- Lessons learnt the hard way.
Some lessons in life are not easily learnt. Some of us insist on learning things that hard way. We resist what others want to point out to us, not heeding what they are teaching us. I learnt a valuable lesson when it came to my HSC – little study guarantees poor results. Cramming in the last couple of weeks doesn’t make up for not having diligently work throughout the year – at least not for me.
I’ve often mentioned the car accident that I had in my early twenties mucking around in my 4WD with a whole lot of mates in the car showing off at the time. I’d been told to drive carefully, warned about the dangers. As I saw the telegraph pole looming up large, I remember thinking to myself – do I have to learn my lesson the hard way. Well, I did. The 4WD was a write off, however I was very fortunate. The Lord was gracious, and we all got to walk away unharmed. Not every young man does when he gets behind the wheel of a car. My neighbour a few doors down from us who was just two years younger than me didn’t.
These experiences left an indelible mark on me. I became a much more cautious driver, and I worked a lot harder throughout the whole year when I got to college.
- Israel’s lesson
In the passage that we are looking at today, chapter 11 of Deuteronomy, Moses has reminded the Israelites of some experiences that they had been through that ought to have taught them a valuable lesson. This lesson was one that they were to remember and not to forget and that they also needed to teach to their children who had not been through the same experiences as they had over the last forty years.
2.1 Love the Lord your God and serve him
The lesson has to do with how they were to respond to the grace of God. Since verse 12 of chapter 10 that we looked at last week Moses has been explaining this to them.
Deuteronomy 10:12-13
12 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
Moses in chapter 11 has continued to exhort them to love and serve the Lord. In verses 1 Moses called them to love the Lord and keep his all his commands and decrees. In verses 11, they are called “to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all souls” and again he said in verse 22 that they were “to love the LORD your God, and to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him.”
Israel was to not forget the Lord who had saved them, but to fear him and love him serving him with all their heart and soul walking in obedience to him by keeping his commands. This was how they were to respond to God’s grace and to enter and live long and well in the land that the Lord was giving them. To turn away from the Lord was foolishness and Israel ought to have known this because of what they had seen and experienced over the last 40 years.
- Remember the discipline of the Lord
In verses 2 to 7 Moses called them to remember the discipline of the Lord. In these verses Moses has reminded them that it wasn’t their children who had seen and experienced the discipline of the Lord their God, but it had been the generation that he was now addressing who had been children when the Lord had brought them out of Egypt who were now the older generation of Israelites (Discipline is a word for instruction but often it is the kind of instruction/teaching where people have had to learn their lesson the hard way. In verse 3 to 4 Moses described what they had seen the Lord do to the Egyptians and in verses 5 to 6 what the Israelites had experienced themselves in the wilderness.
- What the Lord had done to the Egyptians.
When I was young there was a friend of my brother who had lost several of his toes riding his bicycle. He wasn’t wearing shoes at the time and his foot came off the pedal and his toes got caught in either the spokes or the chain (I can’t remember which) and he lost two or three of them. Now I didn’t see him do it at the time, but I saw his foot just after he did it and where he toes had been and that was enough to cause me to never again to ride without enclosed shoes.
When my kids were learning to rid their bikes. I frequently told them the story of this boy and reminded them of what had happened to him. I only had to say his name – remember Neil – and they understood that I was telling them that they needed their shoes on. They needed to be careful.
Sometimes we learn a lesson through having to go through something unpleasant or hard ourselves. But sometimes we can learn a lesson through what we’ve seen others go through that might have been avoided if they had listened to what they were being told to do at the time. That’s why the Egyptians became for Israel. Remember the Egyptians. In verses 2 to 4 Moses has reminded the Israelites about what they had seen happen to Pharaoh and the Egyptians when the ignored the Lord.
Deuteronomy 11:2-4
2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; 3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them.
Israel had seen what had happened to Pharaoh when he had refused to acknowledge the Lord and had ignored what God had said. The saw the Lord bring lasting ruin on Pharaoh, the Egyptians and the Egyptian army that had foolishly chased the Israelites into the sea. Remember what you saw said Moses.
3.2 What the Lord had done to the Israelites in the wilderness
But they had not only seen this happen to the Egyptians, they also had experienced the discipline of the Lord themselves when they come under his judgement. Moses went on to remind them of what the Lord had done to them in the wilderness.
Deuteronomy 11:5-6
5 It was not your children who saw what he did for/to [CSB] you in the wilderness until you arrived at this place, 6 and what he did to Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth right in the middle of all Israel and swallowed them up with their households, their tents and every living thing that belonged to them.
In the wilderness, the Lord had to discipline the Israelites on many occasions. As Moses said in the previous chapter, they were stiff-necked and rebellious people. The generation that had been around for the last forty years were to remember this. Moses specifically reminded them of the occasion when a large group of Israelites leaders had rebelled against his leadership complaining about him being in charge and because he had brought them out of Egypt. They were to remember what the Lord had done to Dathan and Abriam and their households when the ground opened up and swallowed them alive (see Numbers 16 for more details).
Moses reminded them that it wasn’t their children who had seen all these great things that the Lord done, but they had seen all these great things with their own eyes. They needed to remember what they had seen happen to the Egyptians and what they had experienced themselves in the wilderness so that they might never forget the Lord and turn away from him but continue to love and fear him and serve him only. Moses therefore called them to observe all the commands that he was giving them that day and at the heart of them was that command to love the Lord their God and to serve him with all heart and with all their soul. They were to have an undivided heart that didn’t turn away from the Lord (v13). They had seen what happened to those whose hearts had hardened and end up rebelling against the lord. They were to guard their hearts as we are.
- Observe all the commands of the Lord.
Therefore, Moses told them that they were to love the Lord their God and observe or keep all the commands of the Lord that he was giving them that day so that they might have the strength to go in take over the land and so that they might live long in it.
Deuteronomy 11:8-9
8 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 9 and so that you may live long in the land the LORD swore to your ancestors to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
4.1 So that you might have the strength to take possession of the Land
Moses first said that they were to observe all that he was commanding them so that they might have the strength to go in and take possession of the land that the Lord was giving them(v9).
In obeying the word of God, the Lord would give them the strength that they needed to do what he was calling them to do. The key to living in God’s strength is trusting in the Lord and doing what he says. There is strength in knowing that you are doing exactly what the Lord has commanded you to do.
4.2 So that you may live long in the land
Secondly, he told them that they were to observe all that the Lord was commanding them so that they might live long in the land.
Moses went on to describe in verses 10 to 12 the land that they were about to enter. It wasn’t a land like the one that they had come from. In Egypt the Nile flooded every year providing the silt that made the soil rich for farming and the water that was needed to irrigate their crops. The land of Cannan in a more obvious way depended on the Lord to send rain from heaven. Moses said that he cared for it and his eyes were continually on it all year round. It was kind of like another Garden of Eden. It was land flowing with milk and honey.
But you can’t reject the Lord and go on living in the Garden of Eden. This is what people from the beginning have failed to understand – reject the creator and you reject live. You can’t reject him and go on eating from the tree of life and enjoying the bounty of his good creation. As the Lord told the man in the garden of Eden if they ate from the tree that he told them not eat from, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. Of course, in the account, they didn’t die immediately, but like a plant removed from the light and placed in a dark room away from the light they eventually did, and people have been doing so ever since, except for one – he who died for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
4.3 So that the rain might continue to fall
If Israel were to live long in the land they needed to hold fast to the Lord. Israel needed to not reject him because if they did, his judgment would come on them and he would shut the heavens and they would perish. Like Adam and Eve they would be cast out of the garden.
In Israel a lack of regular rain at the right time was not just a chance weather event but an indicator that God’s people were being disobedient and were experiencing his discipline with the hope that it might lead them to repentance. In verse 13 to 15 Moses reassured the people that if they remained faithful to the Lord obeying his command to wholeheartedly love and serve him, then he would send the rain on the land when they needed it for the crops that they needed and the grass that was needed for their cattle. But the people needed to be careful. Moses went to explain that if they turned from the Lord then his judgment would come on them and he would shut up the heavens.
Deuteronomy 11:16-17
16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. 17 Then the LORD’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.
They wouldn’t perish straight away, but if they didn’t repent, they soon would. They would perish from the good land that the Lord was giving them.
- Being careful
But how were they to be careful?
- Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds.
Moses told them to fix these words that he was telling them in the hearts and minds. Gary Miller has written that they were to be installed “as a kind of operating system for the heart.”[1] In ancient times the heart was thought to be the seat of both “the mind and the will as well as a wide range of emotions.”[2] At the heart of this operating system was to be the command to love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul (v 13) or as the second half of verse 22 puts it…
Deuteronomy 11:22
To love the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him.
This is what they were to be careful to do. This was to be the operating system of their hearts. It was to be the way they lived. They were figurately to tie these words to their hands for they were to be what controlled their hand. They were to bind them to their heads for they were to crown their heads and be the glory. The desire to love and serve the Lord and to walk in obedience to him was to control who they were as God’s people. It was to be their response to the God who had saved them, forgave them, and brought them to himself so that could be his people and the Lord, their God. Throughout chapters 5 to 11 what Moses has done is warn them. He has told them to be careful, to watch their hearts lest they turn away from the Lord. And he has called them to live a life that is worthy of their calling as God’s holy people. They were to love the Lord their God, fear him, and serve him walking in his ways.
It is the same for us. In the letter to the Ephesians apostle Paul reminded the believers of what the Lord has done for us and he went on to urge them to live a life worthy of their calling.
Ephesians 4:1
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
In the apostle letters he urges believers to live a life worthy of their calling. Out of gratitude for all the Lord Jesus has done for us, we are to love him and serve him. We are no longer to live for ourselves but for him who gave himself for. Paul wrote to the Corinthians…
2 Corinthians 5:14-15
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Paul wrote to the Colossians that whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we are to do all the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s now to be operating system of our hearts. We are to wholeheartedly love and serve the Lord Jesus. I think this is the challenge of Moses exhortation in these chapters. We need to guard our hearts and fix these words in our hearts. They need to become the operating system of our lives – what is it that control you? Is it to love and serve the Lord Jesus?
- Teach them to your children
This understand of life was to be something that the Israelites were to pass on to their children. Their children had not seen the things that they had seen or experienced the things that they themselves had experienced, but they were to pass on the words of Moses to their children, teaching them in a deliberate and intentional way what the Lord had done for them and how they were meant to respond.
- Your choice – blessing or curse
There is an old saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. What Moses has emphasised in the last part of this exhortation to love and serve the Lord with all their heart and soul was that the choice was theirs. He was setting before them that day a choice they needed to make between blessing and curse.
Deuteronomy 11:26-28
26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse—27 the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; 28 the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known.
6.1 The Israelites back then
The Lord had saved the Israelites out Egypt but if Israel turned away from the Lord disobeying the command that Moses was giving them by following other gods rather than loving and serving the Lord then would not enjoy the blessing of the Lord. They would come under his curse, the judgment of the Lord. The choice was up to them and sadly we know that despite the Lord’s great kindness and mercy to the people of Isael they did not chose blessing but came under God’s curse. They forget the words of Moses and did not hold fast to the Lord their God and Saviour.
6.2 Believers today
In the same way we are called to hold fast to the Lord Jesus. We are to love and serve him because he has saved us from the slavery of sin and death through dying for our sins and being raised to life to give us life everlasting. We need to be careful that we don’t go back to the old life, but are standing firm holding on to the gospel, the teaching that has been passed on to us (see 2 Thessalonians 2:15). In a passage in which the writer of Hebrews has referred to the example of the Israelites he went on to warn believers about the danger of them having an unbelieving heart that turns away from God.
Hebrews 3:12-14
12 See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
We need to stand firm and be careful that we don’t fall. We need to let nothing move us, but we are to hold fast to the Lord Jesus and stand firm in the faith and be strong and courageous (1 Cor. 16:13). We are to encourage one another. We need that encouragement that comes from speaking the words that have been passed down to us and fixing them in our hearts. We need to remind one another that we are to now to live to love and serve, not ourselves and our own sinful desires, but the one who died for us. For Christ’s love ought to compel us as it did the apostle Paul. We are those who are convinced that one died for all so that we should no longer live for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us (2 Cor 5:14-15). Moses urged the Israelites to love and serve the Lord their God and to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him. Hearing these words ought to remind us to hold fast to the Lord Jesus, to love and serve him with all our hearts and strength. Encourage one another daily so that none of us might be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
[1] See his online commentary on The Gospel Coalition website.
[2] J.A. Thompson, “Deuteronomy” Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, page 122.
