God's Promises (Deuteronomy 1)

I wrote this in the middle of the day, and this afternoon I had the fortune of seeing a rainbow, the first full one I've seen in years. I thought it was fitting after reading Deuteronomy 1, which got me thinking about God's promises.

In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him in commandment to them… (Deuteronomy 1:3)

Picture Moses standing in front of thousands of people, all of Israel, which is “as numerous as the stars of heaven” (1:10). I don’t know how public speeches worked back then without microphones or sound amplification but I can see Moses standing in front of his people, crying out with all his might for people to follow the God of all glory and saving power:

You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. (Deut. 5:32)

By now Moses is very old, and led a very long and fascinating life: growing up as Egyptian royalty, then living for decades as a quiet Shepard, then meeting the God who created him and leading his people out of slavery and out of bondage in Egypt, and then for the forty years before this speech wandering around in the wilderness with a bunch of ungrateful people that are too stubborn to enter the Promised Land. And now, finally, they can enter, but he can’t.

Moses was very intelligent, probably formally trained by the Egyptians, the best of the best; one can easily imagine that he was quite eloquent too. Somehow he managed to lead a group of people who were wandering in circles for decades who probably wanted to kill him.

Moses’ speech begins by reminding Israel that they have been on the doorstep of the Promised Land once before, and God withheld it from them because of their cowardice and lack of faith. Moses starts with this event, as if to say, “Remember that? Let’s not do that again.” He’s asking Israel not to rebel against God, and for the next few chapters he’s going to give us several examples from Israel’s history in which they rebelled against God, and we’ll see through all of Israel’s stubbornness and unfaithfulness God is merciful and compassionate and forgiving.

So Moses begins:

“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 of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates.” (Deut. 1:6-7)

It’s easy to see who’s in charge here. God is the on – not Moses – who rescued Israel form Egypt and God is the true Leader. He says what Israel should and shouldn’t do and Israel – and, by extension, Christians – should listen to Him! God is not an impersonal, uncompassionate force imposing His will on us and pushing us to our extremes for His sadistic enjoyment. He’s a loving Father, and even earthly, lazy dads know how to provide for their kids – “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11).

God still speaks to us today and we are foolish to ignore His advice. Often His will doesn’t makes sense to us and we ask, “Are You sure, God?” We like – no, we love to feel like we’re in control and when God asks something crazy of us its hard for us to humble ourselves and admit our lack of control. But honestly, who are we to question God? Really ponder that. He made everything. He made up Chemistry. I got a “C” in Chemistry.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,

declares the LORD.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The next verses in Isaiah really shows what God’s word and instruction – like His instructions to Israel at Horeb, thousands of years ago, or His instructions to us, today – accomplishes, and it is exceedingly good:

“For as the rain and the snow come

down from heaven

and do not return there but water the

earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to

the eater,

so shall my word be that goes out from

my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,

and shall succeed in the thing for

which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

So basically, it is good to do what God tells you to do. Here in Deuteronomy God’s commands are based on His promises. He has promised Israel land and He has promised them children and generations, among other things. Both of these larger promises are emphasized by Moses.

See, I have set the land before you. (Deut. 1:8)

It’s important to see the way God puts this: He has set the land before Israel, Israel has not earned it or worked hard for it – in fact, they didn’t have intentions of going there until God told them He would lead them there!

Since the story of the great exodus of Israel is prototypical for God’s salvation throughout history, it’s easy to see how our situation is the same as Israel’s with our exodus from our slavery and bondage to sin, and how it is God who sets us free, not us! He does it all, we do nothing. We are too spiritually dead to even realize we need saving (or to dream of it!). God puts the greatest dreams of freedom and salvation into our hearts and then achieves it on the cross. God is not one to shrink back from His promises. His words and His intentions are the same – unlike ours are, very often – and if we look back to Isaiah 55 we see just what that accomplishes.

So, standing on the doorstep of its dreams, Israel gets cold feet. God commands:

“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.” (Deut. 1:8)

Go in and take possession – that means there will be some fighting involved. Israel sends spies into the country before them, and upon hearing their reports many of the people become afraid: the enemy sounds too strong and terrifying.

This is an interesting situation, and I’m not sure whether the decision to send spies was necessarily sinful or an act of doubt, but it certainly leads to both sin and doubt. Before Israel knew the great enemies it was to face God’s promise had been made to Israel – He didn’t promise under the condition that the enemy would be weak, or non-present, God promised it, and Isaiah 55 says that’s going to do something. But even having this promise does not help Israel when they get an idea of the circumstances: they quickly see too many enemies, how could victory ever be possible?

Sometimes in order to be faithful to God we have to focus on His promises and reflect on them even when all circumstances point to failure. God intentionally creates situations that seem impossible for a few reasons: 1) to increase our faith, and 2) to reveal His power and glory.

In Judges 7 (Judges comes only two books after Deuteronomy) is an awesome story of such a situation. God has called a less than manly man, Gideon (“O mighty man of valor”) to lead his people in battle. Before battle God says to Gideon:

“The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand saved me.’" (Judges 7:2)

So God orders Gideon to send home whoever is afraid and doesn’t want to be there. 22,000 men leave and go home, still leaving a reasonable army of 10,000.

And the LORD said to Gideon, “The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there…” (Judges 7:4)

God’s test for Gideon is to see which of his men drink their water like a dog, lapping up the water. I wonder if Gideon was praying to see a lot of hands lapping up water, but things turn out a little differently. Only 300 men lap up the water, the rest kneel down to drink. God says:

“With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.” (Judges 7:7)

These 300 men win the battle against the Midianites because of God’s power and strength, which has no limits.

Now this event hasn’t happened yet in Israel’s history as Moses gives his speech, but the people have plenty to boast in God about, and plenty to be confident in, but they still rebel. The people, after all they’ve seen God do, say:

“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.” (Deut. 1:27)

Does God hate His children? No. There are certainly situations where we may wonder that but it is no different than the confusion felt by a child who is taken to get a vaccination. A vaccination is painful, and the child has little idea why they are going through that pain – they may even blame the parent or wonder why they would allow them to suffer in such a way, but as we get older we realize that we needed that vaccination in order to stay healthy. It is the same with our heavenly Father, and our present sufferings, which will pass. God does not delight in our suffering, just like a human parent, and He will certainly see us through it.

As the people rebel Moses attempts to stir up faith among them:

“Do not be in dread or afraid of them [the enemy]. 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.” (Deut. 1:29-31)

But Israel chickens out, so God is righteously angry. How can the people who saw Him split the Red Sea not believe in His power? As punishment God commands Israel to go back into the wilderness, where they will be forced to wander until the current generation has passed.

This chapter ends on a really interesting note because it’s a situation we can easily fall into and repeat. With God’s punishment facing them the people of Israel declare they will now do the Lord’s will, even if it’s a little late.

“We have sinned against the LORD. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God command us.” (Deut. 1:41)

Instead of being obedient to God’s will – which in this case would be accepting punishment as well as blessing – Israel tries to work its way out of its punishment by doing what it was supposed to have done in the first place, only now God is not with them.

We do the exact same thing with God’s punishment facing us – punishment for sin that we rightfully deserve. We say, “Sorry, God, I’ve screwed up. Let me make it up for you, I will feed the homeless, I will give to charities, I will read my Bible every day, I won’t fight with or insult my siblings…” We make up lists of good things to do to make up for what we should’ve been doing all along, and are “good” lists are full of things we should already be doing but don’t because our hearts are cold and dead. No, we can’t make up anything to God, which is why He came down as a man to accept our punishment for us.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

If we try to achieve God’s promises on our own – like Israel attempting to achieve the Promised Land without God, or us trying to achieve heaven and salvation on our own – we will fail. Israel, just like us, goes to battle against God’s will and is sorely defeated:

Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you [Israel] and chased you as bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. (Deut. 1:44)

Sin brings shame and shameful defeat. Sometimes even our attempts to do what is right can be sinful if we go against God’s will.

But for us there is hope in Christ, who bridges the gap between us and God and intercedes for us, and in Him all the promises of God are fulfilled. And Jesus sends the Holy Spirit who by we se God’s saving power not only intellectually, as a fact, but with a changed heart that longs to serve and love Him.