Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 1:2
“It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea.”

Deuteronomy begins with a recap of Israel’s history, from Mount Sinai, to the border of the Promised Land. Moses begins by reminding the people this journey that has taken a lifetime, should have taken less than two weeks.

After camping at Sinai and receiving the Word of God, the people were commanded to make their way to the Promised Land. They were told that they had “dwelt long enough in the wilderness.” Eleven days later, they found themselves camped at Kadesh Barnea. Instead of walking by faith, they were crippled with fear. As a result of refusing to obey the Lord, they found themselves stuck in the wilderness some 38 years later. Not a lot is known about those years in the wilderness, but one verse gives a sobering commentary,

Deuteronomy 2:3
“You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward.”

For 38 years, Israel walked in circles. They refused to go where God wanted them to go; seeing the obstacles rather than the power of God. For 38 years, they remained in the same station of life, using their weakness, and the strength of the giants as an excuse. It is quite interesting, as Moses recounts the event, he speaks of how the Moabites and the Ammonites both encountered giants, just like the Anakim, but they were not deterred. These unbelievers conquered the issues of life that the children of Israel were afraid to face.

I think it is high time we took seriously at the exhortation of Moses. We have spent enough of our life living in the wilderness, in partial obedience to the Lord. It is time to stop walking in circles, continuing to struggle with the same sins over and over. It is time to face our giants head on, and in the power of the Spirit, overcome the struggles of the flesh.

Pastor Jim

Deuteronomy 10:1-2
“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. 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.’

Every generation likes to think of themselves as more advanced than the one before them. I recall one of my children, when he was about four, asking what life was like back when things were in black and white. He really thought color was only seen by his generation and the rest of us had grown up in the gray hues of a silent movie.

This vantage point on life may be the force behind people thinking that the Bible is antiquated. They might say, “while the Bible might be filled with some fascinating stories, it certainly cannot be relevant for a modern 21st Century world. The problems we face are so much greater than the problems a wandering tribe of nomads had to endure in the Sinai Peninsula thirty-five hundred years ago.”

I think the passage of Scripture before us speaks to that kind of thinking. When Moses came down the mountain and found the nation violating the very laws he had received from God, he reacted by throwing the tablets on the ground. The breaking of the tablets symbolized the people’s behaviors and the breaking of the law of God. When Moses met again with the Lord, he did not get an updated version of the Word of God that would fit into an ever changing dynamic world. Instead, he was given the exact same commandments written on a new set of stones.

The word of God will not change as the world changes. New advancements in medicine and science, or a changing viewpoint of what is right and wrong, will not alter the Word of God. The Bible was never designed to be molded by culture, but to shape it. In a time when things seem to be changing before our very eyes, we need a firm foundation for our lives, and no bedrock is more solid the the Bible.

Pastor Jim