Warnings That Protect Us

God's people sometimes so magnify the grace of God that they think obedience is completely unimportant, or they so magnify obedience that they lose sight of the reality of God's grace.

And believing in justification by faith alone does not mean you stop believing in sanctification. The book of Deuteronomy features the final speeches of Moses to the Israelites before Joshua would lead them into the land of Canaan. And over the next three days, W. Robert Godfrey will consider the warnings given in the final chapters of Deuteronomy and what that teaches us about God, His covenant, and His faithfulness. You're listening to the Monday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. We shouldn't neglect the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament. As Christians, this is our history too. And in his 21 message series, Discovering Deuteronomy, Dr. Godfrey walks us through this book that covers the events that took place between the book of Numbers and Joshua. You can get better acquainted with Deuteronomy when you request the series on DVD, along with streaming access when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. This is W. Robert Godfrey, the chairman of Ligonier Ministries, to begin a series on the warnings found in Deuteronomy. Well, we're into a section of Deuteronomy that I've labeled warnings, and it begins perhaps with a surprise. I think we could almost say that's the character of Deuteronomy. It's surprising us.

This is why it's kind of hard to figure out exactly what's going on sometimes. So chapter 26 doesn't begin, and now the warnings, but it begins with, "'When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first fruit of the ground.'" So chapter 26 begins to talk about first fruits. This at least tells us that we're entering into a somewhat different subject because first fruits were part of the laws for the love of God discussed in the earlier part of the book. The first fruits, or the Feast of Weeks, was one of the three annual feasts where Israel had to go up to Jerusalem to worship God. So we're moving out of laws to love the neighbor into a new part that we'll see is about warnings, and the warning begins with, you need to keep the laws about loving God, which includes the law about the first fruits, which is a requirement that you take the first fruits up to Jerusalem annually to offer them to the Lord.

And this is a crucial part of who you are to be so that you'll remember. We make jokes in our time about identity in a variety of ways, but God is very clear that the Israelites' identity was to be constantly reasserted in terms of their history. We see that here, when you go up to Jerusalem, verse 5, to offer the first fruits, then you shall make response to the priest before the Lord your God, saying, A wandering Aramean was my father, and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number. And there he became a nation great, mighty, and populous, and the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, that the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me, and you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. You shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you and the Levite and the sojourner who is with you. So here's the pattern, and here's the picture that's being given to these Israelites by the Lord in terms of their annual service to the Lord, a service which is not just to support the temple and to support the priesthood. It's not just a requirement so that they have the fellowship of all coming together three times a year in Jerusalem.

Those are important things. But fundamentally, it's to reinforce their identity. And identity is shaped by history, this is saying. Who are you as the people of God? We were the people who were wanderers, who went to Egypt, who were enslaved and then were delivered by God, and not only delivered from slavery but given this wonderful land of promise. I think that's something Christians probably need to recapture more than they have because when you read that passage, did you think this is my history?

See, I think we're tempted to think that's their history. But no, this is our history because Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 says God is tearing down the wall of division between Jews and Gentiles. And what's the effect of tearing down that wall of division? It's that the Gentiles are brought into the covenants of Israel. It's not that the covenants of Israel are set aside. It's not that God's people are no longer the Old Testament people. It's that Gentiles are now included. That's the wonderful thing. And so we ought to be able to recite this as our own history and then go on to say, and that picture of redemption that we have in the Old Testament is now brought to fulfillment in the New Testament.

So not only were we brought out of Egypt, but even more gloriously, we were brought out of the grave by our Lord Jesus Christ when He died for us and was raised for us. That's who we are because that's our history. Some of you may know that my wife for many years taught American history in high schools, a variety of high schools. And so one of the most discouraging moments of her life used to be watching Jay Leno go out and examine people on the street about how much history they knew.

She would occasionally turn to me and say, why am I wasting my time? Well, it was very funny to see how utterly ignorant people were up to a point. But then you see if Americans don't know their own history, what identity will we have? Who will we be as a people? I think a big part of the struggles we're having politically today is not knowing enough history.

So what did we used to say? We used to say that it doesn't really matter whether your people have been in this country one generation or twenty generations. What matters is do you identify with the history of America? So when you hear about Washington crossing the Delaware, did he cross the Delaware for you? That is, did he cross the Delaware to win your independence? So as I say, whether you've been in this country many generations or only a few generations, do you identify with what is the essential character of America in terms of what was expressed in its constitution, for example?

And if you don't know the history and you don't know the constitution, how can you possibly identify with it? And that's why the teaching of history is so important. As Martin Luther said so insightfully, historians are the greatest of men. We cannot praise them too much.

I wish he'd gone on to say we cannot pay them too much, but he didn't go on to say that. But this is what creates us as a people. You know, I spent some time in Germany when I was a college student back in the 60s, and it was interesting to talk to Germans, and I've talked to other Europeans, it's the same thing. Being a German is an ethnic thing as well as a national thing. Being a Norwegian is an ethnic thing as well as being a national thing. And so in the minds of one Norwegian I was talking to, he wasn't bigoted at all.

He just said, well, you can live in Norway forever, but if you're not a Norwegian, you're not a Norwegian. That's never been true of America. America has never been defined ethnically.

Now, we've had plenty of ethnic problems, but our definition is you're an American if you're an American citizen. But for that to really work, we have to have a history that's defining. I think we sort of understand that when we think about it. And Deuteronomy is saying the people of God have a history.

They are defined by their history. They need to know their history to appreciate what God has done for them. That's the great thing, what God has done for them.

And because what God has done for them, they present the firstfruits annually. They present a further tithe every three years that's talked about here. And then you have this wonderful sort of conclusion to chapter 26, which is a warning but is also an assertion of the character of God's covenant. Deuteronomy 26 verse 16, this day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them. There's the warning, you shall be careful to do them. Remember how often we heard the call to careful observance back in the warnings at the beginning of the book?

Here it is again. You shall be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. So the careful response to God's covenant is not just external, but it's heartfelt and loving as well. So we talked about how the law can appear to be simply external, but here is the call for the engagement of the heart. You have declared today that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in His ways and keep His statutes and His commandments and His rules and will obey His voice. And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for His treasured possession. You see, the Lord is engaged emotionally, if we can put it that way as well. The Lord cares for us. The Lord loves us. The Lord is motivated by His love to preserve us. You are as treasured possession as He has promised you, and you are to keep all His commandments and that He will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all the nations that He has made and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God as He promised.

Think of that. The Lord has promised to set us on high as His honored people before the world. And what a promise that is, what a glory that is, and what a reminder we have here of the character of God's covenant.

God's covenant is, first of all, His initiative to save, but also His call upon us to respond. And that's beautifully expressed, and I mention this for those of you who have lived outside of the parameters of the Dutch Reformed world. This is beautifully expressed in the baptismal form for the baptism of infants that was adopted by the Dutch Reformed churches in the sixteenth century.

So this is an old form that expresses confidence in this form. First talks about God and His love and His action, and then it goes on to say, in all covenants there are contained two parts. Therefore are we by God through baptism admonished of and obliged unto new obedience, namely that we cleave to this one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that we trust in Him and love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength, that we forsake the world, crucify our old nature, and walk in a godly life. See, I think that's exactly what's being said here in Deuteronomy. The Lord has loved us, and now the Lord wants us to love Him. And the warning is going to be, that's harder than you think.

That's harder than you think, and you're going to have more trouble with that than you think. That's why the warning comes so powerfully and is so severe. But this is the nature of the covenant, and the nature of the covenant hasn't changed. And this is always the struggle for God's people. God's people sometimes so magnify the grace of God that they think obedience is completely unimportant. Or they so magnify obedience that they lose sight of the reality of God's grace. And believing in justification by faith alone does not mean you stop believing in sanctification. The Lord calls us to both things. He wants us to understand justification by faith alone, so we'll say that salvation is all His work. But He wants us to think about sanctification to realize that part of His work is working to change us, to make us different. And I always like to say, every Christian ought to occasionally step back and ask, am I different from what I would have been if I weren't a Christian? Has God's grace made some difference in me? And I think every Christian ought to be able to say, yes, it has. I may not be all that I want to be, but I can see evidences. Now, you have to look first to Christ by faith, and then you dare look at yourself. And when you look at yourself, you can say, yeah, I see evidence that God has made me different, not as different as I hoped to be one day, but still different. And that's part of what's being said here. And then God gives, we might almost say, sacramental expression to that reality, to that covenant, and to that warning when He talks about moving into the land of promise, and He wants them to set up stones when they cross the Jordan, set up stones, and they're to put plaster on these stones, and they're to engrave on these stones the words of the book of Deuteronomy. I think there had to be several stones, or they had to be very big stones, but that's what's to be done. And why is that important?

We don't know what percentage of those people could read. Well, it's important symbolically because it says as we cross the Jordan, we didn't come here by our own strength. We didn't come here in our own wisdom. We came here by the blessing of God because He had made of us a covenant people. And to be a covenant people, we want to keep covenant, and so we're raising these stones so we'll remember the covenant, we'll remember that we are a covenant people, we will remember that we have a covenant God, and we'll honor Him. And that's always the function of sacraments, to bring us back to the heart of things. Baptism says to us, you're a dirty people who need to be clean, and the Lord's Supper says you're a starving people who need to be fed. And it's Jesus who cleans us, it's Jesus who feeds us. That's what our sacraments say to us, bring us back to the very heart of things, and that's what is true here.

And then we have a ceremony, a really rather remarkable ceremony on Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, mountains west of the Jordan into the Promised Land. And God had told the people, you remember, don't you know what I taught you about Deuteronomy 11? In Deuteronomy 11, God is already saying that He's going to do this. And so we read in Deuteronomy 11 and verse 26, "'See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse, 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. But turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today to go after other gods that you have not known. And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal.'"

So there's the word. When you get across the Jordan, then you're to do this. You're to do this ceremony, and now we have more details about the ceremony. They're not there yet, but this is what Moses is instructing them to do. Verse 8 of Deuteronomy 27, "'Then Moses and the Levitical priest said to all Israel, Keep silence and hear, O Israel, this day you have become the people of the Lord your God.'"

Now, that's one of those statements that's sort of peculiar, isn't it? This day you've become the people? I think what it means is this day you are consecrated as the people. This day you're seeing that fulfillment of having entered the promised land and crossed the Jordan.

"'You shall therefore obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping His commandments into statutes which I command you today.' And that day Moses charged the people, saying, When you have crossed over the Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, and he named six tribes." So six tribes are to stand on Mount Gerizim on one side of the valley, and six tribes are to stand on Mount Ebal on the other side of the valley. Mount Gerizim will represent the blessing that God speaks to His people if they keep His covenant, and Mount Ebal represents the curse that will fall upon them if they fail to keep their covenant. Now, it's not that the six tribes are blessed on the one side and the six tribes are cursed on the other.

It's to make them think about the choices that are before them as people. But it is interesting as we look at this that on Mount Gerizim, on the mountain of blessing, He puts amongst others Levi, the tribe of priests, Judah, the tribe from which will come the kings, Joseph and Benjamin, both beloved of Jacob. These are tribes that have a kind of positive history in Israel. And then on Mount Ebal, you have Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali. These are not all bad tribes, but Dan becomes one of the most rebellious tribes.

And so there is a little proleptic looking at the future in this arrangement. And then something very peculiar, Levi standing on the mountain of blessing is instructed to speak twelve curses. Now, you'd have thought symbolically the curses ought to be spoken from Mount Ebal, but they're not. It does certainly reinforce the leadership role of Levi as priests, and it also reinforces that in these last chapters of Deuteronomy, there will be often more stress on the curse than on the blessing, more stress upon the danger of the negative outcome of disobedience than on the blessings likely to come to them. And so here are declared twelve curses. Now, you're a smart group, twelve.

What does that make you think of? It makes you think of the twelve tribes of Israel. So, in a certain sense, this is a warning. A curse can fall on each of the tribes and all of the tribes together, and there's no corresponding twelve blessings. There are blessings, and we'll get to, but it's as if God wants to say, now as you stand on the threshold, having entered the promised land, and as you've been symbolically separated, think about blessings and curses, I want you especially to think about the curses because it's so dangerous for you if you're not my people. And the curses, as we've seen in the laws that we've looked at before, are both predictable and sensible, sensible in quotes the way we look at things, but also surprising. And so the first curse is cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman, and sets it up in secret, and all the people shall answer and say, Amen. So the first curse is a curse about loving God. The first curse is about serving God. The first curse is about the second commandment. You shall not make any graven images.

Curses 2 through 11 are all about the second table of the law, about loving the neighbor, and they are interesting. Verse 16, straightforward, cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother. That's clearly the fifth commandment. Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark. That's the eighth commandment, stealing. You're stealing. Fourth commandment, cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road.

Now, that's a terrible thing to do. If we followed our Puritan forebears who linked all ethics to one commandment or another, what commandment might this be? Well, it might be the ninth commandment, bearing false witness, meeting somebody, telling them a lie that leads them into trouble. The fifth curse is cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

Here's this concern about the weak, the helpless. Could this be the tenth commandment, you perverted justice out of coveting, or could this be the eighth commandment, you're stealing, or could this be the ninth commandment, you're bearing false witness, or maybe all three? But you see, all of these curses, while getting very particular in some ways, are illustrating the general principles of the Ten Commandments. And then curses six through nine are all about the seventh commandment, are all about sexual sins.

Again, as we said before, representative, I think, of the relationship between God and His people. And then the tenth and eleventh curses seem to be about murder. Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret. Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood, sixth commandment.

And then the twelfth is a summary. Cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. So, there's a curse coming, not just for particular and individual sins, but there's a curse coming if you don't keep the covenant as a whole, and all the people shall say, amen.

Now, what does it mean to say amen? Well, it's really calling down judgment on yourself if you fail to do what the Lord has called you to do and what you have now promised to do. That was W. Robert Godfrey in the book of Deuteronomy, beginning a study of the concluding warnings given by Moses. This is Renewing Your Mind, and over three days, you'll hear messages from Dr. Godfrey's series, Discovering Deuteronomy. Did you know that Deuteronomy is one of the most frequently quoted books in the New Testament? And this book points us to the Savior who would and who has come.

You can learn how the lands, laws, and leaders of Deuteronomy connect to the Christian life when you request the entire study at renewingyourmind.org. Or when you call us at 800 435 4343. Simply give a donation of any amount, and we'll send you the series on DVD and grant you lifetime streaming access to the messages and study guide. Give your gift today at renewingyourmind.org or by clicking the link in the podcast show notes. Thank you. As we think about the warnings given to the Israelites, do they have any relevance to us living in the 21st century? Dr. Godfrey will consider that question tomorrow, here on Renewing Your Mind.