Deuteronomy 29-30 - The Covenant in Moab (Part 2)
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Last Sunday night we began to look at the second part of Moses’ third sermon in Deuteronomy, which is his final exhortation to Israel to keep the covenant they have made with YHWH (chs 29-30).
Moses began by recounting God’s past grace toward Israel, Israel’s need to obey God in the present, and the promise of future prosperity if Israel did indeed obey God.
Moses reminded them that they were God’s people and that they all—corporately and individually—were entering into this covenant with God.
No one should think that he would be able to disobey God and be at peace with God just because they belonged to the people of God—the Israelites.
If any Israelite lived that way, curses would come on both the individual and the people of God in the Promised Land.
Deuteronomy 29:22ff imagines that all these curse have occured and imagines how future generations and surrounding nations might respond.
Listen…
[READING - Deuteronomy 29:22-28]
22 “Now the generation to come, your sons who rise up after you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, will say, 23 ‘All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath.’ 24 “All the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ 25 “Then men will say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt. 26 ‘They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods whom they have not known and whom He had not allotted to them. 27 ‘Therefore, the anger of the Lord burned against that land, to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book; 28 and the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’
[PRAYER]
[TS] In those verses we just heard, let’s notice The Curses, The Questions, and The Answer…
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
#1: The Curses, The Questions, and The Answer (Deuteronomy 29:22-28)
#1: The Curses, The Questions, and The Answer (Deuteronomy 29:22-28)
[EXP] God had set before His people blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. If those choose disobedience, this is what those curses will look like: plagues, diseases, brimstone and salt, burning waste, barren and bare, “like the overthrown of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and in His wrath,” (Gen. 29:23b).
You might remember how Sodom and Gomorrah were described before God’s wrath fell on them. When Lot chose to go live near those cities, Genesis 13:10 says…
10 Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar.
Sodom and Gomorrah and neighboring cities like Admah Zeboiim were fruitful, prosperous cities before they rebelled against God and God’s anger was poured out.
Then, those cities were just a wasteland.
The Promised Land was to be a land flowing with milk and honey so long as God’s people were obedient, but if they rebelled the Promised Land could become a wasteland just like Sodom and Gomorrah.
If that happen future generations and people from other nations would ask, as you see in Deuteronomy 29:24…
24 “All the nations will say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’
Notice that there isn’t any question about who would deal out those curses if they were dealt out. The question is why.
Would it be because God is a bad God prone to outbursts of anger?
No.
This would only happen if His people rebelled against Him.
Verses 25-26 detail what that rebellion would look like.
The people of God would forsake their covenant with God despite God’s grace toward them.
The particular way they would forsake that covenant would be by idolatry—worshipping and serving other gods that were not allotted to them.
Only YHWH was allotted to Israel. Therefore, Israel should only worship Him.
That would be the cause of God’s anger on Israel and the Promised Land if God’s anger came upon them; that would be the cause of their uprooting or exile if they were exiled.
If Israel experienced the curses, it would be because of Israel.
The responsibility would lie with them.
But as the Israelites heard this part of Moses’ sermon, it likely sounded to them like their rebellion and these curses were surely going to happen.
If that’s the case, why would God tell His people all about the blessings if He knew they were going to choose the curses? Verse 29 gives the answer…
29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.
Maybe it was inevitable that Israel was going to eventually choose the curses and experience them as God said, but only God knew if that was true or not. That was a secret thing that belonged to Him.
What was revealed at present was Israel’s responsibility to observe all the words of God’s law.
That’s where Israel’s focus needed to be.
[ILLUS] I was watching a military show once where an elite team of special forces operators had to raid this big airliner in order to rescue some hostages.
As they were getting ready, one operator hands a bulletproof vest to another, but the bulletproof vest is refused.
When the guy asked his teammate why he didn’t want the bulletproof vest, he said, “I don’t plan on getting shot.”
The only protection Israel needed to keep from getting hit by these curses was their own obedience.
If they would obey the Lord, they would be blessed and these curses would never touch them.
[APP] That’s actually true of everyone. If we all could have lived in perfect obedience to God from the beginning, the curse of sin and death would never have touched us…
…but that didn’t happen.
That’s why we need restoration.
[TS] Look at Deuteronomy 30…
#2: Return and Restoration (Deuteronomy 30:1-14)
#2: Return and Restoration (Deuteronomy 30:1-14)
1 “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you, 2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, 3 then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. 4 “If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. 5 “The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. 6 “Moreover the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live. 7 “The Lord your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. 8 “And you shall again obey the Lord, and observe all His commandments which I command you today. 9 “Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hand, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle and in the produce of your ground, for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers; 10 if you obey the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. 11 “For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. 12 “It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ 13 “Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?’ 14 “But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.
[EXP] At the beginning of Deuteronomy 30 it really seems that the potential curse of Israel’s exile will one day actually take place. But even if so, all hope wouldn’t be lost for the people of God.
If they returned to the Lord with all their heart and soul, obeying the commands of God’s law, then God would bring them back to the Promised Land. God would restore His people!
No Israelite would be too far gone to be restored!
God would prosper them, and this people who was set apart to God through circumcision of the flesh would be truly set apart to Him through circumcision of the heart!
All the curses would fall on their enemies, and Israel would be fruitful!
This would be Israel’s future even if Israel rebelled against God and experienced the curses earlier described so long as Israel repented.
God’s law was not too difficult for Israel. It wasn’t too high and lofty. It wasn’t too otherworldly.
It was very near them, in their mouth and in their heart, that they might observe it.
It would be better for Israel to learn that lesson before all the curses came upon them, but if they would learn it before, the pain of the curses would make a great teacher.
[ILLUS] I was talking with a mom once who was having trouble with her teenage son. She said he was having trouble at school. His teachers couldn’t make him do anything, and when she, his mother, tried to make him do his school work, he refused.
She asked him, “Son, don’t be embarrassed. You can tell me. Is it just too hard?”
He said, “No. It’s just dumb, and I’m not going to do it.”
If and when Israel rebelled against God’s law, it would be because God’s law was too hard for them.
It would be because they thought it was dumb and just decided not to do it.
[APP] But Romans tells us that we’ve all done this. The Israelites, i.e., the Jewish people, by rebelling against the law of God revealed by Moses and we Gentiles by rebelling against the law of God revealed by conscience. The result is that we all—Jew and Gentile alike—deserve to be exiled from the gracious presence of God.
But where we forsook God by rebelling against His law, Jesus was perfectly obedient.
In fact, the exile we deserved Jesus took on Himself as He was crucified outside of Jerusalem.
His resurrection from the dead means that the curse has been broken and restoration is available through faith in Him.
In Him, we love God with all our heart and soul.
In Him, God has circumcised our hearts.
In Him, the Word is even nearer than very near.
[TS] Let’s look at the rest of Deuteronomy 30…
#3: Choose Life (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
#3: Choose Life (Deuteronomy 30:15-20)
15 “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; 16 in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. 17 “But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 19 “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, 20 by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
[EXP] Moses set before the Israelites life and prosperity or death and adversity.
Life and prosperity would come from worshipping, serving, and obeying the Lord.
Death and adversity would come from worshipping, serving, and obeying the idols of men.
God’s creation is called upon to witness that this choice has been clearly set before Israel. The choice Israel should make is obvious.
It should choose life and live, love God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him so that they might live long in the land across the Jordan—the Promised Land, the land YHWH swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
[ILLUS] I was once talking to a father about his adolescent son. His son was in some trouble already but kept making decisions that got him into more trouble. The kid even understood that his bad decisions were making him miserable, but he went right on making them.
The right decisions, the good choices, were obvious, but this kid chose rebellion and misery instead.
The choice before Israel looks obvious at the end of Deuteronomy 30, but the rest of Israel’s history will show that the Israel never stuck with the right choice for very long.
Israel would consistently choose death and adversity.
Israel would choose to perish.
Israel would choose exile.
[APP] The hard heart chooses death and adversity. It chooses to perish. It chooses exile. And this is the choice that we all made.
When God said, “Choose life,” we all said, “No thanks,” but Jesus said yes for us through His perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection. Now we can say yes through faith in Him.
He is the resurrection and life.
Even here in Deuteronomy, “these (things) have been written so that (we) may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing (we) may have life in His name,” (John 20:31).
[TS]…
Conclusion
Conclusion
[PRAYER]