Untitled Sermon (13)

Historically Significant

For a priest to be ordained in the early Coptic church, he needed to memorize big sections from Paul, the gospels, the Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy.

The first four of these make sense to most Christians but Deuteronomy? Why make the priest memorize that book?

When the apostles turned to the OT to explain Jesus and why he came, the top three books they turned to were the Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy.

Their pattern came from the Master: Jesus himself quoted these three books more than any other. But why those three?

Common Misconceptions

Ask yourself candidly: is Deuteronomy for you an exciting, inviting, go-to book for spiritual insight and growth?

If we have yet to grasp what’s so great about Deuteronomy, it may be that we have misconceived it.

The following three misconceptions will kill just about anybody’s desire to read the book, let alone treasure it.

Misconception #1: Deuteronomy is a book of old, dusty laws.

Actually, Deuteronomy is a book about grace. It’s written in light of God’s gracious promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and states that God is about to act on these promises and give them the promised land!

What Israel does (the laws) is their response to the main theme, what God does for them. And even though Israel will utterly fail

Deuteronomy 31:29 ESV

For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and turn aside from the way that I have commanded you. 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.”

Deuteronomy promises God’s grace will still triumph in the end

Deuteronomy 4:29–31 ESV

But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

Deuteronomy 30:1–10 ESV

“And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in 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 your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. And 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 and with all your soul, that you may live. And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today. The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. For the Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

By the way, God’s laws are not boring or restrictive. They are the foundation of life of a joyful life. Have you ever read about the mandatory party in

Deuteronomy 14:22–29 ESV

“You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household. And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you. “At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. And the Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do.

Misconception #2: Deuteronomy does not apply to us any more.

Quick, someone tell Paul; he apparently hasn’t gotten the message yet, since he’s always applying Deuteronomy to us (Rom. 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:13; 9:9).

It’s true that Christians are no longer under the Old Covenant (Eph. 2:15; Heb 8:13), and we need to account for the differences between the Old and the New Covenants.

This difference does not negate the authoritative revelation Deuteronomy gives us about God and its application.

In addition to wanting to know him better, do you wish you were better at loving others?

The largest section of Deuteronomy (Deut. 12–26) gives unparalleled wisdom about how to love God and neighbor with all that we are.

The greatest commandment comes from Deuteronomy 6:5 and is still binding on Christians (Matt. 22:37)!

Misconception #3: It’s hard to understand.

Actually, Moses spoke these words as his farewell sermon to all Israel. As a good preacher, he meant it to be understood by everyone!

Deuteronomy uses plain language, even if some passages are confusing as to how we should apply them.

Knowing Deuteronomy Is a Matter of Life and Death

If I told you to study Deuteronomy because it would strengthen your walk with Christ, I would utterly undersell the book’s vital importance. Knowing Deuteronomy is a matter of life and death.

1. Without it, entire books of the OT will remain obscure to you.

Why does God send drought, foreign raiders, and eventually exile to his people in 1–2 Kings? The answer is in Deuteronomy 28.

Why does God put his words in Jeremiah’s mouth, rebuke his people with white-hot anger, and then announce a new covenant which has the law written on the heart? The answers are in Deuteronomy 18, 29, and 30.

Entire books have been termed “deuteronomic” (especially Joshua–2 Kings, Jeremiah, Hosea, Amos, and Zephaniah) because they quote Deuteronomy repeatedly.

Daniel Block says, “The authors of these books all read the same textbook in school—Deuteronomy!”

2. Israel in Deuteronomy is facing the same core temptations that you are.

Do you sometimes doubt whether God is for real, or does a close friend make you doubt? Deuteronomy identifies the battle for your heart in Deuteronomy 13.

Do you struggle with pride when you think about your successes? So did Israel: see Deuteronomy 9.

How often have your possessions taken precedence over prayer? Moses anticipated this in Deuteronomy 8 and Deuteronomy 31.

Do you wish God were more manageable, and not so complex and hard to understand? See Deuteronomy 4 and its profound reflections on the unseen God.

Do you struggle against cutting corners in your work or with money? See Deuteronomy 16.

Or perhaps you have very exacting standards for others and struggle to have patience with them? See Deuteronomy 24.

Are you timid around people when God calls you to be brave? See Deuteronomy 1.

The entire book inoculates us against this idolatry and instills loyalty for the true God. Do you think there might be a reason why Jesus quoted Deuteronomy three times when Satan tried to tempt him (Luke 4:1–13)?

3. The Christian’s place in history mirrors that of Israel.

We too have been delivered decisively from bondage (they from Egypt; we from Satan). We too need guidance for how to live in light of our new redeemed identity.

And we too need to impart this identity to our children (Deut. 6:20–25). The oft-repeated phrase “that it may go well with you” reminds us that God gave us Deuteronomy so we would thrive.

4. Deuteronomy is Christian Scripture.

It exalts Jesus Christ, crucified and raised as our only hope against sin. Seeing Jesus in Deuteronomy takes practice, but he is everywhere.

He’s the true king, who did not capitulate to the compromises of sin (contrast, for example, Solomon in 1 Kings 11 in light of

Deuteronomy 17:14–20 ESV

“When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold. “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.

Israel is the failed son, who forsook every fatherly warning in Deuteronomy, but Jesus is the true Son who obeyed where Israel failed.

Notwithstanding his innocence, he became a curse in our place us by enduring exile from God’s presence and dying on the tree

Deuteronomy 21:23 ESV

his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

This is further seen in Deuteronomy 28:15–68.

And by his cursed death, he became the mediator better than Moses, who opened the way for the new covenant, with its promised circumcision of the heart

Deuteronomy 30:6 ESV

And 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 and with all your soul, that you may live.

Jeremiah 31:33 ESV

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

At the climax of Moses’ sermon, he says, “So choose life!”

Deuteronomy 30:19 ESV

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

Deuteronomy is still a life-and-death book for Christians, urging us today to choose genuine life: the life that saturation in God’s word imparts; the life that sin can never give; the abundant life that is found in Jesus Christ alone.

Conclusion

Deuteronomy is the mountain at the center of the Old Testament. Everything in the Pentateuch leads up to it, with its climactic renewal of God’s covenant relationship with his people.

And everything in the rest of the OT flows out from it: the blessings of the land (Joshua–1 Kings), the curses of the covenant (2 Kings–Malachi), and the subsequent need for a savior.

And at the top of the mountain is none other than the God of Deuteronomy, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When such breathtaking heights beckon, won’t you climb this mountain with me?