DEUTERONOMY 29

1 ¶ These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside (in addition to) the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

• I want to draw your attention to the fact that in the Hebrew Bible, chapter 29 verse 1 is the last verse of chapter 28.
• Some 40 years earlier, at Horeb (Mount Sinai), Israel made a covenant with God. The word covenant is used 7 times in this chapter. The covenant declared here in Deuteronomy was not a different one than the one given at Mt Horeb (Sinai), as much as it was an explanation of how that covenant was to be applied by the new generation when they entered into the land of promise.
• As we study Moses farewell address to the nation of Israel tonight, we might be tempted to say to the person next to us, haven’t we heard this before? But as CHS once said, when it come to reading or hearing the Word of God over and over again, holy repetition is always fresh manna.
• Paul the apostle wrote to the saints at Philippi: Php 3:1 ¶ Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.
  • Too often God’s people forget what they ought to remember and remember what they ought to forget. Warren Wiersbe

2 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;

3 The great temptations (trials) which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:

4 Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

• God had shown the nation signs and miracles, but what they saw with their natural eyes made no impact upon their hearts. Seeing great wonders accomplishes nothing apart from a supernatural work of God in someone’s heart.
• The most astounding miracles and signs may pass before us, and leave the heart untouched. Miracles and signs may produce a transient effect upon the mind and upon the natural feelings; but unless the conscience is brought into the light of the divine presence, and the heart brought under the immediate action of the truth by the power of the Spirit of God, there is no permanent result reached.
• But there is another Biblical principle to be considered here. If we are not walking in the light that we already have, God will not allow us to receive new or fresh light. Listen to this insightful comment from the Family Bible Notes: So long as men continue to neglect what they know to be right and do what they know to be wrong, God will not give them hearts to perceive His spiritual glory, or to enjoy His infinite love.
• At the close of the second of John's Gospel, many professed to believe on Christ when they saw His miracles; but He did not commit Himself unto them because He knew what was in them. There was no divine work, nothing to be trusted.
• Regeneration imparted by the incorruptible seed of the Gospel of God, when it is lodged in the heart by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.

6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink (they lived on manna, and drank water from the rock): that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.

7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:

8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

9 Keep (carefully follow) therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

• These are remarkable miracles recorded here in verses 5-8. Clothes and sandals simply do not last 40 years of hard marching in the wilderness apart from a miracle. The wilderness does not provide enough food and water to meet the needs of some two million people apart from a miracle. A nation of slaves for 400 years does not conquer standing nations and take their land apart from a miracle.
• Therefore keep the words of this covenant: The purpose of God granting these miracles was not intended to create a fascination for sings and wonders, but that the nation might come to progressively the greatness of God’s love and power that would cause to be more committed than ever to Israel to walk in their covenant with Him.
• The covenant He made with their fathers would stand forever, but their enjoyment of its blessings depended upon their obedience to the Lord.

10 ¶ Ye stand this day all of you before (in the presence of) the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,

11 Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger (non-Israeli) that is in thy camp, from the hewer (copper) of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:

12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:

13 That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

15 But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day:

• All of you stand today before the Lord your God: This means that the covenant was made with the entire nation. This included the leaders, the men, the women, the children, and even the servants.
• That He may establish you today as a people for Himself: All of Israel was included in God’s desire to enter into covenant, to be the people for Himself. He wasn’t just looking for a few prominent and talented people, or for just one spiritual tribe like the Levites. God wanted the whole nation to be this people for Himself.
• As well as with him who is not here with us today: The covenant extended beyond those who stood before the Lord and Moses on that day. It also included their descendants as well. This reminds me of Our Lord Jesus prayer in John 17.
  • John 17:20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; 21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

16 (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;

17 And ye have seen their abominations (disgusting, detestable, filthy), and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)

18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;

• Whose heart turneth away- Note beloved that apostasy from God always begins in the heart. That is why Scripture admonishes us to guard our hearts with all diligence.
• Gall and wormwood; bitter and poisonous plants, here representing the effects of sinful practices. Rebellion and compromise is bitter and like poison. Scripture oftentimes calls the unsanctified tongue poison.
• Nobody in Israel- no individual, family or tribe was to get involved in idolatry; for any idolater could become a bitter root that would defile the entire nation. The writer to the Hebrews applies the same warning to the body of Christ.
  • Heb 12:14 Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.

19 And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart (an expression of self will and pride), saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart (persist in going my own way), to add drunkenness to thirst:

• One of the surest signs that someone has been blinded by the deceitfulness of sin and compromise is when they think that they can be happy living in rebellion against God and escape the consequences of sowing to the flesh as well.
• Many people foolishly misinterpret the longsuffering of God as His approval of their sinful ways.
  • Eccl 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
  • This truth is plain There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked. (Isaiah 48:22) The price of rebellion and disobedience is not worth it.

20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

21 And the LORD shall separate him (single him out) unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:

22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;

23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown (nothing will be planted), nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken (abandoned) the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:

• All nations would say: God’s purpose in bringing judgment against a covenant-breaking Israel was also for the sake of all of the other nations. When they see what happens to a nation who forsakes the Lord, they are to heed that warning and yield their hearts in obedience to God.

26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them (bowed down to them), gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:

27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:

28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.

29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.

• Secret things; things not revealed, and which we do not and need not know.
• Things--revealed; those which God makes known, or has given us the means of knowing, and which we need to know. God did not speak just to blow our minds or to amuse us; there is a message which belongs to us.
  • God gives us the means of knowing all that we need to know; and for us to strive or wish to know what we cannot, ought not, and need not know, is foolish, hurtful, and wicked. FBN
  • God’s has not spoken to us merely to satisfy our curiosity about spiritual things. He has spoken to us to affect the way we live. We are to love The Lord with all of our mind as well as all of our heart. If we are consistently only hearers of the word, and not doers also, then we have not really received His word.

DEUTERONOMY 30

1 ¶ And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,

2 And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;

3 That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.

• God knew that Israel would be scattered and exiled, and here through Moses, God calls the Diaspora (Israel dispersed among the nations) to remember the promises of the blessing and the curse.
• This verse anticipates that God's words (all these things) will enter the exiles' hearts, leading them to return to God, or repent, which means to change their thinking and behavior completely. all your heart and with all your soul.
• This was fulfilled in part by the return of the Babylonian exiles during the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. But the modern regathering of the Jewish people back to their ancient homeland cannot be ignored. Numerically, this modern day return of the Jewish people to the ancient homeland is a larger, broader, more sovereign, and more miraculous restoration than that recorded in Ezra and Nehemiah.
  • Jer 16:14 ¶ Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; 15 But, The LORD liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers.
  • Adam Clarke, writing in 1811, recognized that this regathering had to be fulfilled in a future time: “As this promise refers to a return from captivity in which they had been scattered among all nations, consequently it is not the Babylonish captivity which is intended; and the repossession of their land must be different from that which was consequent on their return from Chaldea.”

4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:

5 And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.

• It is important to see that the nation of Israel has never as yet taken and possessed all of the land under the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant (cf. Genesis 15:18 ; Numbers 34:1-12)
• Because not one promise of God can fail, blessed be His Name forever, the seed of Abraham His friend shall yet possess the land of Canaan, according to the magnificent terms of the original grant. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
• We must beware of meddling with the scope of prophecy, or the true application of the promises of God. We have no warrant whatever to interfere with the divinely appointed sphere of the covenants. The inspired apostle tells us distinctly, in the ninth of Romans, that they pertain to Israel; and if we attempt to alienate them from the Old Testament fathers and transfer them to the church of God, the body of Christ, we may depend upon it, we are doing what Jehovah-Elohim will never sanction. C.K. Macintoah

6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

• As remarkable and as prophetically meaningful the modern regathering of Israel is, it is incomplete. The spiritual dimension of the regathering has not yet been accomplished.
• Apart from a remnant of Messianic Jews, Israel today is a largely secular nation. There is respect for the Bible as a book of history and national identity, but there is not, and has not been, a true turning to the Lord God, particularly as a nation.
• But God’s promise still stands. Jesus said that He would not return until Israel embraced Him as Messiah: For I say to you, you shall see Me no more til you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 23:39)
• The picture of regathering in Ezekiel 37 - the vision of the dry bones - shows Israel regathered, and strong, before the Lord breathed the breath of His Spirit on the regathered Israel.

7 And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.

8 And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.

9 And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers:

10 If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

11 ¶ For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.

12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

• This is not intended to mean that the Mosaic Law could be perfectly kept, and that a person could be sufficiently obedient to the Mosaic Law to earn a righteous standing before God.
• God did not expect an Israelite to trust in his obedience to the Law to save Him (though God wanted Israel to love His law). God expected an Israelite to trust in the atonement made by sacrifice to make him righteous, and to understand that this sacrifice pointed towards a perfect sacrifice God would one day make through the Messiah.
• There is a very beautiful allusion to the above passage in the tenth chapter of the epistle to the Romans.
• Ro 10:1 ¶ Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. 2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. 4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. 5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. 6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) 7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) 8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12 ¶ For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
  • Mark this beautiful word, whosoever, both Jew and Gentile. For salvation to be valid, there must be the confession that Jesus is Lord with the mouth.
  • Many would like to be saved by Christ, but they shrink from the reproach of confessing His precious Name. Jesus declared that whoso confesses Him before men, He will confess before the angels of God; but whoso denies Him before men, He will deny before the angels of God.

15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

• The climax of Moses' preaching is to seek a commitment from Israel to trust in God's grace and thus obey his commands.
• Under the terms of the Old Covenant, Israel had a choice: life or death, good or evil. It was up to them.
• It is essential for us to understand that we, in Jesus Christ, do not relate to God on the terms of the Old Covenant, but on the terms of a better covenant: The New Covenant. Under the New Covenant, my relationship with God is not based on what I do for God, but on what Jesus has done on my behalf.

16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

• When Paul proclaimed that ‘love is the fulfilling of the law,’ he was only repeating the teaching of this passage and other OT passages as well.

17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

18 I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

• Ancient treaties had witnesses to their ratification. Often those witnesses were the gods of the nations. In Deuteronomy, since God Himself is a partner to the covenant, He calls the heaven and earth that He created as witnesses.
• When Moses pled with Israel, crying out choose life, we know he reflected the heart of God toward Israel.
  • Eze 18:31 Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? 32 For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
• The gospel, which is the perfect revelation of God in Christ, brings every one of us face to face with the great alternative, and urgently demands from each his personal act of choice whether he will accept it or neglect or reject it. Not to choose to accept is to choose to reject. To do nothing is to choose death.
• The call to repent and believe the gospel is actually a call to choose life.

20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

• To love and trust God means to obey His voice, for a child who really loves and trusts their father will obey him. It means to cling to Him, for if we really love and trust Him, we will be attached to Him. It means to regard Him as our life and the length of your days, because if we love and trust Him, He is not part of our life, He is our life.
• The New Covenant is a covenant that is based upon love, not legalism. A walk in The Spirit is a walk of love and intimacy with The Lord, not a set of rules and regulations.