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Now let's dive into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Would you turn in your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, please, in your Old Testament? I trust you brought a Bible. Yes. Yeah, I love that.
I love it when you do that. It's what we live by. It's what we stand for. Turn to the book of Deuteronomy, please. That's the book that we want to cover in our flight over the Bible this evening.
Harvard University was named after a minister of the gospel named John Harvard. It started as an institution that would train men for ministry. Likewise, Yale University was started by a Puritan clergyman, and Princeton University in New Jersey has ties to the Presbyterian Church. They have those things in common. All three institutions.
In fact, the motto, the original motto for Princeton, was the Latin "Deo sub numine viget," which means "Under God she flourishes." It was all about training people to be able to preach the gospel more effectively.
Well, fast forward to the modern age, and you have in those institutions something vastly different than what they started with. They started with the right spiritual intent. You'd be lucky to find a spiritual emphasis anywhere on those campuses. They have become very secular in their reasoning, very liberal in their belief system and in their worldview. How did it happen?
Two words: incremental change. Incremental change didn't happen overnight. It happened slowly over time. It was incremental change, and history demonstrates that what happened with those institutions happens with any institution potentially, and any individual. Potentially, I call it spiritual entropy.
Those of you that have a science background, you're familiar familiar with the second law of thermodynamics, which is entropy. That in a system over time, things tend toward decay and disarray and confusion. Energy is lost. It happens spiritually as well. This is why the Apostle Paul.
Wrote to a young minister of the gospel named Timothy, Second Timothy chapter four, and he announced in the New Testament, the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.
Now, all of that introductory remark is to set up the book of Deuteronomy, because Deuteronomy is Moses saying what he already said again. He is repeating himself, though in a shortened version of the first four books of Moses. He is shortening that to one book, the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is a Greek word that means the second law. Deuteros, second or two, Namos, law.
It is the second giving of the law. Thus, like you might expect, it covers some of the same ground of the first four, especially the previous three books of Moses that we have already covered. There are 250 references in the book of Deuteronomy to the first four previous books of the Pentateuch. What we have essentially in Deuteronomy is Moses at the end of his life. Saying his goodbye to the children of Israel, this time a new generation.
Deuteronomy is composed of three farewell speeches given over a single month in the midwinter, as the children of Israel have settled on the plains of Moab, overlooking the Jordan River, overlooking the valley toward Jericho, before they enter the land under Joshua. Moses is speaking this to a new generation. What happened to the old generation? They died. They kicked the bucket.
Their corpses are strewn in the wilderness. They disobeyed what God had said. They lacked the faith to go in according to His promise, so their corpses were littered in the wilderness. Thus, with the new generation, so Moses has been the pastor of their mom and dad's generation, and now the next generation. There's the need to reiterate some of the salient points of the law and to review the last 38 years of their history.
Thirty-eight years, thirty-nine years, forty altogether, and to reinterpret the law for the new generation. You might want to call it a briefing, though it's not a brief book. It really is Moses giving the briefing to the new generation before they enter the land. One of the key verses that I already mentioned during our communion time is chapter six, verse twelve, which says, "Beware lest you forget." Now, why would he say that? Because he remembers their moms, their dads, their aunts, their uncles—the ones now dead—forgot what God had done and lacked the faith to go ahead with the promise.
He doesn't want that to happen to the new generation.
Something else.
Some scholars, interestingly, have nicknamed the Book of Deuteronomy the Gospel of Love, and that is because, unlike the other books, there is a repetition of the word love in the Book of Deuteronomy some 21 times. And what he is telling them is that you need to love the Lord your God. It's not just about keeping rules and regulations, but it needs to be filled with a heart of love, a motivation of love. Which will then prompt obedience. It's a terrific book.
Adam Clarke, a great commentator, said it may be safely asserted that very few parts of the Old Testament scriptures can be read with greater profit by the genuine Christian than the book of Deuteronomy.
Now, Deuteronomy will be mentioned in the Old Testament or referred to in the Old Testament. The rest of the Old Testament. Three hundred and fifty times, in the New Testament, it will be referred to ninety-five times.
So, about four hundred and forty-five times, this book is pointed back to in the rest of the Bible. Did you know that Jesus will quote from the book of Deuteronomy more than any other of the books of the Torah?
Now, I said there are three farewell speeches. Right? Easy to remember them. One deals with the past, one deals with the present, and one deals—guess what—with the future. That sums up the book of Deuteronomy.
Chapters one through three, he reviews the past. Chapters four through twenty-six, regulations for the present, and chapter twenty-seven to the end of the book, readiness. For the future, so it's what God did, what God is doing through their obedience prompted by love, and what God will do for them in the future. Another way to look at it: first part is historical, second part is legal, the laws, the regulations, and the third part is prophetical. Or if you prefer to be more accurate, one is historical.
The second is pedagogical because it's him teaching these laws to them, and the third is prophetical. Whichever word you prefer. Let's begin with chapter one, verse one. He begins by reviewing their past. This is what God has done.
It's the historical portion. Verse one. These are the words. Let's stop right there, if you don't mind. The name of the book is Deuteronomy.
If this were a Hebrew Bible, the name of the book would be Devrim or Devarim, and that means the words. Because it's interesting, the Hebrew Bible names the books after the first few words of the book. And because notice verse one, these are the words. The name of the book is called the words. Or these words, Devarim.
These are the words which Moses spoke to all of Israel on this side, that is, the east side of the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Sooth, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Disharhab. It is eleven days' journey from Horeb, that's the mountain where Sinai is, by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea, that entrance point of the new land.
Now it came to pass in the fortieth year in the eleventh month on the first day of the month that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him command given him as commandments to them.
Now once again I mentioned this last week, but here we look at the text, verse two. How long was it supposed to take from Mount Sinai Horeb to the Promised Land? Eleven days. They managed to turn an eleven-day march into a forty-year meander. Right?
They went from walking to wandering to whining to wailing. That sort of captures their history.
Now distances. In the Middle East, in ancient times, were not measured by miles or kilometers. They were they were measured by hours or days.
Now, if you're a Californian, you get this, because when we I was in California, people said, "Well, how long is it from here to there?" We never we never answer the question. We say, "Oh, it's about an hour." That wasn't the question. The question is how how far is it? They're asking. They're they're thinking of miles, but there it doesn't matter how.
The distances. It matters how long it takes because we have something there that is very, very unique to that part of the country. It's called congestion, twenty four seven.
So it just depends on when you're traveling from here to there. It could take you twenty minutes. It could take you about two or three hours. Just depends on the traffic.
So they would measure by hours and by days. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. The Bible is a big book—66 books filled with history, poetry, prophecy, letters, laws, and more. It's easy to lose sight of how it all fits together. That's why Pastor Skip Heitzig wrote his new one-year devotional, Soaring Above It All.
It gives you a panoramic view of Scripture, helping you understand the key people, events, and themes from Genesis to Revelation, while deepening your walk with God. Request soaring above it all as our thanks when you give fifty dollars or more today to help connect with Skip share clear verse by verse Bible teaching with people everywhere. Give now at connectwithskip.com/offer or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight.
Now here's more from Pastor Skip.
Now it would take. About 20 miles you could cover in a day by walking in ancient times. That's how they would reckon a journey: 20 miles a day by foot. If you were to do it by camel, you could cover about 30 miles. If you were to go by caravan, kind of split the difference, you could cover about 25 miles.
So it's measured that way. Remember, in the book of Jonah, Jonah gets to Nineveh, and it says Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, about three days' journey in extent, because that's how long it would take to cover it by foot.
So the children of Israel are out wandering, walking, and moving at a slow rate. Verse six, Moses continues, "The Lord our God." Spoke to us in Horeb, saying, "You have dwelt long enough at this mountain." Horeb is the mountain range. One of the mountain peaks of the Horeb range is Mount Sinai. I love that God says, "You've been here long enough." Don't you love it when God says that? You've been here long enough, and sometimes God may say that to you.
You've been here long enough. It's time for you to move on. It's time for you to pick up and move to a new place in your life, and stir things up and get out of your comfort zone. He says that to them. They had been at Mount Sinai, verse seven.
Turn and take your journey, and go to the mountains of the Amorites. To all the neighboring places in the plain, in the mountains, in the lowland, and the south, on the seacoast, to the Canaanites and to Lebanon—that's far north, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates—he's telling them the land that he has marked out for them to inherit. If you were to get a map and a pencil and a little ruler, And figure it all out. You discover that originally God promised the children of Israel a significant land mass of three hundred thousand square miles. That's what God said He would give to them.
The condition was they had to walk and take and. Possess the land God promised to them. Right, that was always the condition. It's yours, but you got to walk through it and lay claim to it. At their very pinnacle of their history, under King David and King Solomon, when the kingdom was expanded and they became very strong, at their best, at the utmost, at the highest, Israel only occupied thirty thousand square miles.
God said, "This is what I'm giving you," but this is what they took. They took, at their pinnacle, one tenth of all that God promised them that they could possess.
Sound familiar? God's promises must be appropriated. They do no good just lying on the pages of your Bible. Oh, you can underline them and you can memorize them. Good for you.
You got to say they're mine. I am going to walk in them. I am going to take that land. Verse eight. See, I have set the land before you.
Go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, to give them and their descendants after them. I remember a story about a father who wanted to bless his son when he graduated from school. His son wanted a brand new car. Dad could afford it, but instead, Dad gave him for his graduation a Bible. How excited do you think that boy was?
Teenage boy, all excited? Not so much. He was so unexcited. He took the Bible and threw it across the room, walked out of his dad's office, never saw his father until his father died. When his father died, he came back home.
There was that Bible on the shelf. He took it out, and as he took it out, out fell a car key. To the other gift, that you had to open the Bible to receive, and that was the car he wanted. You had to take the sweetness of the Word to get the second gift. God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us.
By glory and virtue, those were the words of Peter in the New Testament. All that God has for you is found in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the plan God has for your life. Be sure that you follow that plan.
Now, verse twenty-six, he has brought up the twelve spies that enter the land, and he says, nevertheless, verse twenty-six, nevertheless, you would not go up. We read that last time, verse 34. And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and He was angry, and He took an oath, saying, "Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land of which I swore to give to their fathers." This is all review. Moses is saying, "Your parents are dead. Your uncles are dead.
Your aunts are dead. The old generation died because they refused to take the promises that I had for them." Except verse thirty-six, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked because he wholly followed the Lord.
Now we can't be sure, but I think this is a conservative estimate. About one point two million people of the old generation died in the wilderness. One million two hundred thousand.
Now that would average out to be eighty-five funerals a day. Not saying that it all happened that way; that it was spaced out that way. It could have been several at once. We don't know exactly. No, but it would average out to be eighty-five funerals a day, or seven deaths every waking hour, year after year after year.
You know what? That would be a constant reminder of the wages of sin is death. This is the wages of sin every day. The wages of sin. The wages of sin.
So you can see that Moses wants to review this with the young bucks before they enter the land. I don't want you to forget this very important component: the wages of sin is death. Chapters two and three, Moses reviews some of the places that they had been, the events that took place in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Armies that were defeated, and there were two kings that are constantly brought up in Israel's history that they defeated. Sihon was one of them, and Og, O G, was the other.
Og was the king of Bashan up north. Look at chapter three, verse ten. All the cities of the plain, all Gilead, all Bashan. This is all east of the Galilee, up north, as far as Salcah and Endre, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
Okay, pause there for a moment. Remember, there were two and a half of the twelve tribes that did not want to settle where God told them originally to settle west of the Jordan River. They saw the highlands up north, the grass fields, great pasture lands for their flocks, and they said, "We would like to settle here." That was a compromise. They shouldn't have done that. The very first tribes.
Later on in Israel's history, to fall to idolatry were these tribes. They're largely unprotected, isolated from the rest of the community, surrounded by paganism. Those were the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. But something I want to notice, verse eleven: For only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the remnant of the giants. Notice that.
Indeed, his bedstead—that is, his bed frame—was an iron bed frame. Is it not in Rabba of the people of Ammon? To which you say, "Yes." It's a rhetorical question, because it is. It was. Notice, as nine cubits is its length.
And four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit. The standard cubit was eighteen inches. The bed frame was thirteen and a half feet long.
So it brings this up and wants you to note that because this guy was one of the giants.
So you know Solomon said, "There is nothing new under the sun." King size beds. Are not a modern invention, you know. I I have a bed at home called a California King because it's a little bit longer, and I'm a little bit longer. And it was developed in the nineteen sixty s. I think a furniture firm in Los Angeles said, "Hey, let's extend it to eighty four inches instead of seventy two.
We'll call it the California King." I'm glad they did. I fit in that properly. This baby was a king size bed. And he was a king, so it fits. But he was called a giant, and it bears record to something those twelve spies saw when they checked out the land.
They said, "Hey, there are giants still in the land." Now you know how big. And this is why the ten came back and said, "We are grasshoppers in their sight and in our." Eyes as well, even though that really wasn't the truth. According to Joshua, Rahab said, "The people of the land are melting in fear because of you." That's what they thought because of these giants. If you were to compare yourself to Og, let's say you were up against an army of giants like this, you would look at the giants and you would look at you and you would say. Poor us.
But if you saw how big God was in compared to the size of the giants, you'd say poor them. Again, like we said last week, it all depends on your perspective. What are you measuring according to? Are you measuring according to your strength, your height, your stature, your your size, your ability, or God's? See John said, "Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." Measure that way.
Only two dead, and they lived to tell about it. Martin Luther said, "With God, one is always a majority." And that's how David lived his life. David saw a giant named Goliath. David was a a runt in comparison to Goliath, but he approached Goliath. And he said, "You defy the armies of the living God.
Not you defy the armies of the nation of Israel. You defy the armies of the living God. God's going to get you." Thanks for joining us today on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we go, remember that your generosity helps share clear verse-by-verse Bible teaching with people everywhere, helping them know God more deeply and live out His truth. And this month, when you give fifty dollars or more, we'll send you Pastor Skip's brand new devotional, Soaring Above It All, as our thanks.
This one-year journey through the Bible will help you see how Scripture fits together, understand its key people, events, and themes, and grow deeper in God's Word each day. Give today at connectwithSkip dot com slash offer or call eight hundred nine two two eighteen eighty eight. See you next time on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot.
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