Deut No.3 The Land and The Law

Well, I wonder if you recall that this book of Deuteronomy really constitutes the oracles of an old man. He's at the end of his life, the suns have well nigh all got through the glass, and he's just about to step through the threshold into eternity. In one sense, it's a frustrating experience for him because Moses has longed to arrive at the moment when the Hebrews would go into the land of promise, but because of his own sinfulness he is not going to have the opportunity of accompanying them.

But he has a great concern for his spiritual children, and so he takes the opportunity with the land of Canaan only a few miles away to speak to the Israelites to review the past, tell them something of God's gracious dealings, remind them of the indebtedness that they have to the Lord their God, analyze with them their present spirituality and their blemishes which are still apparent, and then predict the future. And one sees this wizened elderly man, still remarkably healthy despite the advance of the years, address his people on several occasions, and his words are so valuable that the scribes take them down, and also by the security of the Holy Spirit they're preserved. And ultimately this book, Deuteronomy, is compiled and put within the religious literature of Hebraism, and eventually incorporated into the Christian Bible.

And you recall from our second study, the first one being the review that I've just touched on, that central to the book of Deuteronomy, and indeed central to the whole scheme of Christianity, is the thought of covenant, God entering into a compact, a relationship, a special contract with his people. The covenant is one of grace, one which is based upon the mercy of God, but it will bring with it certain obligations for the people. And to understand Deuteronomy you've got to think in terms of a special group of people who enter into a remarkable relationship with their Creator God, and through them, in particular, his purposes shall be fulfilled in the history of humankind.

Now because they're a special people, God will grant to them peculiar blessings, and these also stand out as you survey this book. One could have alighted upon, and maybe we'll place a spotlight on this subject in the weeks to come, the very gift of Moses, an outstanding leader, the meekest man that ever lived, a tremendous blessing that God gave his people in those days. One perhaps could also alight upon the priesthood, for this nation that God has harnessed for himself will have amongst them a group of men set aside to offer worship to the Lord and to lead them spiritually, another of God's great provisions for his people.

But standing out perhaps even more than the two blessings that I've detailed are the provisions of the land that God gives these people, and also the law that he bequeaths. And it's these twin blessings of the land and the law that I want to direct our attention upon this session of our Bible study, and also we shall overflow onto the next one. The blessings of the land, that's what commands our attention at this moment.

And those who are skilled in the Old Testament, and indeed the whole history of Judaism, know that you can't really think of the Jewish people apart from their land. And though historically there have been occasions and prolonged centuries at times when they have been removed from the land, nonetheless they are somehow or other always bound up with it, always looking towards it. So that in one period of exile we have a picture in the Psalms of the Hebrews away from Palestine, and they're lamenting the fact that they're removed from their beloved fatherland by the waters of Babylon.

There we sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willow because we couldn't play any song. How can we sing in a strange land? These people were always looking towards Palestine because the land was really their badge of office marking them out as God's own particular people.

So you get dear old Daniel in Babylon himself during another period of exile, and he too will practice each day going into his private closet in Babylon, flinging open the window of his room and he'll look towards Jerusalem and he'll pray desperately for the land and for the people and hope that God in his grace will bring the people back to the land. One could of course have alighted upon Nehemiah, this man whose story you should know quite well because it was the substance of consecutive Bible ministry on a Sunday morning here in the tabernacle, a man whose whole purposes for the Jews were bound up with going back to the land of Palestine and seeing in particular the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Well I say this thought of the land, it's dominant in Deuteronomy.

You read about the land time and time again, and well you might, because as I say Moses didn't require a telescope to see it, nor did he merely have to describe it to the children of Israel by virtue of the report of the spies. They could look from some lofty peak and see something of the splendor of this special land which God had for the Hebrews. Ah, but you may say, what's the point of us fastening our attention today on this topic of the land which you argue is central to Deuteronomy? After all, we're not really interested in the Old Testament legislation and the Old Testament economy.

We live in the days of the 1970s. But the Bible tells us in later books that were compiled that what is recorded in previous volumes is recorded for us to profit by, because the God who was in evidence, the God who was in operation in the day of yesteryear is still the same God today, the same God in the Christian era. So the Apostle Paul argues when he writes to the church at Rome, whatsoever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

And it's my contention that as we go through Deuteronomy we will discover certain things about God that remain constant, certain aspects of God's character which were precious to the Old Testament Jews and are of equal value to us in the New Testament era. So the picture is this. The Hebrews are not yet in the land of promise.

And at the back of them there is a land of bondage that some of them remember full well because their parents told them about the slavery and the tyranny of the Egyptian pharaohs. And very much in their mind is that howling wilderness, as it's so often described as, that they have passed through those forty-odd years that they've spent wandering around the Sinai Peninsula with all its perils and all its difficulties, sandwiched between two lands, the land of bondage and the land of promise. And they're about to enter into the latter.

And so Moses is giving them direction and encouragement and lessons. But coming back to the thought of this land, let's pick up some striking points and just discuss them, review them together for a little while. And the first thing that stands out of singular importance as you read through Deuteronomy is that the land that the Israelites were to enter into was God's land.

Chapter 1 and verse 25 makes it plain and sets the course for the rest of the book. It is a good land, say the spies, which the Lord our God doth give us, time and time again. And I've only just given you a few references in your notes.

You'll find that expression. This is the land which our God does give us. Chapter 11 and verse 21 furnishes us with another example where we read of the children of Israel moving into blessing, that your days may be multiplied and the days of your children in the land which the Lord swear unto your fathers to give them.

Now, this land that they entered into was not theirs by any human merit at all. God has reminded them clearly in the seventh chapter. The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people for you were the fewest of all people.

It's not because there was anything about you that gave you qualification to enter into this land, rather it was because God in his infinite mercy and grace has elected you to be a special people to enter into this land of blessing. So they were not to presume upon God's goodness and neither, my Christian friend, are we to presume upon the goodness of God. Why is it that we've entered into the experience of salvation? Because we were good enough? Not the labor of my hand can fulfill thy law's demand.

You remember that hymn, could my tears forever flow, says the hymn writer. Could my zeal forever glow? There's nothing that I can do to obtain the salvation of God. I remain indebted to him on the basis of his mercy and he does not remain indebted to me on the basis of my merit.

This was God's land that these people were entering into and what's more, it was a promised land. We often refer to it as such, don't we? It's not very often we use the term Canaan or Palestine, even less frequently in our evangelical vocabulary we think of the promised land. Why do we call it the promised land? Well, there was a man called Abraham who lived in Ur of the Chaldees.

He was an agriculturalist. He got a booming business, a man of good substance and influence and one day God arrested that man and he said, Abraham, pull down your tent and start moving to a land which I will give you. He promised Abraham a land.

He promised to make Abraham a great nation and he said that through Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed. So the concept of the promised land is an early one in Old Testament history and we see that courageous, faithful man Abraham setting out not knowing where he's going with dear old Sarah wondering if her husband is beside himself. Abraham trusting in the promises of God and believing that ultimately he'll come to that land.

Aye, and when he arrives, God says to him, Abraham, I'm going to give you this land and give it to your seed forever. You see, God is faithful. What he promises he fulfills.

He's the unchanging God, says the Old Testament. The New Testament writer also takes up the theme and he says of Jesus, he's the same yesterday, today and forever. And the argument is that the promises of God are yea and amen and our salvation.

It was a promised salvation, a predicted salvation before the very foundation of the world God had contrived a plan whereby he would redeem a fallen humanity unto himself and he's kept his promise and as he was true to his ancient people, so he's true to their spiritual descendants in all that he has predicted. Not only was it God's land and a promised land, it was a choice land. God reserves special blessing for his people.

Wasn't that an exquisite passage that we read together from Deuteronomy later on in the book, the 28th chapter? But you get equally wonderful allusions to this land and how beautiful it is in the earlier chapters. Take for instance the 7th and 8th verses of the 8th chapter, the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of oil, olive and honey, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. And so the description continues.

Here is a land where there's going to be bumper harvests, where there's going to be copper, where there's going to be iron, where the economy will be a great economy because of the potential that there is innate within this land. It's abundant in raw materials. It's a land of supreme blessing for God's children.

And it seems to me that this spiritually sets up for the redeemed community in the twentieth century what God has led us into. God has not elected us to be spiritual paupers, but princes. Within the spiritual economy that belongs to us through Jesus Christ, there's iron and copper, there are bumper harvests, and God would have us feed upon the finest of the wheat in a land where His eyes are ever in attendance and His presence pervades.

God's land, a promised land, a choice land, a choice promised land which demands care. That was one of the tragedies of the primitive tribes who inhabited this land before the Hebrews returned from Egypt. They'd done abominable things.

Their lifestyle was offensive to God. They had treated that land and the blessings that it contained badly. Sodom and Gomorrah could hardly abide with those primitive tribes that had to be rooted out of this land as step by step and mile by mile the Hebrews took up possession.

The enormity of the crimes of these people is described graphically in the twelfth chapter and the thirty-first verse when Moses puts down a prohibition for the Israelites. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God as those people did. For every abomination to the Lord which he hateth have they done unto their gods.

For even their sons and their daughters they burnt in the fire to their gods. This land has known some hideous happenings and it's not to be corrupted. It's not to be polluted again.

And so direct commands are given to the people about retaining the fertility of the land. The trees for instance, they're not to be chopped down. Chapter 20 and verse 20, why not? Well you see that land could easily turn to desert and the thing that preserves soil erosion or soil from eroding in the Middle East are the trees.

And haphazard chopping down of the trees means a surrender of the fertility of the land and this is not to happen. So there are prohibitions made in this area. The land's not to be corrupted.

So according to 21 and verse 23, when a body is exposed it is to be buried before sunset. The land is to be preserved. It's going to be used properly now.

No longer are pagan tribes inhabiting it, rather God's own children, they've moved into this land and God wants to bless them and they in turn will live in such a fashion as will be conducive to the blessings of the Lord raining down upon them. God has, and the little phrase is wonderful, God has in store for these people, chapter 11 and verse 21, days as the days of heaven upon the earth. That's what God ideally wants His children to enjoy.

And again, the analogy is obvious. God has led us into choice possessions, He's made us part of His family and He wants us to live to His glory, to present our bodies, to control our lifestyle in such a way that we don't corrupt anything that God has given. One of the great problems today in civilization is the problem of ecology.

I wish I heard the politicians speaking a little bit more about what we're doing to Mother Earth through the wastage of so many materials which will produce harm in days to come. One thinks about the spillage in nuclear research and the problems that this is causing. One thinks about the tremendous pollution that there is in the Mediterranean Sea.

So many things that one could spotlight that create problems of ecology and far-seeing people are concerned about this. But there's an even greater area of spiritual pollution which we as Christian people are not to be contaminated with. And as this land was to be clean and pure, as the Hebrews entered into it, so we are to keep our bodies and our lifestyles holy and acceptable to the Lord.

God's land, God's promised land, God's choice land, God's land which requires care, all these principles can be lifted out of this book that they speak quite freely to us as we read it through. They come to a point themselves. But there's something else that must be argued and that is that there's nothing magical about God's land.

You see, the possibility was that the Hebrews, so looking forward to going into the promised land, might think, oh well, we're here now, God is in this place, it doesn't really matter how we live, we can just please ourselves and God's smile will be upon us. But no, that wasn't the case. It was true that God's eye was upon this land more than any other land, that God's hand was upon these people more than any other people.

But the blessing of God and the presence of God was not to be taken for granted. There was nothing magical about this land in itself. God's presence would be known as the people lived lives which were pleasing to Him.

And how great would be the blessing if they met up with the responsibilities that were theirs. All these blessings, chapter 28, verse 2, shall come on thee and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. And today the same obtains.

We're His children. But God does not just pour down His blessing upon us irrespective of the way that we live. There's nothing magical about a church building.

We have to leave it to the Catholics and the Anglo-Catholics to come in and talk about their sacramentalism and how they can make places holy. I've never known a building that's holy, never known a tract of land that's holy. These are material, inanimate things.

What God is concerned about is people and the way people live. And the Shekinah glory of God could not descend upon the Old Testament people unless there was holiness and righteousness which dominated their lives. And the same is the case today.

We are God's people, not only by divine decree, but by a human response in the way that we cultivate our lives and give attendance at the means of grace. Nothing magical about this land that people had to realize this. And what's more, because of the blessings that attended this land, they were to be a thankful people.

God is a good-mannered God, and He likes good-mannered people. And so the Lord makes provision for the Hebrews to have feast days, festivals, harvest services, thanksgiving occasions. And in the 26th chapter of this book, you get a most wonderful portrayal of the way that the Hebrews said thank you to God for all His goodness in the benefits of the land.

In the third verse of that chapter, and it's an interesting one that you should turn to and read perhaps frequently, and right now we'll look at it, 26 verse 3, the Hebrew is being instructed as to how to praise God for the goodness, the material goodness that has come His way in the land of promise. Thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us. And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God.

So here is a picture of the Hebrew farmer, the Hebrew agriculturist, it's been a bumper year, the crops are great, and he brings the first fruits to the priest, and they're offered to the Lord, and the man is in effect saying, thank you Father for your blessings. And as he thanks God for his blessings, he reminds himself of what he used to be. Verse 5, I was Assyrian, an Aramean to be exact in translation, ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation great, mighty, and populous.

And the Egyptians' evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. And when we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labor, and our oppression, and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders. And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey, and now behold, I have brought the first fruits of the land which thou, O Lord, hast given me.

What were they doing? Well, these ancient Hebrews were to enact something that should be performed down the centuries of the redeemed community. They were praising God, praising God for deliverance. Here's my bumper crop, the tenth, the thanksgiving of the first harvest that I'm bringing to you, Lord.

And then he reminded himself of what he used to be, a slave, part of a community who were no people, a refugee colony under the tyranny of Pharaoh, a people that should have been wiped off the face of this earth, for the policy of genocide had been decreed by the Egyptian rulers. But God intervened, and the Hebrew is remembering this. I'm only here by the grace of God.

My physical salvation is as a result of God's loving kindness towards me. He kept my grandparents when they were there in Egypt. He delivered them out of the octopus grip of the Pharaohs.

He preserved them down the years of wilderness wandering from Kadesh, Baniya, and all the places that we've visited in our rebellion and disobedience. And now he's brought us into the land of promise. And I recognize that all this is due to God's graciousness.

And now I see not just the ancient Hebrew, I see myself as a sinner. And here I am in the tabernacle. It's a Sunday morning, and I've presented myself before my God.

I have bowed my head and my heart in prayer. I have come before his Word. I have listened to some of the blessings that God has brought my way as they have been expounded from Scripture.

And I present myself before that holy table, and I take that bread, and I take that wine, and I remember what I was, a slave under the tyranny of sin. I was not a person. I was a nothing, a worm, and no man.

But God, in his infinite mercy, in his uncommon grace, poured the gift of salvation upon me. He redeemed me from my sinfulness. He brought me out of the land of bondage.

He granted me blessing upon blessing. And each Sunday, not because I'm forced to, but because I couldn't do anything else but express myself in this manner, I stand before that table, I take that bread, I take that wine, and I remind myself again of the goodness of my heavenly Father. And I praise him that he brought me out of the land of bondage into the land where eternal salvation flows, like some great deep blue river in which I bathe and am refreshed.

The Hebrews were never to forget the goodness of God in bringing them into the land of freedom and blessing, and these inanimate stones that constitute the walls of the tabernacle would surely have to become animate and cry out their praise if we defaulted, if we defected on a Sunday in particular, in gathering together as part of the redeemed community to praise our God from whom all blessings flow. Well then, these are certain of the points that Deuteronomy teaches us in God's dealings with the Old Testament ethnic nation of the Hebrews. But there are points, as I have tried to show, of abiding spiritual theological value that spill over the pages of the Old Testament and come down into the New.

And though I've indulged myself in mentioning some already, let's just lift out a few more. And from the book of Deuteronomy we find a particular teaching emerging which I think is a corrective to some of the rather naive thinking that there is amongst Christians in these days. I make reference to the fact that Deuteronomy speaks of a holy materialism, a holy materialism.

You see, you get here that astonishing statement that is made unblushingly, that it is God, chapter 8 and verse 18, who gives power to get wealth. Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swear unto thy fathers as it is this day. Now why do I say that this gives us a corrective to a lot of sloppy thinking today? Well, I do so for this reason.

There are those who try to drive a wedge between the secular and the spiritual, the material and the religious. And I have never been of the opinion that you can draw such a distinction. It seems to me that when salvation arrests a person, he is saved as a whole person.

In other words, not only is his soul saved, his body is saved. Let me put it shockingly, not only is eternal salvation meted to him, not only is his life regenerated, so is his bank balance. So is every indulgence that he allows himself.

He is saved wholly. He is saved completely. He is not just a saved man on the Sunday as he is in the tabernacle, he is a saved man as an accountant on the Monday.

He is a saved man as a grocer on the Tuesday. He is a saved man as a father. She is a saved woman as a housewife.

There's no distinction, you see. God's eye was upon this land in a most remarkable fashion, and he saw all that the Hebrews were doing. And even in their domestic chores, God was interested.

God was involved. Deuteronomy teaches that there is such a thing as a holy materialism, because the salvation that we receive affects the whole man, the whole of our lifestyle. No distinction can be drawn whatsoever.

And because, as I intimated a moment or so ago, because God's eye was upon the land in a unique fashion, then the ordinary Hebrew couldn't behave just as he wanted to, or as his sinful disposition might at times suggest. I mean by that, because he's part of God's people, then the way that he treats his brother will be of vital importance. Now we shall touch upon this later as we'll see the concept of grace deep-rooted in Deuteronomy.

God is concerned about the way that a rich man treats the poor man. Those who have families treat those who are orphans. Those who have their husband or their life's partner treat those who have not their life's partner.

God is concerned about human relationships and the way that individual people within the redeemed community rise to their responsibilities and show the love of God, not only on the Sabbath day, but on every other day in their relationships. So you will discover, and we'll be looking at this particularly next week, that for a businessman, to maltreat his brother Hebrew was an offense in the sight of God. God was concerned about relationships in families, in businesses, in politics, in every conceivable way, because his eye was upon the land and he was concerned about a whole salvation for his people.

Now this was not a frightening prospect for the Hebrews, not those who were spiritually sensitive, because they realized that if God's eye was upon everything that they were doing and that all they engaged in was brought up to the level of God's requirements, then out of the back door went worry. They had no need to be concerned about preserving their national identity. God was with them.

God was guaranteeing that he was on their side. Militarily, economically, they would be strong. There is no force on this earth that can combat a spiritual, a 100% righteous people.

And here within Deuteronomy is a philosophy of religion that works practically. These people didn't have to be concerned about the barbaric tribes to the north, or to the east, or down in the south. They'd no longer to fear the Egyptians.

Why? Because God was on their side. And if they lived as God wanted them to live, then they would be strong. Would to God that we could learn the lesson today.

One of the reasons why I personally never went into politics was this. Because I believe that modern political philosophy is bankrupt of any solution to the human problem, because it doesn't dig in deep enough. What we require today is a spiritual antidote to the economic and social ills that there are in the nation.

Britain was never stronger than when she was Christianized. Never stronger than what she was during the time that followed the revival that God brought to this nation under Wesley and Whitefield. And as a result of these men, and as a result of the teaching of the Puritans, God's name became honored in the country.

And the country was not only blessed spiritually, she was blessed economically, and militarily she was strong. Now these very principles are latent in the book of Deuteronomy, which has a lot to say to the modern political situation. So that politician will get my vote, who meets the press conference in London tomorrow, and I should be quite happy if it's Mrs. Thatcher or Mr. Callaghan, or if it's David Steele.

And they start to say, well our political manifesto finds its origins in the book of Deuteronomy. Because we believe that basic to the book of Deuteronomy are the answers to the problems that are confronting us in the 1970s in this country. And when they start to talk like this, I shall believe that they're talking some sense.

They're going from the mere problem as it exists externally to the root cause of the problem, which is a spiritual one. So the book of Deuteronomy teaches us this. That a person or a people that are saved wholly, whose lifestyle is wholly controlled by the land, it shall be blessed.

And spiritually, and economically, and politically, they shall be strong. I am not aware of anything in the New Testament that contradicts any of the teaching that is latent here in the book of Deuteronomy. Indeed, I would argue that what you'll find in the New Testament makes this teaching even more explicit.

So I rest my case. This evening we have discovered that one of God's great gifts to His Old Testament people was the land. And if they lived in that land as God wanted them to live, they would know blessings beyond comprehension, and they would have the protection of God, and they would become a legend to other nations in the world in those days.

May God teach us the eternal value of the spiritual principles that are in this book. And may we yet see some of this practical teaching worked out in our own beloved country. Amen.

Just give me one... Thank you for opportunities of coming around your word. Thank you for this book. We feel that it's supreme above every book, and we thank you for the truths that are contained within.

We would, O Father, that more people might read it, digest it, and apply its lessons. Particularly, we thank you for the Old Testament books, which are so replete with good information and practical instruction for the complexities of life in the 1970s. We praise you also for other gifted men who have granted to your church, enabled by your spirit, not in the same way, but nonetheless, to write helpful books, and we just thank you for them.

Now we praise you for one another and for our fellowship around your word. And ask that you'll send us on our way rejoicing in the blessing of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, now and until Jesus comes or calls. Amen.