going to make this up you know they would have had to go to the library to find out let's see what would the structure of the covenant have been uh a thousand years ago yeah um that's a great point let's think to point that out and you know it yeah

[48:23] for those who aren't familiar people argue that this book was written way after moses like around the king of times king josiah because they're already like they're they're trying to make sense of the exile and like king and israel's rebellion and so higher critical scholars will say that it was written thousands of years out a thousand years afterwards but that's because the higher critical scholars aren't willing to accept that god knows the future he knows how this is all going to turn out um and so there's certain assumptions that they're making when they can't accept mosaic authorship and like you're right matt it's the covenant format follows exactly what we would expect to see during the time of moses so that's why i say i think mosaic and the rest of the scriptures um say that moses wrote this book i'll go with that i'll go with the scriptures on this one any questions about some law in there that you're like just makes sense of this law in deuteronomy i didn't get into all of them but there's some there's some ones in there that are hard to understand i got a quick question or comment really really yeah yeah just just a footnote on the discussion there about the historicity of deuteronomy uh there's a prevailing theory in in academic circles about you know multiple authors redacting and changing uh the the law of moses so on and so forth that you guys were referring to just just a quick footnote to say simply that there's actually been a lot of recently there's been a lot of scholarly pushback on that so um a lot of those arguments just don't hold the water they used to 10 years ago even so just i haven't uh if someone wants a source on that we can talk about that offline but just just an fyi that's not the compelling theory that it once was a few even a decade ago so there it is great thank you i just encourage that archaeology and and scholarship always ends up on the side of the bible like you know faithful scholarship will affirm what god has been saying one of the laws uh that i appreciate is the law that uh a runaway slave is not to be returned uh to his master and of course our country has you know this horrible history you know with slavery and then uh uh you know we make mistakes like this i make mistakes like this today but uh you know arguing i think i think that uh the bible talks slavery you know some christians uh argued 100 300 years ago and then totally ignoring uh a law like that which would have you know made you know sort of transformed uh our history if in fact the opposing law actually was put into practice in the united states because you had to return yeah uh slaves to their mess was that first simothy uh passage about not kidnapping someone that may have helped too um

[52:24] yeah i think the chat the chattel slavery that we had in this country you know i heard this recently that the miracle of the bible is that the slaveholders god is the same god as a slave and like that is such a monumental um change in how the slave holding the slave were to relate to each other um and you see that in uh in paul's letter so it's like they're brothers now like you're a brother now with you know so treat him treat him well so uh any further questions and then not all okay i mean i mean um father in heaven lord thank you for your word um lord we pray that you would sanctify us by sanctify us by your truth lord because your word is truth and in your word we see who you are i pray that you give us a greater appetite for your word so that we would commune with you um and that we would become more like your son jesus uh who loved the word um because he loved you i pray this in jesus name amen