Deuteronomy 1.
THE book we are beginning today is Moses’ review, under God, of the past behavior of the people he had led to the border of the promised land with a forward look through all their coming history. It is his farewell address, and its theme all the way through is obedience. The forms and ceremonies of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, shadows of the deep things of God, had not been, and never were, fully carried out, but assuming that they were to be duly observed, there was something deeper, as regards themselves to whom these writings of God, by His servant Moses, were given, and that was the need for a heart obedience to God.
Israel had failed, lost all title to the promised possession, but God in grace had gone on with them, and was about to bring them into it; would help them to take it, and would keep them in it, if they obeyed His words. Alas! they utterly failed, despite the unweariedness of a God of infinite patience and tender love; they lost their possession, and when the promised One came, Son of God and Son of David, they murdered Him, and are set aside in God’s judicial ways until the Church, the bride of Christ, has been gathered out by the Holy Spirit, and caught away to glory. The Church too has failed, through disobedience, and is today in a ruined condition. Urgently, then, there is a call for obedience to God and His Word. May we learn from the pages of Deuteronomy!
Verses 2 and 3. Eleven days’ journey, but nearly forty years on the way! This chapter tells us why it was so long a trip; (See in particular, verse 40). Lessons were to be learned, painful lessons, that were needed to show the children of God themselves, and the God with whom they had to do.
Verse 19. It was not far to Kadesh Barnea, on the border of the promised land, but unbelief kept them from at once entering,—rebellion against God (verse 26). Notice the care of God for them, told in verses 31 and 33.
Verse 41. “We have sinned” is easily said, and meant nothing, for their ways showed it. Verse 45. They wept, but they were tears of disobedient, self-willed children, and God kept them “many days” without a single step forward.
ML 08/31/1924