Month: April 2023

Joshua 1:6-7 Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them. Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.

Moses is gone, and now Joshua is given the huge responsibility of going in and conquering the land God swore to give. This awesome challenge would require more strength and courage than a human might naturally possess. The Lord would have to give him His strength and courage. And He did. And Joshua responded. In order to receive and exercise courage Joshua would observe to do the Law and turn not from it for any reason. If he would respond with faith and obedience, then the Lord would prosper him wherever he goes. Although courage is Joshua’s response, it also written for us that we, too, might respond with strength and courage in the face of our spiritual enemies, who try to keep us from enjoying Life in the Kingdom. We face many dangers, trials, fears, and foes, but Jesus (Joshua) is always there to give us the strength and courage to win the victory and occupy the Promised Land. We remember that courage is fear that’s been baptized.

Discouragement is an ever present enemy that seeks to bring us down, but in place of that we possess the strength and courage of the Lord. We who are baptized can say boldly, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me [Philippians 4:13].” If the Lord gives us a task, no matter how impossible it looks, He will give the strength and courage to do it.

Deuteronomy 32:51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.

The Lord God is serious about disobedience and about upholding His Holiness among His people. After all the years of faithful leadership, the Lord banned Moses from entering the Promised Land and experiencing the fulfillment of the promise. Why? Because of one seemingly little trespass: to bring forth water from the rock Moses hit it with his staff, instead of speaking to it as commanded. In spite of all the good works and years of faithful service, one sin brought severe punishment. Moses did not live to see the results of his labors.

This incident impresses upon us the Holiness of God and the sin of man that separates us from God and His life (His Kingdom). James 2:10: “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.” If we do not like this verse or we question what happened to Moses, it is because we fail to grasp the Holiness of God and the perfection of His Word.

Unwittingly, Moses thought he knew better than God. That’s the real trespass. “Smiting the rock worked before. God must have got it wrong in telling me to speak. So I’ll hit it.” Thinking you know best trespasses against Him. God’s Name must be kept holy among us. That is what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer.

We have failed to sanctify the Lord in our midst. Sanctify means to set apart something for a specific purpose. This is what is broken every time we trespass, the perfections of God. God is Holy! Really. And so must you be also. And this is exactly what Jesus came into our life to do: sanctify us, set us apart as holy unto the Lord. Praise the Lord and rejoice!

Deuteronomy 32:46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words, which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of the law.

We respond to the Gospel of Christ by daily setting our hearts to hear and do God’s Word. Setting the heart has to do with intention and desire. The Holy Spirit plants that desire in the heart: “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure [Philippians 4:13].” We sinners are not always faithful to our intention nor able to follow up our desire. So we fail. But Jesus never fails.

For this reason we need to recharge every week by going to church to hear the Gospel proclaimed. And we renew every day by sincere repentance and genuine faith in the gospel. We go to Communion to partake “in remembrance of Me.” We remember our Baptism by dying to self daily and rising to new life by faith. We hear and read the words of Law and Gospel, and then the Holy Spirit sets the heart to repent, believe and do. We must do so daily since we are dead in sin and the flesh is weak. We need to be reminded of our commitment (setting the heart) and that we are alive in Christ and willing in the Spirit. Voila, life is changed!

Deuteronomy 32:28-29 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end.

Having no wisdom or understanding is not so much a response to God as it is a cause of a wrong response. The wrong response was given in verse 27: “The Lord has not done all this.” He is speaking of the curses that have come upon them for their sin and unbelief. When bad things happen, man would rather blame God than take responsibility for their own guilt.

Instead of looking at their own sin and coming to repentance and faith in the gospel, humans shift the blame to a bad God, asking, “Why?” But without God we are not wise. We tend to”lean on our own understanding,” not knowing that pride warps a true view of life. Jesus said, “Repent or perish,” when hearing about disasters happening to others. You are not more righteous than they. See your own sin, repent, and believe the Gospel.

Psalm 90:12: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Wisdom does not come from intelligence or education. It comes from the Lord and His Word. The Spirit teaches wisdom by applying the Word to our hearts in the school of experience. Jesus is our wisdom. He gives counsel and understanding. It comes from God through Word and Spirit. Look not to your own brain or to the wisdom of the world (it has none), but to the Lord. When bad things happen we turn to God, repent and believe the gospel. We seek forgiveness, not blame. That is wisdom, wise counsel, and understanding.

Deuteronomy 32:18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

“Lest ye forget” is the theme of Moses prophecies in Deuteronomy. He knows sinners and he knows how quickly we can forget God and His grace. God is the Rock of our salvation, of our life, and of our future. We are set upon the Rock where we can trust Him to keep us safe from all enemies that would do us harm and keep us from eternal life. It is so easy to become distracted by the cares of daily living in the world and by the pleasures of the world that we become unmindful of the Lord who bought us and caused us to be born again to a living hope through the gospel.

This unmindful response to God in our life leads us into doubt and misbelief and other great shame and despair. The Word and the Spirit makes us aware of this danger and reminds us through the Gospel of whose we are and of the life we have. Jesus says to Martha, “One thing is needful.” It is listening to Jesus. Constant reminders of God’s love in Christ may appear boring and unnecessarily repetitive, but it is crucial, indeed needful, for humans, who quickly forget the God who created and redeemed them. When we hear the gospel daily and weekly we don’t say, “Oh, I know that.” Instead we say, “Thanks, I need that.” Prevent unmindfulness.

Mindfulness is an “in” word these days, but it is mindfulness of Jesus that is important.

Deuteronomy 32:16-17 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Actually, there is no other god than the One True God, who loves you forever, but humans construct things as gods in their minds and then live according to their misbelief. God’s truth is that those other things we trust in are in reality devils. The demons we turn to are actually enemies of God and seek our destruction. Humans have always worshipped creatures of God (sun, moon, etc,) and idols made by human hands. It turns out that the most common devil we turn to and live for is Self. Horrifically, the devil disguises himself as me.

Living for anything other than God alone provokes God to jealousy. He has set His love upon us, committed Himself to us, and built an intimate relationship with us. And He is naturally provoked to jealousy when we pay more attention to self. He is zealous for us and so is jealous. James 4:5: “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us.” He went to extreme lengths to procure us for Himself.

Naturally, He is hurt when we believe, love, or trust something else. Ephesians 4:30: “Do not grieve the the Holy Spirit of God.” And hurt always produces anger. Thus our Idolatry provokes the Lord to anger. Every sin hurts the Jesus we love. So daily repentance and forgiveness is necessary for wellbeing. Thankfully, a jealous and angry God loves, forgives, and receives for Christ’s sake.

Deuteronomy 32:15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou are waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

Jeshurun is like a pet name for the children of Israel, and by extension, for all the children of God. He is speaking about us. He is telling us who we really are and what we are doing in response to God’s salvation from the kingdom of darkness and death and His salvation into the Kingdom of light and life.

After we have grown prosperous, smug, and secure by grace, we forsook the God who made us new and gave us a good life. To forsake is to abandon, leave, forget, ignore, and even reject God. To esteem lightly is to scoff, scorn, spurn, even reject our Rock of salvation. We forget God and spurn salvation every time we sin. If we had God on our minds and remembered His love, we wouldn’t have sinned in that moment.

We don’t usually think of every little sin as being so serious as forsaking God, but that’s what God sees. The response of thanking and praising, serving and obeying Him is meant to be all the time, in every circumstance. But we forget whose we are. Daily repentance and returning are necessary. And the Lord is always there to receive us. He doesn’t forget. He will never, never forsake us.

Deuteronomy 32:5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children, they are a perverse and crooked generation.

The children of Israel corrupted themselves through sin, unbelief, idolatry, and disobedience. The spot and blemish upon them identified them as not the children of God. From God’s point of view of holiness they were perverse and crooked. Israel was saved and called to be a holy nation, a peculiar people, but they fell far short. The ugliness and stench of sin corrupted them. This was their response to God’s salvation. Their blemish prevented them from even looking like children of God.

This description aptly portrays what God sees when He looks at us, all people born of Adam. Although we see sin in the world, we do not really see the depth of our own sin and the corruption of our character. We are born corrupt, and we corrupt ourselves. It’s no one else’s fault. The Word and Spirit must reveal to each of us our true depravity. It’s worse than we thought.

In like manner, the revelation of the Gospel of grace, forgiveness, and holiness in Christ is also necessary for us to see. What we see is an Unspotted Lamb dying in our place for our corruption. 1 Peter 1:18-19: “You were ransomed…with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Jesus makes us holy and righteous, clean, bright, and shining. We can’t see that either until the Gospel shows it to us. By God’s grace, we respond not with corruption, but with clean living.

Deuteronomy 32:3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God,

When the name of the Lord is proclaimed the response of the hearers is to praise the Lord. Ascribe greatness to Him. We believe strongly and confess daily that God good, God is great. We hear the Gospel and respond by living our lives with a continual attitude of praise and thanks to the Lord for His greatness over everything and for His goodness to us.

Ascribing greatness to God also means giving Him credit for all the good things and the blessings we enjoy. His Creation is awesome and His Redemption is amazing. God has done it all and done it well, and we have done nothing. Every good thing comes from God; even every good work that we do, God did it. The problem enters when we take credit for something good. Sinners want to ascribe greatness to Self. We don’t want to believe that there is no good in us at all. All good is in God. We don’t want to admit that we are sinful, weak, dependent, and needy. But when we do, and ask for God’s help, He is there to forgive, restore, fix it, and do the great and good thing.

God did it all. Therefore, we ascribe greatness and goodness to God, and not to self. For anything that is good in your life, and for any good in you, ascribe it to God. Thank God in everything. Always.

Deuteronomy 31:27 For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am still alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the Lord, and how much more after my death.

Moses knows the rebellion of God’s people against the Lord. They have been rebellious during the Exodus journey, they are rebellious even this day while Moses is living, and they will be even more rebellious after he is dead. While Moses was with them, he was able to hold their rebellion in check to some degree. But after he is gone their rebellion will run rampant. And so it worked out in the history of Israel. Rebellion grew, and the curses of idolatry and disobedience came into effect.

This response to God and His grace is not confined to OT Israel; it is a prophetic word spoken to us NT people as well. Sinners are rebellious against the God who saves them, and all of us always will be. It seems harsh to call us rebellious, but we are, Sin is not only disobedience; it is also rebellion. We don’t want to admit it, to consider ourselves in rebellion against God. But we are. We have been. We will be as long as we live. In a sober moment, we may wonder how Israel could rebel against a good God who saves them. They saw the Exodus Event and the wilderness provision. How could they rebel?

A better question is: How could we rebel even after hearing the gospel and seeing the Salvation Event of the work of Christ? I don’t know, but I do. I don’t want to call my sin rebellion, but it is. I respond by confessing my sin, unbelief, and rebellion, by seeing my sinful self for who I really am. And I respond by trusting in Christ for forgiveness, and by remembering that the Love of God, for Christ’s sake, is higher deeper, wider, and longer.