Deuteronomy 1, How Did We Get Here?

Starting in Deuteronomy chapter 1, reading the entire chapter, it's a little long, I'll try to read it fast.

Hear the word of the Lord.

These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness in the era of a opposite Suf between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazaroth, and Zizahab. It is 11 days journey from Horeb, by the way, of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.

In the 40th year, on the first day of the 11th month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them. After he had defeated Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashteroth and in Edrai, beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have stayed long enough at this mountain.

Turn and take your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Ereba, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the Negev, and by the sea coast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.

See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them. At that time I said to you, I am not able to bear you by myself.

The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven. May the Lord, the God of your fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are, and bless you as he has promised you.

How can I bear by myself the weight and the burden of you and your strife? Choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I will appoint them as your heads. And you answered me. The thing that you have spoken is good for us to do.

So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you, commanders of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers throughout your tribes.

And I charged your judges at that time, hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, or the alien who was with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike.

You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's, and the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do.

Then we set out from Horeb, and we went through all the land, all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us. And we came to Kadesh Barnea, and I said to you, you have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.

See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord God of your fathers has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Then all of you came near me, and said, let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us, and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up.

And the cities into which we shall come. The thing seemed good to me. And I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe, and they turned, went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of Eshkol, and spied it out.

And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land, and brought it down to us, and brought us word again, and said, it's a good land that the Lord our God is giving to us. Yet you would not go up.

You rebelled against the command of the Lord your God, and you murmured in your tents, and said, because the Lord hated us, he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.

Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, the people are greater and taller than we, the cities are great and fortified up to heaven, and besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.

Then I said to you, do not be in dread, or afraid of them. The Lord your God, who goes before you, will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt, before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went, until you came to this place.

Yet, in spite of this word, you did not believe the Lord your God, who went before you, in the way to seek you out, a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.

And the Lord heard your words, and was angered, and he swore, not one of these men, of this evil generation, shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

He shall see it, and to him and to his children, I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord. Even with me, the Lord was angry on your account, and said, you also shall not go in there.

Joshua, the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there.

And to them, I will give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn and journey into the wilderness, in the direction of the Red Sea. Then you answered me, we have sinned against the Lord. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the Lord, our God, commanded us.

And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war, and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. And the Lord said to me, say to them, do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst, lest you be defeated before your enemies.

So I spoke to you, and you would not listen. But you rebelled against the command of the Lord, and presumptuously went up into the hill country. Then the Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you, and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, as far as Horma.

And you returned, and wept before the Lord. But the Lord did not listen to your voice, or give ear to you. So you remained at Kedesh many days, the days that you remained there. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word.

Deuteronomy as a Warning for the Church

All 46 verses. Well, it's May. That means it's time for graduations, commencement ceremonies. Avery had theirs just yesterday. It's called commencement, because after that, life is supposed to commence, I guess.

Ever look at those who graduated? You know, and wonder, depending on how old you are, check 10, 20, 30, maybe more years down the road, and wonder, how did they get there? You didn't expect them to get there.

Or maybe you expected worse, or better. A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the school bully who became the superintendent of schools. That just blew my mind. I never would have thought of him earning a doctorate, and being the head of the entire school system.

I had just assumed that he was probably in prison somewhere. Now he's the superintendent. I'm still just boggled by that. Some other fellow graduates, though, in that high school, I thought would be successful.

In particular, I remember the senior class president, K .J. Wilde, a politically involved, confident, well-spoken young man, a devout Catholic who once predicted that he would be the 50th president of the U .S.

We're now on 45, so he was really thinking long-term. And at age 18, he struck me as the type that might actually do it. So one day, I thought, I might be able to tell the story of how I knew the 50th president of the U .S. when I was in high school.

People could ask, well, how did he get there? Well, he had the talent, he had the charisma, he did things the right way. That's how he got there. When a reporter from Houston called me about a month ago, asking for information about Lance, the old school bully who's now the superintendent, I said, well, I was only there a year.

I only attended that school a year. The person you should really speak to is K .J. Wilde, the senior class president, who, last I heard, was an attorney in that area. And the reporter informed me that a couple of years ago, K .J. was convicted of embezzling $9 million and is now, now he's the one in prison.

How did he get there? Well, how'd you get here?

Wherever you are in life.

How'd you get here? Israel needs to know how he got here, where it is, and we do, too. We need to know how they got there. We need to know what led up to this. Now, this isn't just history, just trivia about the past.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10 that the history of Israel was written as examples for us, good and bad, and the bad is warnings that we, too, could fall into the same errors. The history of Israel preaches, then, still to us.

Just like for them, they were at the end of one stage in their existence as a nation, about to come into a new one, we are, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, we are at the end of the past evil age, and the new age, the kingdom of God, is beginning.

So we are experiencing in a way what Israel experienced as a shadow, as an example. Put it another way, what they experienced as a shadow, as an example to us, we are now experiencing in reality. And so we need to learn from what God did in the past, what Israel did in the past, too, to keep from making their same mistakes.

Here is Moses in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy means second law, literally telling us what these things mean, and we need to know so we don't wind up in the same place they did. You know, 40 years later, still not really fully in the promised land.

Almost all of that generation that saw God defeat Egypt and divide the sea and give the law is now dead in the desert. How did they get.

There?

The Sixfold Structure of Moses’ Address

After an introduction, we see how in six major parts. First, there is the commission. Second, there is a situation, their situation. Third, the evaluation. Fourth, the insubordination.

Fifth, a rejection.

And finally, there is the presumption. But first, there is an introduction. And those first five verses. Every commencement has a commencement speaker, right? I don't know how he was yesterday. But this time here, it's Moses.

Israel is about to graduate from wandering in the desert. And here he speaks. And they are on the verge now of entering and taking all of the promised land. But first, a commencement address they need to hear.

Moses reminds them of how they got here. Now sure, it looks good now. Someone's getting a call.

It's okay.

It's alright. Joyce isn't here, is she? It looks good now, where they are. If you just opened starting in Deuteronomy, you're thinking, okay, they're at the edge of the promised land. Terrific. But what this chapter is about is the fact they were on the edge of the promised land before.

Forty years ago. And didn't make it. Now how did that happen? That's what Moses is going to explain so that, like us, this new generation of Israel learns from the example of the past generation, the last generation.

And he speaks to them in verse five to, he says, explain this law. What does the law show them about themselves, about us, about how we got here? Why we're not already where we should be in the promised land.

Notice in verse three, Moses speaks to them, this commencement address, not just from his heart, his musings, from his experience, from his long career now leading Israel. It's not where most commencement speakers get their address from.

But this is he speaks to them according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them. So in other words, he speaks to them God's word to show them how they got here. How after forty years, they're still not in the promised land.

What they did wrong. What they need to be certain they never do again. So this isn't the typical commencement address. And I've heard several. Usually it's to.

Inspire you.

To aim for the stars. Congratulate them for doing so well. As though all the students were all 4 .0 students. Kind of that implication. No. If you heard a commencement address like this, it would just be bizarre.

You all messed up for the past four years. No. He rebukes them. That may seem strange to us, but that's because we're strange. We live in this fantasy world where people can make it to the promised land without ever having to be corrected.

That's because we hate to be corrected. But the purpose of the law is to show us where we failed so we repent and do better. The function of God's word, at least one function of it, of God's word and the preachers of God's word is in part to show us where we failed so we cry out for mercy and grace and we commit to do better.

We ask to be forgiven for past errors to be changed so that we don't commit the same errors in the future. One of the functions of good families is to have a loving environment where we can be corrected by people who we know are committed to us.

It's the same for the church. Dysfunctional families and dysfunctional churches that is families and churches that don't perform their function.

Both.

Don't do that. Now sure we still have some that are abusive that are shouting insults at kids like you idiot. You have even some churches where you have some cult leader and you can't question and some families, abusive, they even get physical.

There's even a few extreme cults that do the same thing. That's one kind of dysfunctionality. But another I think far more common dysfunctionality today is to insulate the members of in it, the family or the church serves to insulate the members of in it from their sins, from their shortcomings.

They're never going to expose their failures. They'll make people feel good in the situation they are so they never grow. They actually make it, they make their members of it worse than if they hadn't been members of it.

So the family or the church serves to protect those sins from being exposed and so from being dealt with. And so today we have mothers who think they are these brave.

Noble protective.

Mother hens because they dare go tell that principal no one's going to tell my little darling that he did anything wrong. That includes you Mr. Principal and that includes his teachers. Okay? And they think that's a great thing to insulate their children like that.

Or if their kids storm the field in a football game and so the team is disqualified they don't ask why are our kids so lacking in self-control that they go do something like that. They complain about the rules.

Right? The referee's fault. They bring the same attitude into the church when they say that their sins or the sins of their family can't be dealt with. Now if you dare call our behavior sin Mr. Preacher Man, we're either going to leave or we're going to fire you.

You can't say that they will say to him, to the one who dares expose their family's sins. And this is so ingrained in many churches in particular and some families today that true pastors.

Have learned.

To adjust to it. They want to survive in their career. I heard one pastor boast of how when there was an uproar at his former church the people were accusing him of things wrongly, things he didn't really do.

And he tried to reason with them but they were unreasonable. And so at a church business meeting when they were threatened to fire him rather than confront them about their sin you're bearing false witness.

You need to repent. Their contempt, their failure to walk together in Christian love like in our church covenant. You should be eager to seek reconciliation instead of just ginning up this controversy.

You're being rash. You're proud. That's why you admit you're wrong. Rather than confront them about their sin to correct the problem to keep the church from being overrun with those kinds of sins, he thought that it was best to apologize.

A fake apology because he didn't really mean it. He didn't think he did anything wrong. But a fake apology to appease them. Ask forgiveness for whatever they were falsely accusing him of. Ask for mercy.

And it worked in the short term to save the pastor's job. They didn't fire him because he quote, humble enough to do that. So they didn't fire him then. In the meantime he started sending off resumes to other pastorates.

And then when he got one he resigned that church and he said, they didn't see that coming. He got proud of himself for having evaded being fired by his former enemies in that past church. He preserved his career.

But he hadn't corrected the problem. Leaving it for the next victim to stumble into. Well here Moses is going to be sure to correct the problem of the past generation so that his successor Joshua doesn't have the same problems.

He explains the law to them why 40 years later they're still waiting to get into the promised land. First was the commission. In verses 5 -8. He reminds them that they started off at Mount Horeb sometimes called Mount Sinai.

Where they got the Ten Commandments. Where the Lord made a covenant with them. The mountain shook. The smoke arose. The people trembled. And then they asked, we can't stand this. Moses only, you go up and speak with the Lord.

And after that the Lord said in verse 6, after about a year there at Mount Sinai, you have stayed long enough at this mountain. And then notice in verse 7, they were supposed to go directly after that to take the promised land.

It's a 11 days journey from Mount Sinai up to the verge of it, Kedesh Barnea and then they should launch right in to the promised land. So it should only be 11 days from Mount Sinai to taking the promised land.

That's all it should take. Less than 2 weeks. So he tells them, go in the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon as far as the great river Euphrates, that otherwise known as the promised land. The Lord says in verse 8, see in other words, look, pay attention Israel.

I have set this land before you. There it is. It's laid out like food on a table. It's open. It's ready for the taking. You know, bon appetit. Dig in. Here's the commission. Go in and take possession that the land that the Lord swore to your fathers.

You know, a commission is both a command to do this and the granting of authority to do it. A policeman has a commission. He has a command to enforce the law and a commission and the actual authority to do it.

He can pull you over if you're speeding. Here they have the order and the right to take the land given by God himself. They're commissioned by God to do that. Augustine prayed, Lord, you have commanded self-control.

Grant what you command and command what you will. So all people are commanded to obey God's law, to practice self-control. For example, to keep sex for marriage, to not live for self-indulgence, not be greedy, always chasing dollars.

But not all people have the commission, the authority, the ability to do that. Those that don't need to ask themselves, why? I understand I'm supposed to be doing X, but why can't I? Why am I so out of control?

Why do I live for the desire of the body or the ego? So they need to examine themselves to see that they are slaves of sin. The law should show them hey, look, I'm enslaved by this sin. I can't get free of it.

And they need first then for the Lord to rescue them from bondage, just like he rescued Israel from Egypt. They need to pray Lord, grant what you command and then surrender and command what you will. Others, though, have the commission.

They can, as in Titus chapter 2, verse 12. They've already prayed that prayer. Lord, grant what you command, surrendered, command what you will. And so like in Titus chapter 2, verse 12, they have renounced ungodliness and worldly passion and self-control and they can now live upright and godly lives in the present age.

They can do that now. In other words, they can at least in part, not perfectly, but at least in part live as if we are in the promised land where sin has no dominion over us now. We have the commission to live in the promised land now.

The Commission and the Weight of Leadership

Second there is the situation. What situation are they in? The commission live in the promised land. But what's their situation? Well, two things about it. First, they are numerous and second, they are onerous.

Moses says in verse 9 at that time he's recalling about 40 years before as they were setting out from Mount Sinai I said to you, I'm not able to bear you myself. The Lord your God has multiplied you and behold you are as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Does those words sound familiar? Stars of heaven. Just before this in verse 8 Moses recalled the promise to Abraham God made a promise to Abraham we sang about it a few minutes ago. In Genesis 15 Abraham was promised that he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky.

That's God's words to him. That's the promise. Many as the stars in the sky. God made a covenant with him. He sealed that covenant as in the custom of that day with sacrifice animals that the parties who were making a covenant were supposed to walk through and say what happened to these animals happened to me if I break one word of this covenant.

But when God made a covenant with Abraham, promising offspring as numerous as the stars in the sky God made that covenant. He didn't have Abraham go through the animals as though somehow it's equal you do your part Abraham and I do mine.

No, actually he kind of knocked Abraham out and only symbols of God's presence went through the animals. So God's making saying it depends all on me. I am making this covenant. It depends completely on my power, God's saying.

Not on you. It does not depend on you. The Lord symbolically said that he will keep this covenant. As we said in Psalm 11 1 -11 His covenant is unbreakable. Moses says here that they are today. That's the promise made.

You'll be as many stars in the sky however you read the rest of the Bible. God will fulfill that promise. Here we are at Deuteronomy before the law is even into the law Moses says that God has already done it.

They are today, he says.

Already.

As numerous as the stars in the sky. The Lord literally did keep his promise to Israel. It's not something we have to wait on. It's certainly not something we build a whole theory of end times about. Waiting on God to keep this promise.

It's done. Now sure, Moses wishes them to be a thousand times more than they are. That's not really a promise, that's a hope for them. The promise is literally fulfilled here by Deuteronomy chapter 1.

He's kept his word but it is ultimately fulfilled in Christ who is the descendant who builds his assembly, his true Israel out of people from every nation a company of nations, Isaac called it there will be a thousand times more they are numerous because God keeps his promises.

For Moses they are also onerous otherwise there is too much for him to handle. Their strife, they are sometimes suing each other, they need people, judges to settle their disputes. And so verse 12 says How can I bear by myself the weight and the burden of you and your strife?

He recounts how he organized them with commanders of hundreds and fifties and tens and judges and officers and obviously he delegated many of the routine decisions to these men. Many Christians today organized Israel.

Many Christians today seem to think that the organization of the church is not something they want to be bothered with. Who cares about that? It's what is called polity and many Christians today seem to think that's boring it's irrelevant it's best it's just a practical matter in other words whatever works whatever makes the church seem to work at least for now that's what they think the result is that churches are often organized like corporations or maybe at the whim of the guy at the top or and so the instructions for the church from God in 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus.

Are ignored.

And so then when trouble happens, when people get onerous as they sometimes do the church is in trouble. The organization is not able to bear it in my opinion. That's what happened. That's what happened to Mark Driscoll and his church in Seattle on Mars Hill.

It was a mega church a few years ago and now it's completely gone. It dissolved, fell completely apart and I think probably because it didn't have a biblical structure. How did we get here? To disillusion to collapse by not paying attention to what scripture says about handling onerous people by being partial.

In verse 17 Moses warns them you can't be partial. You like somebody or maybe somebody's rich or powerful so you excuse their sins you cover them up, you decide in their favor. They're leaders so you're going to give them more leeway.

Maybe you're intimidated by some, by their threats. To make a fuss we need to believe that as Moses says judgment is God's he has justice. So your judgments better follow his respect his judgments that what he said he will judge he will judge.

And tremble at his word at the thought of being inconsistent.

With it.

It should set you set fear in you that you would violate it that you would do other than what he's commanded. So they set out with a commission numerous and onerous through a great and terrifying desert to the promised land they've been commanded to do it.

They've been told that the Lord will grant what he's commanded. So they come to Kedesh Barnea south of the promised land what they hoped was supposed to be their launching off point. Moses reminds them again in verse 21 of God's promise repeating some of this that God's already said to them see again, look, pay attention the Lord your God has set the land before you.

There it is, it's all laid out. That's the situation they're in, they're on the verge of the promised land, now again the commission repeats it, in case they forgot it.

Go up.

Take possession as the Lord the God of your fathers has told you.

There it is.

It's the Lord's command and he's granted the power to do what he's commanded. But will they believe him. He tells them do not fear or be dismayed be confused flustered by this, this is new. You can't do this.

Don't be afraid of opposition. Don't be more confident in their power to stop us than in God's power to overcome them. Don't do that. Don't be afraid that you won't have the power to practice self-control.

That you won't be able to live for the Lord without that boy or girlfriend, that you won't be able to you won't be able to give that you're not able to organize your family like the Bible says that you can't really tell the truth because the cost is too high.

Don't be confused don't be flustered or scared off from seeking first the kingdom of God. The people come to Moses with a brilliant idea we need an evaluation, in verse 22 and notice they say it is simply so they'll know the way we must go up.

Notice that? The reason for sending the spies is we need to know which way to go which roads to take. They want directions is all. And Moses thinks in verse 23 that's reasonable, that makes sense. We need to plan this out so they dispatch 12 spies to surveil the land draw maps so they'll know which ways to go.

They can plot out the route then of how their invasion is going to work. After all, they're definitely they say it definitely, they're going to take this land. And the spies came back with directions, with samples from the land, they described it as a good land, remember all the spies said it's a good land but only 2 of the 12 said that the Lord our God is giving it to us.

But Israel did hear from at least 2 that the Lord is giving them that good land. That's the evaluation. They should believe it. We're given an evaluation in Romans 6 and elsewhere that we can live without sin reigning in our mortal bodies that in 1 John, sure we won't be without sin.

When someone says I'm without sin, no they're lying. But we can live without making a practice of sin. Some say maybe the majority say today, I don't know that we really can't do it that we can sin. That grace might abound that we can live in sin and God will excuse it.

That's what grace is for. Isn't that what grace is for, isn't it for judgment free sinning, isn't that what it's about you know, ok, a little porn is ok, sex outside of marriage is the norm that if you're born with certain inclinations and orientation, we can't expect you.

We really can't realistically expect you to overcome it. The man is the head of the woman his wife and less, of course that doesn't really work for you, that's ok. You know, we're open to all kinds of things.

The majority might always be saying that there is sin we have to surrender to, that we really can't overcome, we really can't overcome this sin. But the evaluation is thanks be to God we are set free from sin and have become slaves of righteousness in Romans chapter 6.

Well they said they wanted an evaluation just to get them a map, makes sense, right. That they're definitely going to take the land. God has given them a command and granted what he's commanded but has he granted them the faith to believe he's granted what he's commanded.

Unbelief, Rebellion, and the Rejection of a Generation

Well next is the insubordination. They said they just wanted to know the way, that's all. But the reality is that they didn't really believe. So starting in verse 26, yet in other words, despite the promise from the minority, the report they heard, the Lord is giving them the land the promise they have from God despite all that.

Still.

They would not go up they would not obey the command. They wouldn't take the land. They wouldn't practice self control. They wouldn't not serve money. They wouldn't be sexually pure. They wouldn't tell the truth.

The husband wouldn't show he believes Christ is his head by making sure he's the head of the family, they didn't have enough faith in God to act on what he promised. Understand, they didn't believe God, they rebelled, they were insubordinate, they were rebels against his kingdom.

Now.

How did we get here still outside the promised land addicted to porn in an immoral relationship spending every day including Sunday mornings chasing dollars in a dysfunctional family or church that cares more about covering up our sins than helping each other overcome them.

How did we get stuck in this place by hearing the command.

Whatever it is.

Take the land. Don't look at a woman to lust. Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies. Don't be unequally yoked with an unbeliever. Don't try to serve God and money. You can't do it anyway. Wife submit to your husband, husband be the head as Christ is the head of the church.

We heard the command but we didn't believe that God would give us the power to do it.

We murmured.

That maybe God really hates us. Maybe just in our minds we were wondering maybe he's against us. Maybe that's why he saved us just to deprive us.

Of pleasure.

That's what he's about he just wants to take from us like the serpent said to Adam and Eve in the garden God knows that when you eat of it you'll be like him. He's trying to keep something good from you when you get in this immoral relationship.

Oh it'll be great.

He wants to keep that from you. When you get rich you'll have everything you want but he doesn't want you to have it. When you cave in to making her your Lord your life will be sweet. He's disrupting that.

The Lord knows that this whatever it is, this temptation.

Whatever it is for you.

You might think that this is better for me than his ways and he's just trying to keep me from it. He's trying to destroy my life. That's what we believe. When we believe something other than God's promises we believe God can't do what he promised now here in verse 28 they're believing the people are greater and taller than we.

That's probably true. The cities are great fortified up to heaven. Alright, maybe that's true. They have giants, you know people like Goliath with huge spears. They said we can't. We can't overcome them.

My desires are too strong. God can't give me the power to master them. Dollars and houses and cars and jewelry and gadgets are too satisfying, I gotta have it. Christ can't match that stuff. The deceitfulness of riches says loving Christ more than family that can't work.

Our idolatry says oh they had their excuses. Understand that people almost always make good sounding excuses to stay in their sins here, oh the best of all, it was their children. Won't someone think of the children.