Today we dive into the book of Deuteronomy.
Let’s go back to the failure of Kadish Barnea. What should have taken 11 days takes 40 years. The 13 spies go into the land would come back with the bad report. And of course, then they try to recover from it, which is a gross violation of what God intended, and that failure at Kadish Barnea will cost them 40 years of wandering.
The devastating disobedience, interestingly, is recorded without spin.
If you go to the British Museum they have these enormous rock carvings that the Assyrians tell the story of what they did to the Israelites. And it corroborates the story of Isaiah, it corroborates the kings of Assyria, but but when they record it, they don’t record what happens to them on the negative side of the chart.
And so we get this terrible story at Kadish Barnea, the terrible consequences of 40 years in the wilderness.
For Christians and Jews alike, to understand the consequence of violating God’s command is really one of the sub themes of this book.
By the time Israel will transition, this book will go from Moses to Joshua. Most of you know the story pretty well. And during this last section of Deuteronomy, we’ll talk about what’s going on more than just a second law-giving. Remember everyone 20 years and over is going to die in the wilderness. So you do the math. 59-year -olds are the oldest people going into the promised land. And obviously they had children along the wandering period.
Remember: The wandering was a long procession of funeral services in the wilderness.
A lot of people died. So everybody over 20 is going to perish because of the failure at Kadesh Barnea. So this younger group of 59 year olds, and there’s two outliers: Joshua and Caleb, both in their 80s scripture records, and they of course, will be the elder statesman, who will lead this–Joshua being the front piece, Caleb being sort of the Abishai, the guy that still fighting that still believes God is still going to take the land. And for many, a great name sake, by the way to be a Caleb, because of all that God has done through that story.
The English title is arguably a mistranslation. It was pulled from Deuteronomy 17:18. The way the translators chose this title was by this phrase “write himself a copy.” It’s a very important passage, because what’s happening there is the Levitical priests have to oversee, let’s just use David, David transcribing.
The first five books, remember, we talked about the Pentateuch, the first five books, think of it more like five chapters as opposed to five books, because there’s continuity. And for the most part, this is the law. When we refer to the Torah or the law, we’re referring to the first five books. Deuteronomy, of course, being the last of those.
Some of your study Bibles might have a margin note to take you to this verse. And that historically, is where they got the title from the septuagint, which (as a refresher) is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. But then you have it translated into the Latin. And so Latin was what the lingo for, of the day.
And so when you pull these things together, you get a word called Deuteronomy, that’s, that’s the long and short of it. It can mean “a copy,” “a second,” it can mean “a duplicate.”
But the idea is, it’s a repetition in so many ways of what we’ve already read in the law.
So some people look at it sort of as redundant. And this, of course, fuels the fire of those who don’t believe scriptures, oversight by the Holy Spirit, or different authors and so forth.
But the second law underscores that Moses is repeating and restating–why? Because for 40 years they’ve been wandering.
I often tell pastors we’re in the business of constant reeducation.
You assume nothing anymore. When it comes to Bible knowledge, and scripture, and understanding salvation and the gospel, you assume nothing anymore.
As reading comprehension continues to plummet in America, Bible knowledge plummets, probably two or three times faster than just reading and history and awareness of things. So we’re always teaching things new.
The Hebrew title is “these are the words.”
And if you look at Deuteronomy 1:1: these are the words.
One of the titles I like for the book that was later used was called the Fifth, because you had five books, and this was the Fifth, the final one of the package of the Pentateuch. Again, we’ve talked about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. They all have titles that are different than the title your Bible uses but that doesn’t hurt anything.
It’s just an awareness of how this body of literature was referred to.
We’ve mentioned the author being Moses throughout the story. And in Deuteronomy, we’ve got 30+ passages that reference where Moses, directly or indirectly, is writing something down.
Now, where this gets interesting, and where some of the controversy comes, there are parts Moses could not have written.
He couldn’t write of his death and his funeral. And we will never know for bull-dogmatic assurance who wrote that, but there are some common-sense theories. I happen to believe it was Joshua that filled in the blanks, if you will.
We know by the time of Paul we have what’s called an amanuensis, we have someone who’s writing for Paul. So he’s probably in his prison, home house arrest, probably talking as he he’s getting older, pretty good suggestion is he’s losing his eyesight like most of us are as we get older, and so he needed someone to help him. So they would write it down. And this, of course, would be a very common practice.
Think of all that Moses did. And I’m sure that Joshua was with him. He’s at the door of the tent all of his life, it would make sense that he or someone else, perhaps political priests, would be copying and filling in some of the blanks as it were.
Anyway, scholars lose sleep about this, I don’t.
I think Moses wrote it for the most part. And those parts that we say Moses couldn’t have written? To that we say, right, someone else did. And more than likely, it was Joshua to fill in the blank.
The overview of this book is is easier than Leviticus. And it’s simply three sermons, or three speeches. That’s an easy way to think about Deuteronomy. It seems long when we read it, but if we give a little outline to it, it helps.
Dr. Tom constable makes this observation:
“In contrast to Leviticus, however, Deuteronomy is law-preached, rather than law-taught.” -(1)
We all had professors in high school or college, there were teachers and they were boring as dirt. And they made us learn, memorize dates and outlines. Did you have to learn how to do outlining before the Roman numeral one, the capital A, and the subsets and it drove you crazy? And then, if you if you did a Masters, or doctoral level work, you had to learn Chicago or APA. I mean, the stuff drives you crazy. It’s these forms.
Think of Leviticus in that way. Think of Deuteronomy as Chuck Swindoll preaching.
So Moses is going to preach three lengthy sermons.
Warren Wiersbe, if you’re not aware of Wiersbe, he was a delightful, delightful man. And his goal was what I would call seventh grade educated product. But he was very smart and synthesis. And he puts this book into four brackets and I thought was a very helpful outline:
I love the simplicity without losing the content. Keep in mind, these three sections are three sermons. We’ve got a history, and he’s going to review to these people: don’t forget, context is so important:
They’ve been wandering in the wilderness, they’ve been grumbling. And they’ve been an inconsolable people. It’s been one long funeral. It’s not been fun.
And now they’re on the cusp of crossing the Jordan into the so-called promised land that God is going to give them, and Moses is going to review their history.
Where Wiersbe talks about looking within and ahead, the one thing he misses, I think, is the important word covenant. Because covenant is a key concept in understanding the testimonies, the laws, statutes and judgments. And those are three subcategories that you go very deep on. There are certain laws, certain testimonies, and certain judgments that occurred, and that gets all tied up in the covenants, the blessing and cursing motif most of us are familiar with (if you do this, I’ll bless you. If you obey me, I’ll bless you, if you don’t bring the curses of Egypt on your head). And so this is the back and forth blessing and cursing motif that is true throughout all bilateral covenants.
We’ve made this differentiation over and over again: unilateral, Abrahamic, New Covenant. Remember, unilateral covenant is made on the basis of the person making the covenant: Abraham, you’re going to be blessing, there will never be a global flood again. The New Covenant will fulfill the law and the spirit will unveil your heart.
So these unilateral covenants that God’s going to perform stand in contrast with the bilateral, if that makes sense: if you do this, I’ll do that. If you don’t, this is going to occur. The covenant language is really important in Deuteronomy.
Israel is smaller than the size of Connecticut. They’re on the east side, and they’re going to cross the Jordan into the land. And it’s going to be an incremental possession of the land, it’s not going to be one and done. And that’s where really the hard work is going to come in.
The whole book of Deuteronomy is a pretty quick story on a timeline, on scope and scale, not the 40 years. It’s the review before we go to “play the game,” let’s say Wilkinson and Boa, Bruce Wilkinson and Ken Boa produced a really good book many years ago called “Talk Thru the Bible.” (2) And this is their introduction on Deuteronomy, I’ve edited it a bit:
Deuteronomy consists of a series of farewell messages by Israel’s 120 year old leader. It is addressed to the new generation destined to possess the land of promise. Those who survived the 40 years of wilderness wandering. Deuteronomy, like Leviticus, contains a vast amount of legal detail. But its emphasis is on the layman rather than the priests and sacrifices.
Moses reminds the new generation of the importance of obedience. If they are to learn from the sad example of their predecessors, moving from the past, and Israel’s history to the present, Israel’s holiness and Homeland to the future, Israel’s new leader, Moses stresses the faithfulness of Israel’s God, who brought us out to give us the this land.
And let me jump right away then to where they pull that passage from that Deuteronomy 6:23-25.
And if we go back to Deuteronomy 6:23, notice he brought us out from there, in order to bring us in.
It’s the same basics over and over, don’t forget it: redemption from slavery, consecration to worship, that was the story of Exodus. We’ve got to get you out of Egypt, and consecrate you out of slavery. Consecration to worship.
That’s precisely what Deuteronomy continues:
And so this process, this cleansing, this consecration is all part of their story. There’s an old commentary by A. D. H. Mayes, and he wrote a really good synopsis, but it’s too long and too cumbersome to read. So I’ve taken great liberties, and I’ve edited it down to this:
Deuteronomy is summed up this way. It’s a call to obey one God, one sanctuary, one Promised Land, and one elect people.
One God, one sanctuary, one Promised Land, one elect people. These are non negotiables.
There’s one true God, and in the ancient Near East there was no other religious group that had one god. They just come out of Egypt that had some have chronicled 8,000+ different names for idols, it’s impossible to keep up with them.
The Ancient Near East, Moab, Chemosh, all these different gods and idols were like if you had a mantle you that would cover all your shelves and your whole house to keep up with the idols.
Those gods were also capricious. They fought against each other, they negated each other. They were like Marvel cartoon characters. Some had certain powers, but others had different powers. None of them were the sole powerful entity. You know, if it was kryptonite to to Superman, and yellow dismantled Green Lantern, he had no power when yellow came along, whatever I don’t know. It’s just crazy stuff.
It all goes back to idolatry.
Israel, you’ve got one God, you’ve got one sanctuary, there’s one place you can worship me. And let me underscore that: you’re going to do it my way. The sacrifices have to be done according to the book.
There’s one Promised Land. I’m not giving you all this territory, I’m giving you one segment of land and you’re going to take it according to my plan.
And there’s one elect people. Israel would be the ones to go in.
If they learned anything in 40 years of wandering, you’d think occupying the land of promise would be on God’s terms, in God’s way, and we’re excited to do it.
They’re no different than us and we see it right away, they struggle.
All these come from a chapter and verse in Deuteronomy, keep your eye on God’s promises. The Abrahamic covenant is inviolable. The covenant is mentioned 27 times, the land is referred to over 183 times in the book of Deuteronomy.
Again, Christian brothers and friends, sisters who believe in what’s called “replacement theology:” that Israel no longer has a place in God’s eschatology and timeline. I’m not mad at them, I just think they’re wrong. And I think it’s due to their hermeneutics, the way they look at the Bible.
When you see the emphasis of covenant and land 183 times, the land was God’s gift to them. One land that he was going to give them.
It can’t be thwarted.
I mentioned in Numbers: God remains faithful, even when his people remain faithless, this covenants going to march on.
So for you and me as a believer, if you’ve trusted that Christ lived, died, was buried, and came back from the dead, and you put your trust in Christ and Christ alone, you are given the promise of eternal security. You’re given the promise of salvation, you’re given the promise of the forgiveness of your sins.
There’s not a person listening who, in the course your Christian life, hasn’t wondered, am I really saved? Am I really saved? Because we sin repeatedly, we get apathetic, we get lost in the weeds, we don’t care. We get lost in something that that numbs our pain in life–money, sex and power, whatever it is–and we get in that hole, and we go, maybe I really didn’t believe it.
God’s promises are as secure as the day he told Abram: you will become Abraham innumerable, and you will be a blessing to the world.
And you and I friends, if you’re a believer in Christ, we’re part of that blessing to the world. We’re part of that lineage that carried out, it was reckoned to him as righteousness.
So I know it’s kind of cheeky. We talked about the promises of God and it’s kind of old language.
But it’s his Word. He’s made you a promise. Keep your eye on it.
Keep your eye on it. When you doubt, there’s an anchor. When you doubt, there’s a benchmark when you’re unsure, go back to – not what you believe – but to whom you believe.
It’s not a matter of my actions or my faith that keeps me saved.
It’s what he’s done in our place, on our behalf, instead of us.
Deuteronomy 2:7 is an interesting verse.
Think about that. No leeks, no onions, no pots of meat, no fish, but He said they’d lacked nothing. When I was in graduate school, back in those days, we had to wear a coat and a tie and we had no money. Does anyone know what Dickies work pants are? So this is the Houston Texas This is early 80s, there was a Dickies Outlet Store. I still remember this: $8.88 a pair. I bought, like, three pair of Dickies khaki work pants, and I could starch those babies, and at 30 yards they were they were Ralph Lauren, you couldn’t even tell the difference.
I had some Arrow 6040 cotton polyester shirts that were you know, they were like white and beige and blue. And I had like three or four red ties, and I had a polyester sport coat. I wore that outfit for four years of seminary. And when I finished seminary, those khakis, like, disintegrated. They held up all the way through seminary, those $8.88 pants, but when I washed them post-seminary, it was like, there were yard pants from then on. They just they were done. They were gone. And I called those my wilderness wandering khakis, because when I got out of the land of wilderness at seminary, I didn’t need them anymore.
Whenever I read these kind of passages, my mind goes back to:
If you’re sitting here right now this morning, or you’re listening to the podcast sometime in the future: You’ve got what you need.
Do I have everything I want? No. I just buried my mother. I got all sorts of things to go through with that.
There’s sadness in everybody’s life. We have cancer, we have surgery, we’re all facing this. Things are not going to go necessarily the way you want them to go. And in the dark times: you lose your job, you lose your marriage, whatever. You got what you need.
Do you have what you want? No. And frankly, who could ever have all we want?
There’s always bigger, better, newer, more. You gotta have bigger, better newer, time to upgrade, time to update. We can’t live with that, we have to do this. Going to see my dad asking for five bucks was like going to see the Wizard of Oz, it was terrifying. You walk down that you know, it’s like walking down the shadow of the valley of death to go ask my dad for five bucks. And he’d say, “well, for what? Is it a want or a need?” “Given that determination, dad, it’s always a want,” “then you’re not gonna get it.”
So I started mowing yards, you know, cuz it was the only way to get money. But I still remember it. I’ll be 62 years old in a couple of days and I still remember it: Is it a one or a need? And we always over-parent, right? Overcompensate for the liabilities of our parents and over-parent our kids, bless their hearts. I was talking to some friends this morning about their three grandkids. Have you seen the bumper sticker: “have grandchildren first”?
There’s no rules with grandchildren, right?
But what do we want? Or, What do we need? This is so critical. That said, and throughout the theme of this book, God’s people are problem people. God’s people are an irritation. They’re stiff necked, they’re stubborn, they’re wayward. Don’t do this, do all this, and I’ll bless you.
I want to do the one thing I was told not to do. It’s in your spiritual DNA and mine, we can escape it.
But for God, through our grumbling, our sin, our distance, our apathy, our choices. If you’re sitting here today, you got what all you need.
“Oh God, I need to pay my mortgage.” No, you don’t. You could live somewhere else. “I need better health insurance.” I get it.
But you know what? You’ll figure it out. God will take care of you.
15 times in the book of Deuteronomy, we have phrases that begin with “remember,” and 9 times “Do not forget.” They’re key terms repeated. Now, this is the most obvious thing you’re going to hear all day.
Why? Why does God say remember and don’t forget? Because we don’t remember. And we forget.
Just like your kids: “How many times have I told you?” You ever said that to your kids? “We’ve been over this how many times?” Remember, don’t forget.
As my friend, Dr. Curt Thompson, a psychiatrist, says:
Pay attention to what you’re paying attention to.
It only occurs three times in Deuteronomy but it smacked me in the head when I was reading through the book this week. Pay attention. Watch yourself carefully.
When you sin – after you’ve gone through the guilt, shame and hopefully asking for forgiveness – do you stop and say:
Why did I choose to sin at that particular time was the time of day? Was I hungry, angry, lonely, tired?
You know the HALT thing they teach people in recovery. Never go out the door HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. If an addict goes out when he’s hungry, angry, lonely, he or she will use.
Watch yourself, pay attention when you sin.
I’m not saying study your sin to be a better sinner – but study why and when you sin, and then ask God for help in that area.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 This is called the Great Shema. The first word in Hebrew is also the first word in English: Hear.
It loses a little bit of emphasis, it’s more like: Pay attention! Stop and listen to me!
This is a megaphone word in the book of Deuteronomy: Listen up, Israel! The Lord your God is one.
Pay attention to the commandments, the statutes, the judgments of the law. It’s an admonition to teach. And it’s also interesting that it’s in the land that this is occurring in the broader context. They’re a monotheistic people making a monotheistic claim in a polytheistic culture.
As this is this passage expands: you’re to teach them in your coming in, your going out, your rising up and your laying down.
You know what a mezuzah is? If you see a door frame on a home with a prior Jewish owner, there’s often a mezuzah on the door. In fact, I had one in my office bought one in Israel years ago. On the front of it is the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet of Shema. It looks like a W in English. Inside that is a little piece of parchment that only a male Rabbi can write, the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9. They roll it up and put it inside there and then it put a piece of tape over and it costs you $25 more to get that little thing put in there. And then you put it on your doorpost. So the Jew would touch that whenever he or she would go out the door.
The first home my parents bought I think in 1965 had mezuzahs on the front and back door and they’d been painted over like eight times, but they were there. So there were Jewish owners there and they would touch on the way in and out.
Now, do we know what a phylactery is? Jesus’s words: and they brung the phylacteries on their foreheads and they lengthened the tassels on the ropes of phylactery (Matthew 23:5). If you see pictures of the so-called Western wailing wall, and those of you who are going to Israel are going to see it up-close and personal. You can see with these elaborate phylacteries, they’re expensive, and they’ve got this big box on them with the Shema on it, and they wear them on their heads, and they’ve got the Talits, the robe with the stripes on them. And they got the tassels and and certain number of knots. It’s a very complicated system.
And so all this appendage is part of the Shema. They took it literally.
Did God say, “strap a Bible on your forehead when you walk out the door.”? …What was he saying?
Keep the law in your mind. Keep it on your hand, when you’re working. As a craftsman, as a banker, as an accountant, as a person in the field, as a person working with animals, keep the law where you’re working. And when you go in and out.
Remember.
You’re going out into the world, but remember God’s Word.
And when you get up in the morning, remember God’s Word. When you go to bed at night, remember God’s Word.
It’s a beautiful passage. Teach your children and the ups and downs, ins and outs, going and coming of life. Teach your children all the time. And by the way, teach your sons and your grandsons because, every generation needs to be re-educated. This is all the great Shema.
This was the greatest commandment. Jesus quotes this passage as the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-40)
The God who redeemed you from slavery will consecrate you for worship. And He’s the only true God.
6. Satisfaction dulls our need for God.
This is interesting and difficult passage. Deuteronomy 8:1-19.
Sound like something Jesus said one time?
When you have eaten and are satisfied, You shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which he has given you.
Be aware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, and his ordinance, and his statutes which I am commanding you today. Otherwise,
Here it is:
When you have eaten, and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived. And when your herds and your flocks multiply, your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Satisfaction dulls our need for God.
And this is why––this is pencil theology, not pen––This is why I think God leads us in and out of trouble. Because apart from trouble and pain, we do not grow, we do not lean, we do not depend.
You’ve heard me say this countless times: when the marriage is good, the kids are good, the money’s good, the jobs good health is good – I like my house, I like the weather, when it’s like today, everything’s rosy, I don’t need God.
I don’t need God.
But you touch some area my life. You touch a grandchild, son or daughter, a marriage, health, a friend, take my job away. I get sued, some injustice happen friends in my life. I get real busy:
Why Lord, why? Call my friends, pray, I guess I’d better read the Bible.
Anybody like that but me?
I think a big part of it, and this hasn’t changed: when we’re satisfied and satiated, we don’t need God.
So in the fallen construct, fallen planet, fallen people, fallen systems, we’re going to bump in and out of these challenges to remind us. Because we don’t remember.
We forget the same as the ancients, nothing really has changed.
And this is one I would do an entire message on if I had that chance:
The final lesson in the book of Deuteronomy is one I missed until about four years ago, and I didn’t find this on my own. A dear man named Wendell Johnson. When my mentor Howard Hendricks passed away, I was asked to be part of the funeral, and Dr. Johnson did the graveside service. So it was just the family and a few very close friends of Dr. Hendricks, and he used this passage and Deuteronomy 34:5-6.
I knew the story, but I didn’t see the point he drew out. And let me just will close with this. So you remember, Moses has failed. He was supposed to speak to the rock, and what did he do? He struck it twice. So God said: You’re not going into the land. You have insulted me in front of all of Israel because you didn’t do what I told you to do. You of all people. But he’s still gracious to him and lets him see the land from a distance, and he dies.
So Moses, the servant of the Lord died there, in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and He buried him.
Who’s the He? The Lord.
And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth payor, but no man knows his burial place to this day.
Now, we’ve talked about Christophanies and Theophanies: this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ.
Jesus buries His servant Moses.
Moses is alone, Jesus is with him, he dies, and Jesus buries him. More than likely in the ancient Near Eastern culture at that time, it’s a pile of rocks. Because you don’t dig a six foot grave in those days, it’s a pile of rocks. This doesn’t take sanctified imagination. This is a pretty accurate record of what happens.
So I see Jesus with His friend Moses, who dies in front of Him, and He orders him, probably puts him neatly, probably wraps his tunic around him in some fashion. And He piles a bunch of rocks on him.
Dr. Johnson said, as we were putting Howard Hendricks in the grave:
There’s dignity in the death and burial of a servant of Christ.
I’ve never thought about that before. It’s sad, it’s solemn. Why do we do it? We do it for lots of reasons in our Western culture, but what I find striking is that the book ends – the package of the 5 chapters, 5-volume law, which was given to Moses to give to His people. There was no one like him. He got to talk to God face to face. Nobody gets to do that. Nobody went up to Sinai but him. Even the rabbi’s today, the Orthodox ones, revere Moses as a great servant of God.
And the chapter closes on: I’m going to bury him right.
It wasn’t a burial like Joseph’s. Wasn’t a b burial like Abraham’s. Moses was buried under a rock pile on the wrong side of the Jordan. But Jesus was the officiant. That’s pretty cool.
There is dignity in the death of Moses, and there was dignity and the fact that God came down to bury him.
Resources:
Dr. Mark Chavalas, Dr. Wendy Widder, and Dr. Kevin Zuber join Michael to wrap up The Big Book—Cover to Cover with a discussion about the value of studying and understanding scripture as a whole, from Genesis to Revelation.
Dr. Mark Hitchcock joins Michael to discuss the complex and valuable book: Revelation.
It’s remarkable to step back on this Big Book and see that it begins and ends with connections that are impossible to ignore. In this episode, Michael teaches an overview of the book of Revelation.