4. Pause and Remember
Week 4 • Day 4
At the end of 40 years, Moses finds himself explaining God’s law to an entirely new generation of people about to enter the promised land who hadn’t experienced the Exodus of the previous generation. Now, on the precipice of entering the promised place, Moses delivers a series of final messages to bring this new generation up to speed as to God’s rule which blesses obedience and punishes disobedience. The book of Deuteronomy is all about reminding these chosen image-beares how to use their delegated rule to love God, love others, to listen and obey God’s law.
Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands … Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. - Deuteronomy 8:1-3; 11
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. - Deuteronomy 30:19-20
With all the instructions offered in the book of Deuteronomy, perhaps the important lesson for us is to pause and reflect over what God has revealed to us—and to assess whether we are engaged sincerely in the life He offers or if we are forgetting all He has done for us.
OUR RESPONSE: PAUSE AND REMEMBER
It’s easy to forget some of the most important and memorable events in our lives. A parent of a teenager in a moment of disappointment or frustration, might easily forget the incredible blessing of their child’s birth and the sense of gratitude that came when welcoming a new life into the world. A spouse may have forgotten that his vows offered in the presence of a pastor, family, friends and more importantly God, were meant for a lifetime instead of trading it all in for an illicit affair. The job you always wanted and which allowed you to wake up daily, eager to make a difference in the company has now become a drudgery—you find yourself anxiously looking for something different to do with your life. Life is full of experiences that were once powerful and seemingly unforgettable, but over time have somehow lost their sense of significance.
Sometimes things fade because we make unhealthy choices. Other times, experiences fade because we don’t renew their significance in our lives. Celebrating one’s wedding anniversary is one way a married couple pauses to remember their past. Birthdays are also a subtle and intentional reminder of the value and blessing someone is in our lives. There are various celebrations and ceremonial events that are intended to bring us back—to cause us to remember and value something in our past. When we take time to remember, we set ourselves up for improving things in the present while ensuring a more promising future.
This is the lesson of Deuteronomy. God is telling a new generation to not forget what He has said and done.
In what’s known as the Shema (which means “to listen”), God reminds his people:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commands that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. - Deuteronomy 6:4-9
God reminds Israel to do this otherwise it’s likely that they, along with their children, may one day forget the Lord. God doesn’t want us to forget where we’ve come from and the work He has done in our lives either. But if we are not careful, very important things we once held precious can be relegated to those spaces in our memories that don’t mean as much as they once did. We can drift into new ways of living and dealing with life’s challenges. In short, if we aren’t careful, we can lose our way and forget about God or live as those who have.
REMEMBER THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM
The name Deuteronomy literally means, “second law.” In this collection of messages given by Moses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Moses explains God’s work beginning with their departure from Mt. Sinai. He details the rebellions of the people throughout their wanderings in the desert and how even he had disqualified himself from entering due to his sin. Moses also refreshes this younger generation on the terms of God’s rule of law in terms of becoming a nation of image-bearing people, His rule of law concerning the moral and ceremonial cleanliness caused by the effects of sin on our delegated rule, and the rule of law concerning feasts God had called His people to celebrate in order to remember His faithfulness. Finally, Moses instructs on God’s rule for the priests and Levites in carrying out duties of worship in God’s dwelling place. With great detail, Moses reviews the many of God’s rules that had been given to His people to remain “separate” and “holy” from the nations of the world. And finally, at the end of these detailed sermons, he reminds this generation that if they trust and obey the LORD and His rule, blessings will follow. But if they rebel and disobey, they can expect God to send his wrath on them.
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. - Deuteronomy 30:15-18
Moses concludes by urging them toward the right path and to remain true to it. Moses announces his successor, Joshua and then, as with most sermons, a song that Moses has written is introduced to be taught to the people. The song of Moses as recorded in chapter 32 is a beautiful and emotional recitation of God’s salvation work in his Covenant people. But it was also a prophetic word to warn Israel of their propensity to sin and disobey the Lord. It’s as if God wants to teach them this song so that they will be reminded in times of disobedience that God, even though knowing of this beforehand, would also remain faithful to them.
Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind [think Tower of Babel], he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
“He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone guided him, no foreign god was with him. He made him ride on the high places of the land, and he ate the produce of the field, and he suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock. Curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of Bashan and goats, with the very finest of the wheat— and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape.
“But Jeshurun [Hebrew for “Upright One”; a common poetic reference to Israel] grew fat, and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded. You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. - Deuteronomy 32:7–18
Moses knew something was wrong. God was going to be faithful to the gospel of the kingdom. He was going to rescue His people from all foreign enemies and return them back into the promised land. The question that remained was how God would restore His image-bearing family to faithfully follow His laws when everyone up to this point has bent their knee to the serpent and his kingdom? Moses anticipates that the gospel of the kingdom would necessarily revolve around this long-awaited “serpent-crusher” and the serpent’s destruction so that God might reestablish His rule and restore the deepest heart issues of His people.
And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn. - Deuteronomy 10:12–16
He will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you [rescue]…. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it [return]. 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 [restore]. And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you [reestablish]. And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today. Deuteronomy 30:3, 5–8
For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are. Behold, even today while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against the Lord. How much more after my death! - Deuteronomy 31:27
The first five books of the Old Testament closes on a minor key. Good days are ahead for God’s people—but also many more serpent-like rebellions.
What will happen now that the great Moses has died on Mt. Nebo overlooking the promised land? Will God prove to be faithful to all that He has promised? Will this next generation prove to be faithful to God’s rule of law? Would there ever be another Moses-like figure who would lead God’s people to salvation from the kingdom of the serpent into God’s kingdom in the promised land? We continue to read as Joshua and the next generation prepare to enter the promised land!
And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel. - Deuteronomy 34:10-12
Share the Gospel: Moses knew something was wrong. God was going to be faithful to the gospel of the kingdom. He was going to rescue His people from all foreign enemies and return them back into the promised land. The question that remained was how God would restore His image-bearing family to follow His laws as His image-bearers were designed to do? Moses anticipates that the gospel of the kingdom revolved around the destruction of the serpent so that God might reestablish His rule and restore the deepest heart issues of His people.
