Deuteronomy 1

Verses 3-8, “Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him as commandments to them, after he had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei. On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying, ‘The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: “You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. Turn and take your journey, and go to the mountains of the Amorites, to all the neighboring places in the plain, in the mountains and in the lowland, in the South and on the seacoast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates. See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to give to them and their descendants after them.” ’ ”  The Israelites had spent a total of nearly forty years on their journey to the Promised Land, which was now in their view, across the Jordan River.  Moses used this moment to give the law a second time, as preparation for those who were not alive or old enough to receive it the first time at Mount Sinai. 

Verses 9-18, “And I spoke to you at that time, saying: ‘I alone am not able to bear you. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today, as the stars of heaven in multitude. May the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as He has promised you! How can I alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints? Choose wise, understanding, and knowledgeable men from among your tribes, and I will make them heads over you.’ And you answered me and said, ‘The thing which you have told us to do is good.’ So I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you, leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties, leaders of tens, and officers for your tribes. Then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.’ And I commanded you at that time all the things which you should do.”  Leaders and judges were appointed in response to the needs of the people. They had grown so large in size, according to the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham, that Moses could not bear the responsibility for them all and hear all of their disputes to judge between them.

Notice how Moses told them not to fear any man, because the judgment would be God's. The same applies to church leaders when they are dealing with sin in the church...God makes their disciplinary decision binding, as though it came from Him.  Matthew 18:15‭-‬20, “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.  But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’  And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”  Those will not hear and refuse to be corrected by their leaders do not fear God. Therefore, the rest of the church needs to treat them like a heathen and put them outside of the congregation for the health of the body. Having pity on these people who are rejecting God and His authority, and maintaining relationships as though they have not sinned, puts you in a position of messing with God's binding decision. You make yourself an enemy of God working against His will!

Verses 20-27, “And I said to you, ‘You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. Look, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged.’  And every one of you came near to me and said, ‘Let us send men before us, and let them search out the land for us, and bring back word to us of the way by which we should go up, and of the cities into which we shall come.’  The plan pleased me well; so I took twelve of your men, one man from each tribe. And they departed and went up into the mountains, and came to the Valley of Eshcol, and spied it out. They also took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us; and they brought back word to us, saying, ‘It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.’  Nevertheless you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the Lord your God; and you complained in your tents, and said, ‘Because the Lord  hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.’ ”  The Lord commanded Israel to take possession of the Promised Land, but they were not spiritually ready to do so.  Instead they procrastinated by planning to send spies in first, who only added to their concerns and caused them to sin worse, by complaining against God.

When God speaks to us, we need to be ready to move. Whether He prompts us to witness to an unbeliever, confront someone in the church about their sin, give financially, no matter what He asks...we must obey and not delay. Notice how people when wrestling with their sin will often seek out from others advice that goes against God's word and allows them to procrastinate in obeying? They will often misquote scriptures to justify themselves, when there is no justification. If you know that something is sin, you've heard the truth and yet you still decide to sin, you are sinning willfully. The problem with willful sinning is that there is no sacrifice to cover that sin. You may think that God's grace will have to cover you, but you should be expecting God's judgment instead.  Hebrews 10:26‭-‬27, “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.”  You cannot receive God's grace without humility and acknowledgment that you have sinned and are in desperate need of it. Then once received, you are taught by it to live righteously, not continue as you were.

Verses 29-33, “Then I said to you, ‘Do not be terrified, or afraid of them. The Lord your God, who goes before you, He will fight for you, according to all He did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went until you came to this place.’ Yet, for all that, you did not believe the Lord your God, who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go, in the fire by night and in the cloud by day.”  Moses tried to speak reason to the people, reminding them of God's past faithfulness to them and His deliverance, but they refused to be exhorted by the truth because of their lack of faith. They were bent on walking in the flesh and would reap the fruit of that choice, which is spiritual death and judgment.  II Peter 2:9‭-‬10, “...the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed...”

We need to receive the truth of the word in faith, acting on it in obedience, in order for it to be effective in our lives. What is the point of going to church or reading your Bible if you refuse the exhortation and correction the word offers?  II Timothy 3:16-17, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”  If you are not equipped for good works, you will not produce fruit, so there is no profit in you hearing the word unless you are faithful to doing what it says.  Hebrews 4:1-3, “Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ...”

Verses 34-38, “And the Lord heard the sound of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying, ‘Surely not one of these men of this evil generation shall see that good land of which I swore to give to your fathers, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his children I am giving the land on which he walked, because he wholly followed the Lord.’ The Lord was also angry with me for your sakes, saying, ‘Even you shall not go in there. Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall go in there. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it.’ ”  The punishment for the Jew's disobedience was not being allowed to enter the land at all, and being sentenced to death in the wilderness. Even Moses would never get to enter because he misrepresented God to the people out of frustration. We see that God is just and He does not show partiality in judging. There is no reason for us to think we will escape punishment for sin.

Verses 41-45, “Then you answered and said to me, ‘We have sinned against the Lord; we will go up and fight, just as the Lord our God commanded us.’ And when everyone of you had girded on his weapons of war, you were ready to go up into the mountain. And the Lord said to me, ‘Tell them, “Do not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; lest you be defeated before your enemies.” ’  So I spoke to you; yet you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the Lord, and presumptuously went up into the mountain. And the Amorites who dwelt in that mountain came out against you and chased you as bees do, and drove you back from Seir to Hormah. Then you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not listen to your voice nor give ear to you.”  Rather than accepting God's judgement as final, the people plotted to go up and fight the Amorites, thinking that they could possibly change the outcome. However, God would not be with them this time. Their sin had separated them from God so that He would not even hear their pleas for help. If they did not think they could win before with God's help, they had certainly deceived themselves into thinking that they could do it without His help, or by manipulating God into doing their will. This is because they had more faith in themselves and their own abilities than in God. You see this when one rejects the truth in order to remain in their sin. They are very bold and faithful in their self-will, ready to demolish anyone or anything in their path. Sadly, they would never be this bold in their obedience to God.

Moses wanted the people to stop and take a minute to consider who God is and where their faith was at, before they moved forward to do His will. As Christians, we also need to consider who God is and examine our faith. Will we follow God no matter what or do we have a sell-out point? If our faith isn't ready to lose everything, we will compromise our faith or give up when tribulations enter. We will succumb to our fleshly desires and trade God in for what the world has to offer. Even those who stand strong for years, may grow weary over time and consumed with the cares of this life, having their fruitfulness choked out and eventually forget who God is.  

What does is cost to be a disciple of Christ? Be ready...because it just may cost you everything!  Luke 14:26-33, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.  And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’?  Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?  Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace.  So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

Satan wants you to fail in your walk. The world will mock you and watch you, waiting for you to fail also. If they can show that you are a hypocrite, based on what you have said compared to your actions, then the truth you spoke can be deemed untrue. We need to prepare ourselves to suffer in this life as we uphold the truth.  I Peter 4:1-6, “Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles—when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.”

God told the first generation of Jews that they had spent enough time dwelling at Mount Horeb. After a year of no progress, it was time for them to move on and lay hold of the promises that He had prepared for them in the land of Canaan. This new generation could see the land just across the Jordan River, but they too needed to step out in faith. I fear that many in the modern church are circling in the wilderness at best, never walking in the fullness of God, nor do they even desire to. Wholly following the Lord will have its challenges, but we must do it with the promised reward in mind. Therefore, we choose to rejoice when we do suffer, knowing that our faith is being perfected.  James 1:2-4, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”  Focusing on our future reward is how we can rejoice when we are persecuted for the sake of following Jesus.  Matthew 5:11-12, “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”