Look Back, Looking Forward (Deut 11:1-7, 18-20; 1 Sam 7:12)

God’s promise to Abraham: (1) People, (2) Place, (3) Progeny. Genesis takes Abraham and Sarah from 2 to 70 and moves them from Canaan to Egypt. Exodus turns the 70 to 7 figures (millions), but also turns the place of their salvation into the place of their slavery. 400 years of slavery in a foreign land but God had faithfully turned a barren women and her elderly husband into a fruitful and numerous nation. Promise #1 kept.

Israel is a nation, but displaced and enslaved. Promise #2 is the Place, the promised land. God raises up Moses to lead his people. Moses floats down the river in a basket, hides from a genocide, and joins the royal family by adoption, growing up as the grandson of Pharaoh, Jewish enemy #1. 1 Burning bush, 2 brothers, 10 plagues, 1 red sea later… and Israel is a free people on their way to the promised place. 1 golden calf, 2 stone tablets, 10 commandments, and 40 years in the sand later… and Israel is on the border of the PLACE, the promised land.

As they camp right off the border, Moses, their flawed, but faithful leader gives them a swan song, a final speech. He disobeyed the Lord along the way (Num 20; Deut 1:37; Deut 3:23-29) and will not be permitted to enter the land, so the border is as far as he goes. He takes this final chance to give his parting words to the people. “Deuteronomy” literally means “second law.” He reads the word of God again before the people to remind them of how faithful God has been to His promises and how they must always trust him to be faithful in the future. But if they forget God and his covenant with them, they will perish just as all the other nations before them.

We may often think, “what would I do today if I knew I would die tomorrow?” Today we will see Moses’ choice of who to be with and what to say to them just before he dies and God uses another leader, Joshua to take them into the promised land. Fulfilling the second of three promises to Abraham, a PEOPLE taken to their PLACE.

Our passage today is not the specific words of the law of God, but rather what Moses wants Israel to do with those words. It is a difficult time: Moses knows he will die. Israel knows he cannot go with them. Canaan (the promised land) must be first conquered. Joshua is the new leader taking Israel into a new season. Great changes are at hand. Great tolls will be extracted. Great pressure will be applied. Great faith will be required. WITH ISRAEL: Nothing is easy. Nothing is normal. Nothing is certain. Nothing is predictable. BUT WITH GOD: Nothing has been forgotten. Nothing has changed.

It is to this unchanged God and the promises of His word that Moses calls these people in these uncertain times. They are at the beginning and they have a chance to start fresh and grow, but it can also be a chance to fall farther away from God than they have before. Today’s passage is he plea and instruction to Israel for faithfulness to a deserving God who has never failed even this undeserving people Israel.

Transition: When you have worked your entire life toward one goal, it feels necessary, just before you go, to give your final plea to see if your message will stick and if it was all worth it.

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*READ PASSAGE*

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Moses’ Big Events/Decision Points

Barbaric Infanticide

Introduction as Moses getting to the border, asking God to go in, God says no, Moses knows he will soon die, Moses must reflect on his decisions, his life, and God’s role in it, Moses communicates his final words to God’s people. We think of near death experiences as tragedies that overtake us suddenly and unexpectedly, but Moses’ near death experience was predictable and imminent. He saw it coming and prepared accordingly, weighing the decisions and works of his life in order to craft his final words to God’s people. This passage is the beginning of those final words.

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