e191 Live a Life that Honors God’s Covenant (we need the wilderness)

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd. 

Season 3 Episode 191 Live a Life that Honors God’s Covenant (we need the wilderness)

Here’s the gist, human. What happened in the wilderness for forty years with Moses and the chosen nation, seems like a long time ago. Time has changed things. Culture has moved on. Jesus came to save us, we can leave the wilderness behind. 

No thank you. I need that wilderness. I need to know deeply, I need to embrace how God made his covenant with his chosen nation. Because Jesus fulfilled the covenant of his Heavenly Father. I need to live a life that honors God’s covenant. From the beginning to the end.

I am traversing through God’s story right now, and realized I must stop and share words you may not have heard, the words of Moses. Not at the burning bush, not at the Red Sea, not when he struck the rock (although that is super important). No, words he spoke when he and the nation he was leading is on the threshold of the Promised Land. His words, his pouring into these people, his appealing to them to take God into their hearts, that God is near, his words to shepherd one generation out, and new generations in, as they are about to cross the Jordan. With dry feet.  

Deuteronomy 30:11-14

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

Join us in the wilderness, with a million+ men, women, children, the next generation. E191.

Who entered the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering? 

-of the original adult generation that left Egypt only Joshua and Caleb. Two men. By God’s Will, the rest wandered the wilderness until each of them died because of their habitual unbelief. 

-of the other generations, just before entering Canaan, a census recorded 601,730 men who were 20 years or older (Numbers 26:51, not inc. Levites, who numbered around 23,000 men).

and,

-the children of those who left Egypt, plus anyone who was under 20 years old during the Exodus

So, a conservative number for the total population is one million plus (women, children under 20, the elderly, Levites)

Putting aside the logistics of how Moses addressed a million+ people without a mic, this is a chosen audience. An audience curated, invited, sanctioned by God. 

The choice Moses lays bare is this. Accept God’s covenant. Or not. 

In Chapter 28 Moses outlines the blessings of a life with God, contrasted with the curses of a life without God. Fair warning when you read it, the curses section is brutal, and as Moses says “they [the curses] will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed…”

Then in chapter 29 Moses gives his parting message, the words that come when we know mortality is about win. Then, he climbs to Mount Nebo in Moab shortly after, 120 years old, and dies. My translation says God buries him. That alone is such a beautifully tender image in my mind. 

He first reminds this people, 

Deuteronomy 29:5-6

5 Yet the Lord says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. 6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.”

Moses goes on. In chapter 29 Moses lays out the choice we have. The choice we are born with, and we die with. That’s what I want to share today. What Moses tells this people, which is now all the men, women, children except the original men who were destined to die. 

And what he tells this wandering nation holds true today. 

This is before Jesus Christ, the Word, became flesh. This is when God dwelled in a tent, in a mobile tabernacle with the ark of the covenant. The believers knew God as a presence that descended from heaven to be with them. A hovering cloud by day and a fire by night. An unseen power that spoke through their leader, Moses. A holy presence that only Moses spoke with face to face.

We are told so in Chapter 34: 

Deuteronomy 34:10

10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,

And verse 12, 

Deuteronomy 34:12

12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

By this, shouldn’t we pay close attention to this man’s parting words, the words moved by the Spirit of God, to send a chosen nation across the Jordan River, with a new leader, and the hope of milk and honey in their Promised Land?

Moses Says, “You Have Declared This Day That the Lord is Your God”

We should. So today I am reading from Deuteronomy, the fifth book in the Hebrew Bible, what is called the Torah. Moses reminds the Israeli nation of the declaration they have made, and appeals to them to throw their heart and soul into the covenant God made with his people. 

Deuteronomy 26:16-19

16 The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17 You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him. 18 And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. 19 He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.

So before we go on, can I ask you to take this personally to heart? If you are a believer, or if you are not a believer. If you know about Moses or if you do not. The million+ Israelis standing at the threshold of the Jordan River included both. Believers and non-believers in this God that had delivered them for 40 years. 

Moses Gives Us Hope Within the Fight

Everyone shares the struggle between blessings and curses, Moses describes, “that come on you.” Moses gives us hope within the fight.  

Deuteronomy 30:1-10

Prosperity After Turning to the Lord

30 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. 6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. 7 The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. 8 You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. 9 Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, 10 if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Moses Lays Down the Choice 

Then Moses lays down the choice we each have. And the consequence of that choice.

Deuteronomy 30: 11-20

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And what does this prophet do next? Moses gives the new generations a song, he blesses each of the twelve tribes, climbs to the top of Mount Nebo, and as God puts it he was “gathered to his people.”

What a witness to follow. Moses was telling them that they didn’t need him for the Red Sea or to climb Mount Sinai. The man who poured his life into these people, his appeal to them to take God into their hearts, that he is near, his shepherding one generation out, and new generations in, as they are about to cross the Jordan. 

Thank you Lord, for Moses. 

Choose life, human. Hold fast.