Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Victory Belongs to God
(Deuteronomy 9:1-10:11)
Moses described to Israel the impossible odds they will face when they go in to possess the Land of Promise. He described the people as mightier and greater, as well as living in cities "fortified up to heaven." Yet, only one thing was ultimately necessary for victory! It was to "understand" who God is and what He had promised to do for them. The victory was God's! What they had to do was understand that God was both fully capable and fully willing to give them the victory. Their part was to believe by faith God's word of promise to them and simply step into the battle, trusting God to empower them for a victorious result.
This principle remains the same for us today. God has left the follower of Christ with an amazing list of promises. Promises that enable us to be "more than conquerors" in the battles we face to inherit the spiritual victories so needful for each one of us. But like Israel, we must first understand and know God. Without this His promises seem to be only "wishful thinking." But by knowing Him as revealed in His Word and in our own experiences of God's word being fulfilled in our lives, we can grow to genuinely have confidence to face the spiritual battles that for the natural man with natural eyes would see as an impossibility. Yet, if we give ourselves to know God and His promises, victory will be ours. We need to simply step out and possess that victory.
A critical warning is added and if not heeded we will be robbed of every victory God desires us to have. The warning is to never take credit for what grace has given. God had chosen Israel to be freed from Egyptian slavery and given this Land of Promise solely on the basis of His own grace. When they were hopeless slaves He called them. He called them to be the tool He would use to bring judgment upon the wickedness of the nations of Canaan. This new nomadic nation of Israel was also to be the tool God would use to fulfill this promise to Abraham, the first Jew, that God would give Abraham's future generations the land of Canaan. This had nothing to do with something the Jews earned through their own righteousness or power.
The apostle Paul's life after he became a Christian is a beautiful example of respect for this warning. He said, "But, by the grace of God I am what I am and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them – yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me" (1 Cor. 15:10). Paul stepped into more battles than any other apostle of his time solely by grace, trusting God to be faithful to His own character and to His own promises.
Let me ask you, what victories have you not taken because you have not taken a place of grace mixed with faith in a promise-keeping God? Get this straight in your life. Then go get the victory that awaits you from God.
NKJV Bible Text
Deuteronomy 9:1-10:11
1 "Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, 'Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?' 3 Therefore understand today that the LORD your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you.
4 "Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
7 "Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. 9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Then the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.
12 "Then the LORD said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molded image.'
13 "Furthermore the LORD spoke to me, saying, 'I have seen this people, and indeed they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.'
15 "So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16 And I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God—had made for yourselves a molded calf! You had turned aside quickly from the way which the LORD had commanded you. 17 Then I took the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry with you, to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me at that time also. 20 And the LORD was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21 Then I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire and crushed it and ground it very small, until it was as fine as dust; and I threw its dust into the brook that descended from the mountain.
22 "Also at Taberah and Massah and Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath. 23 Likewise, when the LORD sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, 'Go up and possess the land which I have given you,' then you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice. 24 You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
25 "Thus I prostrated myself before the LORD; forty days and forty nights I kept prostrating myself, because the LORD had said He would destroy you. 26 Therefore I prayed to the LORD, and said: 'O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people and Your inheritance whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look on the stubbornness of this people, or on their wickedness or their sin, 28 lest the land from which You brought us should say, "Because the LORD was not able to bring them to the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness." 29 Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your mighty power and by Your outstretched arm.'
Deuteronomy 10
The Second Pair of Tablets
1 "At that time the LORD said to me, 'Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. 2 And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.'
3 "So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. 4 And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the LORD had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the LORD gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, just as the LORD commanded me."
6 (Now the children of Israel journeyed from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah, where Aaron died, and where he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered as priest in his stead. 7 From there they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of water. 8 At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister to Him and to bless in His name, to this day. 9 Therefore Levi has no portion nor inheritance with his brethren; the LORD is his inheritance, just as the LORD your God promised him.)
10 "As at the first time, I stayed in the mountain forty days and forty nights; the LORD also heard me at that time, and the LORD chose not to destroy you. 11 Then the LORD said to me, 'Arise, begin your journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.'
| Israel's Rebellions Reviewed v. 1 Cross Over The Jordan – In chapter 9, the Lord assures Israel that they are about to cross over the Jordan and conquer and occupy the lands of the Canaanites. The Lord also reminds them not to think that it was because of some great merit in them that they will have the victory, but rather that it is the grace of God and His sovereignly choosing and blessing them. In fact, as He will go on to remind them, they have at many times been willfully disobedient and it has only been by an act of His mercy that they are still in existence as a people. v. 2 the descendants of the Anakim – The Lord again reminds them that the Anakim were the possessors of much of Canaan (v. 1:28), and that the Israelites must drive them out if they are to inhabit the land. Here God seems to give Israel an "evil report" of the land, as did the ten faithless spies whom they had sent in 38 years earlier and who had discouraged and convinced them not to go forward into God's will. The Lord stresses the incredible odds they were facing in possessing the Promised Land, and how Israel will be terrified of the armies they will face in battle if it were not for His favor and promises over them. The emphasis, however, is on the faithfulness of the Lord toward them. He assures them the victory if they are faithful to Him. | v. 3 consuming fire – See note on Deuteronomy 4:24. v. 4 "because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land" – Once the Lord began to give them victory over the giants in their way, the temptation was think of themselves as somehow responsible for their own success, to think that even if the Lord had given them the victory, it was due to the fact that they were so much more righteous than the other nations around them. For that reason, the Lord now reminds them that they have not acted righteously but stiff-necked and rebellious since the day that God delivered them from Egypt. In this verse, He also emphasizes that the extreme wickedness of the nations was the reason the Lord would use Israel to drive them into extinction. v. 6 you are a stiff-necked people – "Stiff-necked" was a term derived from their dealings with animals of labor. An animal with a stiff neck was resistant to the yoke of its master, always wanting to go its own way. Thus, the animal was worthless to its owner. At this point, both God and Moses are familiar with the rebellion and stiff necks of the children of Israel, for they had been faithless and rebellious since the day when Moses went into Egypt to announce the Lord's deliverance. |
| v. 14 let me alone – Moses recounts for them how the Lord initiated a dialog with him concerning the rebellions of Israel. He recalls how God spoke to him, offering to wipe out the nation of Israel and begin afresh to make a great nation using only Moses and his family. This account is to be understood in the same light as many of the conversations that God carries on with His people in Scripture, in which He suggests destroying a group of people in order to invoke a plea for mercy from the one with whom He is speaking. In Ezekiel 22:30, the Lord reveals that He speaks in this way to people at times because He desires to find someone who has the heart to "stand in the gap" for others. This was a term drawn from warfare, when a soldier would position himself exactly at an area of weakness in a wall so that he might fight for the city and prevent the enemy from entering in and destroying his people. The Lord takes this word picture and uses it to describe the act of intercession, or praying on behalf of others in order to prevent their destruction. Knowing that the Lord desires to form a heart of intercession within in each of us, we understand that here He is offering Moses an opportunity to demonstrate that heart, not only for the salvation of those people but as an example for us who would read the Word of God hundreds and even thousands of years later. The following verses present for us several key principles for effective intercession. | v. 18 because of all your sin – Moses' example in interceding for Israel teaches an intensity in prayer, as he fell face down on the ground and pled with God over an extended amount of time for his people. Fasting is also an important aspect of effective intercession, as is emphasized in passages such as Daniel 9:3, 10:3 and Mark 9:29. Here Moses recalls how he was so burdened over the transgressions of Israel and the possibility of God's wrath breaking out against them that he went 40 full days without food or water. This is not to be understood as a normal fast but rather another incident of God's supernatural power in sustaining Moses because he had a dynamic relationship with his God. v. 19 the Lord listened to me – Moses' intercession was effective in reaching the heart of God, and so God relented of the disaster that He had suggested bringing against Israel. Genesis 18:16-33 is another example of effective intercession, as Abraham prayed for Sodom and Gommorrah until the Lord temporarily turned away from His intended judgment upon them. v. 20 so I prayed for Aaron also at that same time – Because Aaron was responsible for leading Israel in worship of the golden calf as documented in Exodus 32, he also would have been destroyed in God's wrath along with the rest of Israel. However, Moses made special intercession for him as well, and God had mercy on him. |
| v. 22 provoked the Lord to wrath – At Taberah (Num. 11:1-3) and Kibroth Hattaabah (Num. 11:31-35) Israel again complains of their difficulties and tempts the Lord to destroy them. (See the note on Deuteronomy 6:16 for more on the events which transpired at Massah.) At each of these places, Moses interceded for the children of Israel so that they would not be destroyed. v. 23 Kadesh Barnea – Israel have an opportunity to believe God, run in, and conquer the Promised Land at this entry point into Canaan. Instead, they choose to disbelieve and turn away. In response to their faithlessness and disobedience, Moses once again makes intercession for them before God and delivers them from destruction. | v. 27 remember your servants Abraham, Isaac And Jacob – Intercession can at times include "arguing" with God (Job 23:4), sometimes asking for fulfillment of God's promises and sometimes speaking of His love for His people. Here Moses argues for Israel by "reminding" God of His favor and promises toward His servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. v. 28 lest the land from which you brought us say – Moses brings forth another "argument," this one based on God's reputation among the unsaved. He argues that the Lord would not want to destroy Israel because that might cause the nations around them to doubt God's power or faithfulness to His promises. It is noteworthy that although the Hebrews were a stubborn and rebellious people, these arguments prevailed with the heart of God and He did not wipe out the nation of Israel. Instead He brought them into the Promised Land of His favor. |
| Chapter 10 The Second Pair of Tablets v. 1 two tablets of stone – Chapter 10 describes God's instruction to Moses to hew, or cut out, two new stone tablets for the Ten Commandments. In the previous chapter, Moses described the events surrounding the destruction of the first tablets as part of his outrage against the sins of Israel. an ark of wood – Blueprints for the Ark of the Covenant were also dictated to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai as he was receiving instruction from God concerning the Ten Commandments. The Ark of the Covenant was a wooden box, which sat inside the Holy of Holies within the Tabernacle and later inside the Temple. The Ark contained the two tablets of the Ten Commandments and was covered with a lid called the "mercy seat," on which the blood of a sacrifice would be sprinkled once a year on the Day of Atonement in order to assure the forgiveness of Israel's sins. Further information on the building of and purpose for the Ark of the Covenant is found in Exodus 25:10-22. v. 6 Moserah, where Aaron died – Moserah is here named as the location of Aaron's death, but Numbers 20:28 states that he died on Mount Hor. This is not a contradiction, for Moserah is the area in which Mount Hor is located. Eleazar was the son of Aaron, and so he became the next High Priest of Israel at Aaron's death (Ex. 28:1). | v. 8 separated the tribe of Levi – As the tribe that received the privilege of priesthood, part of the Levites' duties was to carry the Ark of the Covenant as Israel traveled from place to place. It is also noteworthy that as God describes the ministry of the Levites, the terminology He always uses is ministry "to" Him, rather than "for" Him. That is an important reminder that anytime a person ministers, the first and most important ministry opportunity they have is to minister directly to the person of the Lord, in worship and faithfulness, not just accomplishing things for Him. v. 9 no portion nor inheritance – Numbers 18 describes the position and duties of the tribe of Levi, and verse 20 states that they will be the only tribe which has no physical inheritance in the Promised Land. Rather than inheriting a particular piece of ground on which to settle, they would be scattered throughout the land of Israel in order to serve the people as priests and lead them in worship and instruction. This was a great privilege because it allowed them to be the servants of God in a way that the other tribes could not. |
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