Trust & Obey

Deuteronomy 11: 1-32

The Great Covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Max A Forsythe

Introduction:  My poor attempt to summarize a study of Deuteronomy one chapter at a time pales in comparison to the two hundred some sermons on the Great Covenant preached by the Reformer John Calvin.  The further I delve into the depths of instruction and meaning in this book – the greater sense of awe do I have at the profound implications of every verse and word.  It was well that these words of Moses were recorded for the study of the nation of Israel because in some context or another the Great Covenant has been studied off and on these last three and a half millennia by those who take this revelation of God’s will for mankind seriously.

Sadly do we read in the history of Israel that the books of the law were almost lost, plastered up in a storage room of the temple.  When the Torah was rediscovered, read and understood a revival burned in the heart of the Josiah, King of Israel:  “And thus it happened, when the king heard the words of the Law, that he tore his clothes … [he observed] great is the wrath of the Lord that is poured out on us, because our fathers have not kept the word of the Lord, to do according to all that is written in this book.”  (1 Chronicles 34: 19 & 21)

King Josiah went on to establish and encourage a national revival of sorts within the Kingdom of Judah.  Two other periods in the long history of Israel and Judah are also noted for periods where the kings did indeed love the Lord of heaven and earth.  David, of course is the best known and to a lesser extent his son Solomon, years later the King Hezekiah is noted for his submission to the law of God.  These were a few of the windows within history where the revelations of the Creator God were held in high estate.  To these three we may add the witness of many other Old Covenant saints who were allowed within the providence of God to greatly impact the life of their nation.

The history of the New Covenant Church is also spotty in such a dedication.  The first generations after Christ are well known to be a time when the Spirit was moving and people were learning to not only love the Lord, but His law as well.  Since then – the church, like Israel has seen the kingdom advance and just as often decline.  The last great outpouring of the Spirit in history appeared in the context of the Reformation.  To be sure, there have been regional and national revivals and reformations here and there around the world even as the Spirit enables and the Father wills.

Unfortunately, we live in a time like that between the last prophet and the coming of Jesus Christ.  A time like so many in history where interest in the things of the Lord are low to non-existent.  Of course we hear reports here and there that the church is growing – but there is not within living human memory a time like the great events which we have noted.  Thus, it is with some fictional fantasy that we approach the awesome seminar described in the book of Deuteronomy.  Hardly will the general population give the gospel of grace and the law of God even time for a thirty-second sound bite.  Yet here in the Book of Deuteronomy we must understand that the prophet Moses spoke to the whole assembly of Israel for several days.

And in that “seminar”, as we might call it, he summarized the previous forty year history of the nation and pointed them towards their future possession of the land long promised to the descendants of Abraham.  Would that we had the time and taste for such a life-changing seminar in our day and time.  Would that we had the patience and scholarship of the Reformational era to produce and hear two hundred sermons on this Great Covenant.

Phillip is working on a CD over the History of Western Philosophy.  There are sixty-some lectures in that series and each may run an hour and more.  It is good that the Lord has prepared his heart for the great privilege and task of not only listening but also comprehending and digesting that serious study of the life of thought in the history of mankind.  Please be in prayer for him as he prepares his first paper and I mentor his first test – especially pray that I understand what he is learning!

So much to learn and know not only about the intellectual history of mankind, but also the Covenantal redemption given through the gracious hand of our Father God.  Years ago, someone asked me why anyone should bother to study the Greek or any other philosophers.  My answer was simple; philosophers ask the questions that only the revelations of our God may adequately answer!  If the spiritual implications of September 11th are adequately evaluated, then it is the questioning of American minds and hearts that are being raised as never before in the last fifty years.  And our task in response to that seminal event of the Twenty-first Century is to speak the truths of our God in love – so that the answers of His revelation might be given to enquiring minds who want to know more than just the gossip of the last week!  It is indeed an irony that the anthrax infections began in the very building that advertised that self-same enquiry:  “enquiring minds only want to know!”

Old Covenant Milieu:  So let us continue our study this morning in the spirit of the enquiring mind of King Josiah – and in so doing, let us hear of the Law of God that transformed his heart and caused him to repent of the great ignorance that had come upon his land even as we sense the same tragedy in our own.

As we look at our text in chapter eleven, there are several possible outlines to be made.  Dr Craigie outlines the recurring thematic principles of love and obedience.  Verse 1 states a requirement drawn out from Deuteronomy 10:12.  Verses 2-7 illustrate the lessons of history.  Verse 8 states another requirement, which is illustrated from verses 9-12.  Verse 13 states the requirement of obedience, love and service again which is again illustrated through verses 14-17.  Verses 18-25 provide a summary:  “a conclusion to the exposition on the basic commandments.  The substance of these verses is essentially repetition of material that has come earlier in the address of Moses, but the repetition serves once again a rhetorical purpose.  It is a final exposition of the essential features of the basic commandments of the covenant, presented once more before the actual recitation and exposition of the law” in the following nine chapters.  Verses 26-32 are an admonishment to Israel to listen to and consider carefully their choosing of God’s blessing or instead – his curse.

Raymond Brown simplifies the chapter in four divisions:

1-12 Introduction                 13-17 Obedience                 18-25 Witness                                26-32 Commitment

Now that you are aware of the greater complexities noted by Craigie and others, for our preaching purposes this morning, we shall follow the fourfold division of Dr Brown. 

We begin with verse one: “Therefore you shall love the Lord your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.”  Now I am certain that we can make distinctions between the words, charge, statutes, judgments and commandments not only here but also in our study of Psalm 119 where there are even more distinctions outlined within the greater topic of the law of God.  Let me pass by that responsibility for now with the observation that just as the Scriptures have many, many affectionate names and titles for the God of heaven and His only Son Jesus Christ, so too may those who love the revealed law like David and Moses have precious terms to describe particular aspects of the whole of the law.

What we want to sense today in the context of the chapters surrounding the text is awesome responsibility laid upon us as the people of God.  I am reminded of a new elder in our Presbytery, who with the resignation of the pastor at the second meeting he attended as an elder, he must suddenly take almost full responsibility for the congregation.  Were he a lesser man than he obviously is, I too – like him would be concerned, but it is just this awesome sense of responsibility that most prepares him for the task that we must humbly accept from this verse that Moses would admonish the people of Israel in the context of their previous history.

To the elders, the older generation Moses carefully frames his words:  “Know today that I do not speak with your children”.  He then speaks bluntly to the assembled adults who have grown up with the full knowledge of what the God of Israel could and would do not only to the enemies of His people, but also to those within the tribes who would challenge the authority of His word and prophet!  You have seen all of this He admonishes as he leads them to the purpose of verses eight and nine:  “Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey.’”

Christopher Wright, in his commentary notes on these verses that they “again put side by side the apparent necessity of obedience as a condition of entering and enjoying the land and the unconditional nature of the land gift as the fulfillment of the promise to Israel’s ancestors.  ...  They were two sides of the same truth, combining, as Deuteronomy characteristically does in so many other ways, the priority of divine grace and the necessity of human obedient response.”  Whenever I see that observation in any commentary, I feel warmed by the Spirit – realizing all the more the Covenantal aspect throughout all of Scripture.  “God first loved us”, as the New Testament proclaims and ever and always we are invited, even commanded to respond in obedience to Him.

Verses 10-12 here are fascinating in their implication.  While the geography of Egypt prompted the necessary government to manage the annual floods to guarantee regular irrigation, the land of Palestine by contrast is more dependent upon the gracious rains sent by and through the Divine providence.  In the same geographic sense, we know the great differences between Russian and American history.  While the great oceans protected the rugged individualism that produced the economic miracles of capitalism, the vast indefensible steppes of Russia required a different political organization to guarantee a minimum of such security.  At the very least, Israel may know for certain, that their life in Palestine will be very different from their previous collective life in Egypt.

Our next section in verses 13-17 indicate that the Lord God of heaven and earth means to use creatively the forces of nature to either bless or curse the inhabitants of Palestine.  We get the correct perspective on this in the Old Testament confrontation between Ahab and Elijah.  “Troubler of Israel” is the accusation against the prophet, which the king uses to justify himself.  Well does the prophet Elijah turn the tables on the king and reveal who it is who truly merits the three year drought which has humbled all of Israel.  I am reminded of the various liberals, humanists and so on who firmly believe that this fair land would be better off without the Christian population.  I wonder if they could have their way – what would this land really be like?  Even today – we are seen in the same troublesome way as the religious fanatics who have trashed the prosperity of the primary left coast.  Just as Israel is warned, “lest your heart be deceived … lest the Lord’s anger be aroused against you”, so should the leaders of our country better appreciate the superior gospel of Christ.  Where else would feminists, humanists, atheists and sodomites be tolerated any better than here?  Let them go behind the Devil’s curtain – to the bleak landscape of the Muslim lands and find out!

Verses 18-25 contain a threefold application as Raymond Brown outlines it:  “God’s word must therefore be learnt (18), shared (19-21) and performed (22-25).  The truth must not be left as an external statement, written on stone tablets, and deposited in the ark; it must be committed to memory, carefully stored in their hearts and treasured in their minds.”

All we whose hearts have been tuned to hear the sound of grace are called to a life of learning the complexities, the depth and the width of the experience charted out before us by the revelation of scripture.  Learning is not simply an esoteric experience for our own benefit alone; it is a factual comprehension to be shared as widely as the Lord gives us providence.  These verses command that sharing first within the family at every opportunity afforded; they are to be advertised from the doorway and the gate.  About every place you go today in business, there is a small notification on the door that this is a smoke free environment!  How much more should we as Christians advertise that the fires of hell find no kindling within our abode?

Look at the promise in verses 22-25 if those who love the Lord of all the earth will but Name His Name as their own.  Everywhere we go there is the Spirit in our company if we will admit Him!  Once, someone wondered out loud why my classes were so special?  So, I stretched out my hand and introduced my invisible friend: the Holy Spirit.  At least the evolving pagan appreciated the strangeness of my description and they admitted that they had heard it all!  But, they did think about it and amazingly they did behave in my classroom unlike they did everywhere else!

Our last section this morning is in verses 26-32 and here the worldly get down right upset and ornery about the privileges of the elect.  “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse,” the Lord admonishes through Moses, “the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today; and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God.”  Here in the words of Raymond Brown, “the people are told that there can be no neutrality.  If they do not love him then they hate him.  They are either destined for blessing or consigned to the curse.  The language is deliberately uncompromising.”

New Covenant Continuum: This is the true invitation of the Lord God of heaven and earth:  are you for me or are you against me?  Centuries later, Jesus was in the region where Moses had held this seminar on the Great Covenant.  He was resting by a well when a Samaritan woman came by.  Turn with me to the Gospel of John, chapter four for the report, beginning at verse seven through twenty-four.  Pay special attention to verse twenty.  Francis Schaeffer tells us that here at the entrance to the Promised Land that Moses referred to them as well:  “the blessing on Mount Gerizum and the curse on Mount Ebal”.  Dr Brown describes the scene for us as it was anticipated by Moses:  “In order to present the truth in graphic terms and emphasize the need for such a radical decision, Moses portrays two mountains which would stand on either side of them as the pilgrims entered the land:  Gerizim and Ebal.  One typified blessing, the other cursing.”

Francis Schaeffer reports that the Samaritans had gotten the religion of Israel so wrong that they were offering sacrifices on the mountain of curses!  Of course the Jews of Christ’s time did little better, they missed the whole point of who and what their promised Messiah turned out to be!  And why was that?  In part, it was because they were ignorant of the contents of God’s ongoing revelation in the Old Covenant reports!

Contemporary Application:  They misunderstood the very “love letters” (as Augustine describes the books) written to them from the heart of God.  Just as the Muslims today put more stock in a commentary on their Koran, so to did the ancient Jews of Christ’s time focus upon their own pre-millennial presuppositions of what the Messiah would accomplish.  They took the Old Covenant texts and outlined them in their own fashion after their own heartfelt desires.  Certainly, as a confessional church, we too use the Westminster Confession as an outline – but it is, was and always will be considered a subsidiary standard to the sacred texts given through the Holy Spirit and recorded by the faithful saints from Moses’ time down to the Apostles and their appointed assistants.

Let this be my last point this morning, as we read and study the implementation of The Great Covenant by Moses, Joshua and the people of Israel – let us learn well the covenantal form.  And having understood that covenantal form let us be careful to not change the label and make something of the scriptures that God would not approve.  I once read that when the first English translations were being made, the Reformers named the two parts of the scriptures Old & New Covenants. But, the common crowd would have none of, it – thus the lesser titles of Old & New Testaments became the traditional language wherever English is spoken.

This is an important point because there is within Christendom the idea that if we would only live well-ordered lives within the law of God – then the Lord will automatically bless us.  This is a presumption that some use to describe the founding of America.  This land was blessed because the Pilgrim Fathers lived a life pleasing to the great Jehovah.  No, this is the same trap that the leaders of Judaism fell into before Christ arrived in the flesh.  We are better off understanding the covenantal theme in a spiritual sense.  There is a Kingdom of the Spirit just as Jesus announced.  The Covenant of Moses, while foundational and effective for those who looked forward to their need for a Messiah, was more historical than spiritual.  Only with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is every “jot and tittle” of the Old Covenant fulfilled before becoming the New Covenant of grace administered faithfully by Jesus Christ.  Just as The Great Covenant was received, described and instituted by Moses to be passed along to the administration of Joshua, so too was it within the providence of God to raise of Jesus (a second Joshua) at the appropriate time to administer the New Covenant of grace in a manner fitting for the new reality of redemption accomplished and applied.  May we live and learn in the greater context of Christ’s administration and rule through the same revelation given through Moses.  “Trust and obey” the old hymn goes – to that application in our understanding of the Great Covenant we are called today.  May we make it our own.  Amen.

Resources Used:

Copyright (C) 2001                           Christ Covenant Reformed (Presbyterian Church in America)                                     

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