Deuteronomy 1: The Law...AGAIN!

"Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab,

Moses undertook to explain this law..." (Deut. 1:5)

This morning we begin one of my favorite books of scripture, the book of Deuteronomy. When's the last time you read Deuteronomy in your daily Bible study? Has it been a while? Well, whether you're reading through the scriptures with us this year or not, let me encourage you to spend the next two weeks reading Deuteronomy with us. I promise it'll be a great time.

The book of Deuteronomy is all about the law....again. The word Deuteronomy literally means a "second law" or "the law again," and in this book that is exactly what we see: Moses repeating to his people the law that was given to them by the Lord. However, Moses doesn't merely repeat it in a boring and solemn fashion, which we will see, but rather in an applicable and life-giving fashion that allows the Israelites to see how they can apply the law to their day to day lives in order to honor the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Now, let us briefly look at the setting of Deuteronomy. If you remember our study of Numbers, you will recall that the Lord has punished the Israelites for refusing to enter the Promised Land by causing them to wander in the wilderness for forty years that the rebellious generation of the Israelites might die off. Well, those forty years are gone (Deut. 1:3) and the only one left from among them is Moses (and Caleb and Joshua). Thus, Deuteronomy is essentially a book in which the Israelites are just waiting around for Moses to die so that they can enter into the Promised Land. However, before he passes away, Moses gives few words (34 chapters, to be exact) to the new generation Israelites, showing them how they can honor the Lord with their whole lives as they enter into the Promised Land.

With all of that context in our belts, let us briefly turn to what Moses says in this first chapter. After the three-verse preamble which shows how the Israelites are residing outside of the Promised Land, Moses reviews the history of Israel since the time of Sinai. He portrays how the Lord commanded them to leave Sinai (Num. 10), how Moses appointed leaders in the land (Num. 11), how Israel refused to enter the Promised Land (Num. 13), and how the people reaped punishment upon themselves from their rebellion (Num. 14). As can clearly be seen here, Moses is reviewing Israel's history for a theological purpose. This is an important them for the book of Deuteronomy (and the entire Old Testament), in which history is used to teach lessons about God's character. In these chapters, we find that Moses is attempting to show God's faithfulness and strength on the backdrop of the Isrealite's faithlessness and weakness. In other words, Moses is trying to show to a people that is about to enter the Promised Land how they can depend on God because since he has been faithful in the past, he will certainly be faithful in the future.

Likewise, we can have this hope in God as well. Moses told the people that "the Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you. . .the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son" (Deut. 1:30-31). These verses may seem ancient and distant, but there is good news in realizing that the same God who carries the Israelites through their battles is the same God who carries us amidst our battles. Let us remember today from the words of Moses that we do not fight our own battles, for to do so would be asking for defeat. However, God has given us a different way to fight our battles, that is, by his strength and his strength alone. What battles have you been attempting to fight on your own, rather than surrendering to a God who cares (see 1 Peter 5:6-7). Surely he has promised to fight our battles for us, and because of this promise, we can fly the victory flag over our battles before they even begin. By God's strength and by God's strength alone, we will win the war. Amen!