Clough Deuteronomy Session 25

Deuteronomy 9:1-29 The Heart of The Military Victory Test & Self-righteousness

Fellowship Chapel; 25 May 10

Handout

Slides

 

I try to keep going back to the flow because, remember this was all an unbroken exhortation and it took some time to go through the whole thing.  So to get the details we want to look at the text and get all the treaties, then we lose the forest.  So thatÕs why I try to put that diagram every time, every week, in your handout so that you can see the flow.  If you start interpreting the Scriptures in such minutia that you lose the overall flow you also distort your understanding of the meaning.  I mean, this is a human being that got up before a group of people he had something on his mind that he wanted to communicate, and we have to grant him that He has coherence.  So last time in chapter 8 youÕll see where it is surviving success by maintaining the mental attitude of creaturehood.  And Moses was concerned that these folks would not remember the lessons learned in the wilderness wandering from their parents, the first generation, and not realize that when they got into prosperity they have a harder test under conditions of prosperity than they would have under conditions of adversity.  Prosperity testing is usually more difficult to survive spiritually than adversity testing.  And so he gave us all kinds of arguments there, all based on history.

 

So now in chapter 9, all the way through chapter 10, we get to the end of chapter 10 thereÕll be another section, chapter 11, and thatÕll be two weeks, and then weÕll break.  IÕm going to be teaching a course out at Chafer Seminary so weÕll have two more Tuesdays after tonight and then weÕll break for July and come back in August because at that point weÕre halfway through the book, and when we come back weÕre going to deal with the minutia of the statutes and judgments that everybody kind of blows away and reads fast, not realizing thatÕs where you see the implications all across society, in areas of public health, you see implications as far as banking systems go, you see implications as far as human interaction with animals, human interaction with immigrants to a nation, and so a lot of the social questions that weÕre grappling with in our country are handled but only if you deal with the statutes and judgments in their details.  So thatÕs a different mental process than what weÕre in here; as you can see the large thing from 5:1-11:32, so we want to cover up to 11:32.

 

So tonight, in bold print youÕll see that thereÕs a parallel between chapter 8 and chapter 9. In chapter 8 heÕs dealing with surviving success.  Chapter 9 is also dealing with surviving success, but thereÕs a slightly different nuance here in chapter 9 compared to chapter 8.  In chapter 8 people took normal processes fro granted.  In chapter 9 thereÕs sort of a self-righteousness that can be triggered, and so Moses has to deal with that too.  So what we want to do on the first slide is look at some of these verses. And just notice so far notice chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, chapter 8. Notice the emphasis on h-e-a-r-t.  You see that noun over and over and over.  ThatÕs why the theme in chapters 5-11 is loving Yahweh with your heart.  ItÕs the heart condition and Deuteronomy 5:29, ÒOh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me,Ó that was spoken by God Himself at Mount Sinai. 

 

And the reason these verses are so important is because if you donÕt read the Old Testament and you just read the New Testament you get this false image that the Old Testament was this legalistic thing, and you get that because of Galatians, because of Matthew; but Matthew and Paul, theyÕre dealing with a Pharisaic distortion of the Old Testament.  So if you only read the New Testament what you get is a feeling for the distortion of the Old.  So thatÕs why Deuteronomy is so important. Deuteronomy is the central theological book of the Old Testament.  The prophets, whether you study Isaiah, whether you study Jeremiah, whether you study Hosea, all those guys are building on the Mosaic foundation here.  So thatÕs why Deuteronomy is absolutely crucial to understand the thinking that goes on in the Old Testament.  And Jesus, of course, went back to this text very often in His personal life.

 

So in Deuteronomy 5:29, hereÕs God saying, after the people have said we can do it. Basically they heard the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, and they said, "All that you said we will do".  And they didnÕt have a clue, these poor people, that they were in hostile territory, that they were fallen beings, their hearts were going to rebel against God, they were clueless.  And the frustration, you can see how verse 29 begins, ÒOh,Ó and itÕs an emotional response as God addresses the situation; He says gosh, you know, these people donÕt know what theyÕre talking about.  ÒOh, that they had such a heart in them,Ó and then notice the condition, because God puts two universals in this sentence: ÒOh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep ALL My commandments.Ó See how universal that statement is.  What God is saying is that they need a heart circumcision, a change in the heart, in order to live the life of the kingdom of God. 

 

So right away this has profound political implications because people always want to have the perfect society and the Marxists always have this idea if you just tear apart the institutions and toss them around in a box somehow of that chaos will come order of some sort, sort of like evolution.  And inevitably if you ask a good intellectual Marxist why he thinks heÕs ever going to get a good society, it is because he thinks in terms of economic pressures or he thinks in terms of psychological things, or in terms of the cultural Marxists that came out of Frankfurt, Germany, the cultural Marxists, theyÕre thinking terms of cultural forces and so on.  None of them think of the heart.  You find this even in areas of Islamic theology, that imposing sharia law externally is going to create an orderly and just society.  It doesnÕt work that way.

 

So this is the great idea that comes out of this section, from chapters 5 to 11. Before Moses gets to the details of the case law he has to deal with this issue.  And Moses was very sensitive because remember, for 80 years he watched this.  He lived through 40 years of failure because this issue was not addressed.  You cannot have a perfect society without a change deep in the human heart, and that change can only happen through regeneration and the Holy Spirit working in peopleÕs hearts.  And men have fought and we have lost millions of men in battle down through history, always trying to create the social just society and they always fail, and they fail because they donÕt heed this lesson. 

 

This is why we are premillennialists.  As Ron Merryman pointed out Sunday, we are premillennialists because weÕre realists. We know that the only way that evil can be dealt with is for Jesus Christ to come back and deal with it, in a catastrophic way.  The Millennial Kingdom is going to be administered—the administration of the King in the Millennial Kingdom of resurrected people. Resurrected people are incorruptible, so the reason you can get a Millennial Kingdom is because you have an incorruptible leadership, and even that fails because after a thousand years what happens?  Let Satan loose for a while and we have another overhaul.  So how many times in history does God have to show us that weÕre sinners? 

 

Then in Deuteronomy 6:5, that was the chapter when he was talking about living in the Word and how to get that.  ÒYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,Ó see these universals, not part, ALL.  ThatÕs repeated for a reason, itÕs part of Old Testament theology.  ÒALL these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart.Ó You remember that happens through the home, through the family.  Chapter 7 dealt with the conquest pressures, joining YahwehÕs war. He says, ÒIf you say in your heart, ÔThese nations are greaterÉ.Ó  So chapter 7:17 shows you thereÕs a battle going on in our heart.  God wants a certain heart condition and itÕs constantly being challenged.  This is why we say the battleground is in the heart. 

 

Deuteronomy 8:2, ÒGod led you in the wilderness to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart.Ó And so I went last time and the time before I mentioned it briefly, to look at the physical heart in order to understand the spiritual connotation.  And the reason we do that is because in the Bible man is made of the dust of the earth into which God breathed a human spirit. And out of that combina­tion of the material and immaterial we have nephesh, which is translated soul.  Too many people come to the Bible when they see s-o-u-l they think like a Greek, and in Greece, in the philosophical areas, Plato and Aristotle, s-o-u-l to them meant the spirit.  That is not the way you read the Bible.  The Jewish mentality is that s-o-u-l includes the physical body as well as the spirit. 

 

So in the ancient world when they said itÕs in my Òheart,Ó they were doing pretty much what we are doing in our every day vernacular; itÕs heart-felt, itÕs heart-warming, so and so has a broken heart.  We use these idioms in our language all the time.  I think the reason we do that is because we can sense physically the emotions in our heart.  ThatÕs why people think that way.  The heart manifests itself so you can feel it, you can sense it.  And so this is why I made a big point quoting from that book, The Coherent Heart, which is basically a neurocardiology research, because the Bible doesnÕt employ language casually. So when we have a term like that we want to think, God used the word Òheart,Ó He uses the word Òsheep,Ó He uses the word Òoxen,Ó and these words connote physical things but the physical things are His design.  So He has pre-designed these features in us so He can speak to us and we can understand. 

 

And this is why on the next slide I quote another quote from this book and this is a fascinating quote to show how new research shows you how much more important the heart is to our whole being, constantly, that itÕs not just a pump.  As it says, the heart is in continuous connection with the brain, therefore itÕs affecting our mind, and thatÕs why you see this, you shall say in your heart, your thinking, you shall say in your heart.  The heart is in continuous connection with the brain and other bodily organs and systems through multiple pathways. 

 

Look at the four different ways the heart communicates.  One is neurologically, and that is through the transmission of neural impulses, thatÕs the nerve system.  Second, itÕs biochemically, through hormones and neurotransmitters.  This is a new area that they discovered. In fact, I was reading something where only in the last several decades have they classified the heart as part of the endocrine system, and the reason theyÕve done it is because the heart is secreting hormones; the heart is a hormone secretor also.  So thatÕs another way the heart communicates, neurologically; it communicates biochemically; it communicates biophysically through pressure and sound waves.  In fact, the pulses in our blood system, when theyÕre in coherence, like that diagram, mimic the heart, the changes in the heartbeat; and itÕs all synchronized to a certain standard, which is coming up here in a minute.  So itÕs biophysically, thatÕs the third way the heart communicates and then finally, a fourth way is energetically through electromagnetic fields, because the heart is generating an electromagnetic field, and all the cells which also are electrical in our body are within the field transmission of the heart.  So the heart is not just some little casual organ.  God has designed it in an amazing way and the more you study it and the more research is done, holy mackerel, we just donÕt know the half of it.

 

So when the Bible says ÒheartÓ we havenÕt got a clue yet what it is doing, itÕs thinking; the heart is part of our thinking process.  And the brain is operating, according to this research, at its top efficiency when the heart and the system is coordinated in rhythm. And the optimum rhythm that seems to be true is .1 Hz, or ten times a second.  And thatÕs when these changes in the beat to beat occur once on a cycle of every ten seconds, that seems to beÉ the brain alpha waves like it, and the other organs seem to just really like that; itÕs calming, itÕs soothing, and it allows them to work.

 

So all that to say is the physical heart, in conclusion, has a field of influence throughout our whole body.  So itÕs amazing how this works, and it radiates its rhythms outward.  Now watch this, because I think this is getting at why God keeps using the word Òheart.Ó It radiates its rhythms outward so our total inner state can be measured against a known standard.  In other words, that you can measure this heart rate and what itÕs doing and realize how far away itÕs departing from .1 Hz, or ten times a second optimum cycle.  And if its vastly different then thereÕs chaos reigning; if itÕs close to that itÕs a coordinated system functioning.

 

So, that means thereÕs an objective standard by which the total inner state can be measured.  Now if thatÕs true of the physical heart, then thereÕs an interesting parallel and we see this in the next few verses.  There are dozens of these but I want you to look at four of these verses and letÕs think about what these verses are saying in the light of what weÕve already seen about the physical heart. 

 

ÒAs in water face reflects faceÓ—remember water was used as a mirror in the ancient world. ÒAs in water face reflects face, so a manÕs heart reveals the man,Ó so itÕs like saying if you want to see yourself in a mirror, then your heart is you and thatÕs your state, spiritually.  ÒAs in water face reflects face, so a manÕs heart reveals the man,Ó Proverbs 27:19.  ThatÕs why, now, we have these other verses repeated throughout the Scripture, all the way into the New Testament. What is God looking at when He searches us?  HeÕs looking at the heart, and just think of the guy thatÕs physically trying to see what our heart is doing with all our organs and heÕs sitting there with a machine thatÕs trying to tell him what is the pulse, what is the modulation of this, oh, itÕs .1 Hz, okay, weÕre close to optimization. 

 

So, ÒI the LORD search the heart to give every man according to his ways.Ó So there obviously God is responding to what He sees and what He sees is the state of the heart, Jeremiah 17:10.  And of course, we know from Jeremiah Òthe heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?Ó  God can, but we canÕt, in spite of Freud and Karl Gustav Jung.  Then in Matthew 12:35 we have another statement. And this thinking in terms again that the heart radiates outward from itself a field of influence, neurologically, electronically, biophysically, hormonally, look at this verse.  ÒA good man out of the good the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasures brings forth evil things.  So itÕs like the heart is a repository and it is the source. Just like itÕs a source of blood, itÕs the source of electromagnetic field, spiritually itÕs the source. ThatÕs why Jesus talks about what defiles a man is his mouth, the words that come out and they come out from the heart.  Good works come out from the heart. 

 

Now thereÕs something else we want to see and so IÕve selected two more verses. And that is Proverbs 4:23, typical of many, IÕm just picking one verse out, thereÕs probably 20 of these same kind of verses that you can find yourself in the concordance but IÕm just bringing these to your attention because of the rationale that you see inside these verses.  Look at Proverbs 4:23 and what itÕs saying: ÒKeep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.Ó  See, the conception there is the heart is the source of things.  And then Proverbs 4:23 is adding something is adding something.  If the heart is the source of things, then we are responsible for it and for its state.  So thatÕs why the verb there is ÒKeep your heart with all diligence.Ó So we have to be heart readers, not of other people but of own heart: ÒKeep thy heart with all diligence.Ó See how this connects with what Moses is doing as heÕs trying to brief the nation before he dies?

 

And then Jesus, in Matthew 12:35—"A good man out of the good treasure of heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasures brings forth evil thingsÓ—has that itÕs out of the heart thing, and so obviously you donÕt want to bring evil out of evil treasures. So the idea is to deal with those evil treasures.  But now these next two verses add another little thing to this package of truth. 

 

In 1 John 3:19-21 we have three verses that are problematical in translation. Some of the translations arenÕt clear about this so IÕm giving the translation that Zane Hodges worked on for about 20 years. He taught the Johannine literature at Dallas Theological Seminary and heÕs an expert at the logic of Johannine literature.  Let me read it through so youÕll see what the catch is.  Follow me in 1 John 3:19, ÒAnd by thisÓ— ÒthisÓ being in context helping another brother or sister, helping another Christian in other words—Òby this we É shall assure our hearts before Him.Ó Now see, thatÕs like that Proverbs thing, we can affect the state of our hearts. And this is where ÒassureÓ means convince, the heart needs to be convinced because the heart is also where the conscience is.  And so the conscience has to be convinced, otherwise you canÕt believe the Lord, you canÕt trust the Lord if you donÕt have a signal in the heart saying so.  And thatÕs why itÕs so important, for example, in talking to someone about the gospel of Jesus Christ that you donÕt apply peer pressure.  You donÕt want people to just make some verbal thing because their girlfriend or their boyfriend of their mother or the father or their children are watching or something, because thatÕs just a social pressure, thatÕs external, thatÕs not coming from the heart.  A person could basically be saying to themselves: Well, gee, IÕm not really convinced of this but everybodyÕs looking at me so IÕd better do something.  ThatÕs not what we want, thatÕs false conversion. 

 

So Òby this,Ó now heÕs talking to believers here, Òbuy this we shall assure our hearts before Him that.Ó Now some translations in place of ÒthatÓ add ÒbecauseÓ and the reason is that the Greek word is the same, it doesnÕt do any good to look in a Greek concordance because these are the two main uses of the word, so youÕve got to look at context, just like you have to do in English.  So this is how Hodges translates this and IÕm convinced heÕs absolutely right here.  ÒBy this we shall assure our hearts before Him that,Ó content, Òif our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.  In other words, the idea in context there is youÕve helped a brother in need and youÕve done it sincerely, and what John wants you to know is that you know youÕre in fellowship when you heart says well, you know youÕre a stinker, and you didnÕt do this and you didnÕt do that and youÕre a sinner and blah, blah, blah, blah.  And so now the heart is condemning.  But what the argument here, what John says is one way of convincing the heart is to go back to the fact that God is omniscient. He saw what you did and so therefore you did it as unto Him; He saw that, He knows that, and you can back test the heart and convince it. Because the next clause, Òif our heart does not condemn us we have confidence toward God,Ó and in the context thatÕs talking about prayer.  So again the confidence in prayer comes when the heart gives its consent; a heart consent because the heart is located where the conscience is.  So all this to say that thereÕs a struggle and we are responsible for our heart condition spiritually, and we can do something about it.  And so when you get into verses like Proverbs 4:23 or 1 John 3, when you see those kind of verses just pay attention to them because the Holy Spirit is telling us through those texts hereÕs how to handle your heart.

 

And then finally, Romans 2:15 tells us God has written His law in our hearts. And thatÕs all men.  So everyone has written in their hearts GodÕs moral principles.  ThatÕs the basis of the fact that God holds people responsible.  He couldnÕt hold persons responsible if they didnÕt know the truth, but Romans 2 asserts that all people have a code written in their hearts.  Now this is sort of against a lot of thinking in psychology and sociology because the tendency is to think that babies are born with tabula rasa; that is, a blank slate, and itÕs the parents, itÕs the experience after birth that programs the children.  And this is why in the postmodern era, well, gee, my mother dropped me on my head when I was a baby and therefore I go out and kill people.  So thereÕs all this extra business because of my unique bringing up has affected me.  Well, it has affected me but that doesnÕt make me irresponsible. 

 

Now hereÕs an interesting piece of research.  Yale University—I just came across this, John Cross at Good Seed sent me this little tidbit this week in fact, and I thought this was fascinating in this light.  Let me read you the report, it comes from Canadian TV, apparently weÕre too busy worrying about the Gulf thing to get into this sort of thing—ÒNew research suggests that babies as young as six months have already developed a sense of right and wrong.  The study from the Infant Cognition center at Yale University theorizes that the notion of morality is hard wired into the brain at birth.Ó  What did Romans 2:15 say?

 

 ÒA lot of philosophers and psychologists used to believe that babies start off knowing nothing and in the domain of morality many people believe that babies start off as little psychopaths, indifferent to the suffering of others, not knowing right from wrong, Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom told Canada A.M. Tuesday.  But in our own lab and in other labs we are finding a surprisingly rich understanding of morality even in the youngest babies we could test.  In one experiment babies between the ages of six months and one year watched an animated film in which a red ball tried to climb a hill while a yellow square tries to help it up and a green triangle tries to push the ball down.Ó 

 

So hereÕs the little baby watching this screen, thereÕs the little ball and thereÕs a guy that comes up to help him and then thereÕs this bad guy that pushes him down.  The baby sits there and he sees this little drama going on on the screen.  So scientists tested which shape the babies preferred by measuring how long they spent looking at a picture of each one.  In 80% of the cases babies chose the helpful shape over the unhelpful one.  In another experiment researchers devised one-act morality plays with puppets, with good animals and bad animals.  The babies preferred the good animals when tested, going so far as to reward the good animal with a treat and take away a treat from the bad animal.  WeÕve done some even more recent studies that showed that babies have a rudimentary sense of justice, so if they see a different character punish a bad guy and reward a good guy they like that character.  But if they see a character reward the bad guy and punish the good guy they dislike this character.  All of this speaks to an early moral sense of under­standing of what is going on in that sort of relationship.Ó 

 

And he comments for parents: ÒIf youÕre happy with how youÕre interacting with your baby or child as terrific our research tells you nothing new about how to do that, what it does tell us,Ó and I donÕt know, this man probably is not a believer, but I thought this was a neat last sentence to the story, Òwhat it does tell us is I think parents can learn a lot and appreciate a lot by knowing just how smart and moral their babies are.Ó 

 

So I donÕt think this is the kind of testing that I think confirms the Word of God. What the Word of God has been saying all along, babies donÕt come tabula rasa, babies donÕt come as psychopaths. They come as fallen beings but they have a sense because God has written on the little babyÕs heart His law. And he canÕt articulate a lot but he knows thereÕs a standard there; a tremendous point.

 

Okay, so our spiritual heart, conclusion, has fixed standards built into itÉ fixed standards.  ItÕs not a piece of rubber, itÕs not plastic, itÕs not arbitrary; it has fixed standards.  So conclusion: just as the physical heart reveals the body's systemsÕ state, so the spiritual heart reveals our true spiritual state compared to GodÕs designed standard.  Just as the whole physical heart has that 0.1 Hz, optimum cycling, so the human heart has GodÕs laws his conscience as the absolute standard.  So the heart has within it a standard.  We are responsible to subdue our heart and bring it into conformity with GodÕs holiness; itÕs our ÒPromised LandÓ that must be conquered.

 

And now I want to link it theologically.  All this has been to think about the heart and the mind.  Now we talked about this chapter after chapter in Deuteronomy, now let me try to bring some of this together.  At this point in IsraelÕs history thereÕs one of the most troublesome things for readers of the Bible, and thatÕs holy war, the genocide.  And in chapter 7 Moses deals with the genocide, and they have to go through this, they have to engage in a holy war thatÕs YahwehÕs war as part of getting rid of evil.  Now that genocide is limited to Israel, to a time in IsraelÕs history, and to a place, a certain area of land.  However, out of that came an imprecatory mental attitude that is manifested in some of the Psalms that also give people a lot of trouble—bash their babies heads against the wall; itÕs in the Psalms.  And what do you make of passages like this?  Those passages are teaching us an imprecatory attitude toward evil, and the reason the Bible has those things in it is because that attitude is the attitude we need to deal with our heart to subdue it.  Our heart is fallen, it is desperately wicked; it is a battle zone and it has to be cleaned up and only the Lord can help us do that. But all of us have a ÒPromised Land,Ó so to speak, in our heart that has to be cleared and we have to deal ruthlessly with high places, the vain imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the law of God and root it out.  And it never finishes until we rapture and go to the Lord. 

 

But the point is, we have that struggle and I think thatÕs why thereÕs imprecatory attitudes in the Scripture; not to go out and kill somebody, itÕs an attitude toward evil.  Yes, it does involve killing other people when other people are confirmed evil, but we donÕt know theyÕre confirmed evil, Israel knew it only in the 4th generation of the Amorites, they were confirmed evil people and that, then, an attitude toward evil means we go after them, not because itÕs our war, though.  Okay, so much now for where we got with the heart. 

 

Now tonight we want to come with chapter 9 and we will, by the way, in the next 20 minutes actually finish the chapter. So if you look in the outline, first the adversity test scenario: wilderness deprivation of the necessities of life to show man does not live by Ònormal processesÓ alone. IÕm paraphrasing it to get the meaning: Òman does not live by bread alone, but by every thing that proceeds out of the mouth of God.Ó  But the substance and meaning of that is man does not live by normal processes. In other words, you donÕt go out and grow grain to grow bread when youÕre in the wilderness, you canÕt do it, yet you still need food.  So God strips away the normal processes in order to make us cognizant of His logistical grace underlying those processes.  Satan sought to get Jesus to use His omnipotence to make bread, and we wonÕt get into Christology here but thereÕs a doctrine called the doctrine of kenosis. Ron Merryman got into some of that in Philippians 2 Sunday in fact.  The idea of kenosis is this, that Jesus Christ remained as true deity but what He gave up was the voluntary use of His attributes.  In other words, Jesus Christ could not exercise His divine attributes except as the Father gave Him permission. And what Satan tried to do is to get Him to exercise his divine attributes to feed Himself. And Jesus went back to the principle of the adversity test because He said that, look, IÕm hungry, I know that I can make bread, but IÕm not going to do that because I am depending on My Father to provide the bread whenever and wherever He so chooses.  So the Lord Jesus was tempted to make bread differently than we would make bread, but the principle is the same. In His omnipotence He could tell the rocks to turn into bread, but if He did that, He would violate the doctrine of kenosis and break the whole point of why He was here.  So he models for us, using Deuteronomy 8, the idea of trusting the Lord for this logistical grace.  The prosperity test scenario is when Ònormal proceduresÓ seem to be sufficient does the heart retain creature awareness?  ThatÕs why prosperity testing is so hard, does the heart retain creature awareness, that is, are we cognizant of the fact that even though (quote) ÒweÓ do it, ÒweÓ do this and ÒweÓ do that, ÒweÕ do this, and weÕre so used to it, and we never think about the fact that well, actually we were creatures and God is maintaining our structures while weÕre doing all of this.  And itÕs hard to maintain creature awareness when everything seems to be going fine.

 

But now in chapter 9, now they have another prosperity test and this is after they whip the Canaanites they are going to be subject to a problem, and the problem is we whipped them because weÕre better than they are.  In other words, weÕre more righteous than they are so we sort of deserved to beat them anyway.  So thatÕs a no-no.  The structure of this, verses 1-6 give the teaching, 7-9, 29 give the historical refutation of IsraelÕs self-righteous response, and chapter 10 is going to give the real historical basis of their success and every other success.  YouÕll notice IÕve underlined the word Òhistorical.Ó  I want you to observe how Moses argues.  We have seen this again and again and again and this is why I have the Framework.  What got me started in the framework many, many years ago was I had to think through how do biblical writers argue their case.  And every time I looked to see whether itÕs Stephen, whether itÕs Paul, whether itÕs Matthew, whether itÕs the prophets, whether itÕs Moses, theyÕre arguing not like a Greek philosopher, theyÕre arguing by repeating history.  And so thatÕs why we want to follow this line of argument.

 

Deuteronomy 9:1-2, Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in and to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven, [2] a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, of whom you heard it says, ÔWho can stand before the descendants of Anak?ÕÓ  Now the emphasis in this passage, of course, is on the military disparity between the two armies.  The Anakim were real people. Now they werenÕt a large population apparently, but in your outline IÕve summarized the history of these people.  They go all the way down from MosesÕ day all the way to DavidÕs time, Goliath is one of them, somehow thereÕs a genetic fame that goes on thatÕs propagated here, Goliath had a couple of brothers and you know theyÕre freaks because one of them had six fingers and six toes, whatever his name, Mr. X I call him because the Bible doesnÕt tell you what his name is, but thereÕs a whole family of these guys, and theyÕre big.  Goliath, wasnÕt the tallest, apparently, but he was 9 and 3/4th feet tall, put him on the basketball court and see what happens.  And his armor weighed 125 pounds and that wasnÕt a sack on him like soldiers wear, a hundred pound sack on their back, this was the armor they used in combat, this was the shield and the spear and everything else.  Now you try holding 125-pound shield and spear in your hand, and be flexible enough to get somebody with it.  So these guys were big.  And the emphasis here is you are going to go up against the big guys.

 

But, verse 3 says, ÒTherefore understand today that Yahweh, Your God is He who goes over before you,Ó thatÕs all a Hebrew participle, which is a characteristic, in other words, HeÕs the going one for you, itÕs part of His nature to be going with you, for you, because itÕs His battle.  ÒHe 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.Ó  Notice the construction in that sentence. There are four verbs; count the first 2 and then look at verb number 3 and verb number 4 and see what you notice.  The first two verbs, what is the subject of the first two verbs, the subduing?  ItÕs Yahweh.  The subject of verb number 3 and verb number 4 is Israel.  And see, thatÕs the cause/effect. God is going to do this and that makes you able to do it.  So thereÕs the divine enablement factor.  ÒHe will destroy them,Ó He Òwill bring them down,Ó thatÕs God doing it, and Òyou will drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you.  Now that same principle applies in clearing out the crud in our hearts; that God has to help us do it because we donÕt even know where it is, but He helps us and it can happen. 

 

Then he says, verse 4, and this is a test now, after theyÕve conquered all these guys,  ÒDo 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]  ItÕs not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go into possess the land, it is because of the wickedness of the nations that the LORD your God drives them out.Ó And see, that gets back to the old slide that weÕve shown a thousand times, and that is, the biblical view of evil and how the fact is that God has got a program in history unlike any other non-biblical thought pattern. Every other person outside of the Scriptures has to believe that the good/evil mixture is forever normal; it has always been this way and always will be this way.  Only in the Scriptures do you have the mix of good and evil bounded, bracketed.  It started at a point in history and it was going to end at a point in history.  It is bracketed.  That is what gives us hope.  ItÕs the bracketing of evil and no one, apart from the Word of God, has an answer to this problem. No one has ever come up with an answer to this issue, no matter what philosopher whenever, whatever century, there has never been an answer to this whole issue.  But this is the answer and God has a war thatÕs going on and He wants it straightened out.


Now, youÕll notice in the construction of this text it says that God is driving them out before you, Ò It is not because of the righteousness or the uprightness of heartÓ that youÕre going to go in and possess, Òbut because of the wickedness of these nations that God drives them out before you, and that He may fulfill His Word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.Ó  On your outline youÕll see two boxes, and what I wanted to do in those two boxes is to run you through a little way of thinking about life.  ÒIn order thatÓ introduces a purpose clause. Okay, so now weÕre dealing with a purpose and if itÕs a purpose it means dealing with meaning, so the question we have to answer is, in life period how do we identify the purpose of a historical event?  How do we identify the purpose of something in our life?  How do we even know there is a purpose? 

 

Years ago Walter Kaufmann, an atheist philosopher at Princeton, he wrote a book called Faith of a Heretic, and itÕs a fascinating book to read because he deals with a little girl dying of cancer. He gives an illustration of that, and he says what are going to do, give her a little lollipop, hoping that everything is going to be better after she dies?  He says no, but then he has to say because the whole universe, he has admitted, does not have a meaning or a purpose. He says thatÕs all right, it doesnÕt follow that we can just make the meaning up.  Well, thatÕs not very inspiring, if IÕm dying of cancer to sit there and saying if I take a pill maybe I can make something up to make myself feel good.  But see, thatÕs the desperation of the atheist worldview.  It doesnÕt have a hope; it doesnÕt have a source.  So how do we identify the purpose of an event, or how do we know?  Well, in this text, after the purpose signal youÕll see what it says: Òthat He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.Ó In this particular case heÕs talking about the Abrahamic Covenant. 

 

But letÕs generalize that so this becomes a useful operating term.  We know there is a purpose because we know God acts that way according to His revelation.  God acts according to His verbal revelation. He speaks and He acts and His actions are coherent and rationally consistent with His Word. So because we donÕt know everything, but we certainly have examples, like this, where we see God acting in history in a fantastic way through millions of people, through all kinds of political dynamics and sociological and cultural dynamics to bring about exactly what he promised literally in the Abrahamic Covenant.  Now doesnÕt that demonstrate the fact that we know there is a purpose and we know it only because, in this case they would know it only because what happened?  The Abrahamic Covenant, only because God told them that.  So do you see something here?  And that is here is the intellectual reason why revelation is important.  Apart from verbal revelation from God, we have no anchor for purpose and interpretation of history.  Even if God were there and He didnÕt speak to us weÕd still be in a mess.  If God was mute we would never know His intentions.  And therefore weÕd still be sitting around floundering, well, maybe thereÕs a purpose but boy, I donÕt know anything about it.  ItÕs only because He has spoken in history.

 

So point 2, we know what the purpose is if He has put it in one of His contracts.  The application to our personal experience is that we have to go on the basis of what the Word of God says.  There are about eleven reasons why Christians suffer in the New Testament epistles. Now in every individual case we donÕt know why we lose our job, we donÕt know why weÕre sick, we donÕt know why so and so died, we donÕt know exactly that, but we have the assurance as Christians, there are at least ten or eleven in the Scripture for it, and maybe reason number three and five together, we donÕt know, but at least we know there are reasons, and that means that I know that thereÕs rationality in life.  Now if I donÕt know that, that is severely damaging to me because that takes away purpose, that takes away meaning, that takes away the reason to live.  And this is why itÕs no surprise that after 20 years or 30 years of an intensely secular education we have the rise in suicides.  I mean, why canÕt we find out that 2 + 2 is 4?  Of course we have drugs. Drugs are an anesthesia; itÕs an anesthesia against the pain, not physically but the existential pain of trying to live without a purpose.  So at least I take a drug and it diverts my attention, or I can sit there and be distracted by all kinds of texting and all the rest of it, just so that I donÕt get quiet, because when I get quiet and I pause, now the haunting questions come.

 

Do you know what led me to Christ?  When I was in high school, my senior year, I never forget this, God worked in different ways but I was not a Christian then, in my senior year I got a bunch of awards. And I can remember, we had an auditorium and you go down for this award and that award and it was embarrassing because I did have a number of awards because I had won some science contests and so on in the state of New York, and my girlfriend was sitting there in the thing and she said why donÕt you just stay up on stage.  The point was that I got all these awards, but when I walked back to that seat and I sat down, the thought occurred to me, this is it?  This is it?  I donÕt know why I thought that but I can think years later, as IÕve thought about what I was thinking, that was an existential moment of despair because evidently what I must have been thinking as a non-Christian is if I do this itÕs going to fill me, if I do that itÕs going to give me purpose.  And then when I got it, it was like cotton candy; thereÕs nothing there, Òthis is it?Ó  So thatÕs what weÕre talking about, that loneliness, and that helplessness that is very, very deep in every person.  And this is why when we see places like ÒGod is going to do this because HeÕs doing that,Ó that should ring bells.  You know, thatÕs good news.

 

In verse 6, he says, ÒTherefore 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.Ó  The word stiff-necked came from their farming. A stiff-necked animal was one who would not, when they were yoked they wouldnÕt bow their head and pull, theyÕd just stand back up and so it got to be a pride, self-righteousness, and we see that, itÕs very easy to get into this pride mode.  Whenever we say, you see it in court cases, political elections, crucial votes, and international relations. Whenever we see the bad guys put down, naturally thatÕs encouraging from the standpoint of justice but where you have to kind of control your heart is you canÕt rejoice Òyeah, he got it and I didnÕt.Ó  ThereÕs a difference of rejoicing that justice is done, but thinking to yourself is that there by the grace of God go I.  So thereÕs a certain humility here, and thatÕs the point. Flunking the prosperity test here is a problem and itÕs going to be a problem with Israel.

 

Now from Deuteronomy 7:9 down to verse 29, the rest of this, you can read it, itÕs about the history and itÕs about what happened at Mount Sinai. LetÕs just skim it and then I want to show you something about the structure.  This is a lesson, because often we are challenged as Christians, Bible-believing Christians, by people who read texts like this and say ooh, this isnÕt chronological, and thereÕs an error, thereÕs a problem with the Bible. So weÕre going to see that, weÕre going to have an explanation for it right now.

 

In verse 7, Ò[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.Ó And he recounts the fact that he went up on Mount Sinai for forty days, while he was up there, he comes down, forty days is a long time by the way, thatÕs five weeks, and so he comes down off the mountain and whatÕs happened already.  AaronÕs got a whole new religion going on, worshipping the calf, the bull, which is the fertility god that they had in Egypt.  So now Moses comes down, and he comes down, God tells him about it, and verse 12, ÒThen the Lord said to me, 'Arise, go down quickly from here, for your people,Ó I love it in the Hebrew, itÕs so cool the way God talks to Moses, Òyour people,Ó now Moses, you see, before it was His people.  Okay, Òyour people, whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly; they have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them,Ó and so on.

 

And then he says, [13 ÒFurthermore the Lord spoke to me, saying,] ÔI 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.Õ [15] So I turned and came down from the mountain,Ó and he describes what he does, and in verse 17 look what he does when he goes down the mountain.  He takes the two tablets and he threw them and he broke them.  When you break the tablets what are you doing to the covenant of the tablets?  ItÕs an official statement; itÕs not just that heÕs angry and heÕs just going to smash them, thatÕs not what heÕs doing.  ItÕs like if you had a mortgage and you paid it off, itÕs nice, you like tear it up, itÕs just almost like a ceremony because youÕre finished with it.  ItÕs not because youÕre mad at the piece of paper, youÕre doing that because of the nature of the contract, itÕs over; itÕs broken.  So now thereÕs no contract. 

 

Then he fell down, it says, verse 18, for another forty days.  Now he has to mediate between Yahweh and the nation to try to get another covenant.  And then he goes on and he describes the calf down in verse 21, and then he talks about in verse 22, ÒÉ you provoked the Lord to wrath,Ó at other places.  And then Kadesh Barnea, Taberah and Massah were before Sinai; Kadesh Barnea is after Sinai.  See, itÕs all chronologically messed up here.  [24] ÒYou have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you.Ó  [25] ÒAnd so I prostrated myself before the Lord forty days,Ó and then he repeats on what he is doing. 

 

So I have one more slide to show tonight, and that is the nature of this text, and we wonÕt spend undue time on it because we donÕt have the time but I want you to notice something, something when you read the Bible and you read exhortation narratives, remember, this is not just a narrative of history, this is Moses addressing a group of people.  Now on the top of this diagram and on your handout you will see that I have ordered the verses by their chronology.  So here, verse 22 actually speaks of something that comes first.  Then 9, then 11, then 10, 12-17, 21, 18 to 20, 25 to 29, 23 to 24, and you look at that sequence and you say somebody messed up here.  No, they didnÕt mess up; Moses is speaking as a news reporter would speak.  News reporters donÕt necessarily give the story chronologically; they do it with themes, emphases involved.  So what IÕve done in the structure is IÕve tried to take them in the sequence in which you find them in the text and describe the thought in these three segments, and then notice what these three segments are doing. 

 

Notice, verses 9-11, a forty day wait for the first two tablets; relationship, verses 12-17 ruptured relationships, two tablets destroyed; 18-20 forty day wait for the second two tablets, relationship restored and announced in verse 19.  So if you see that, then what is it that you could summarize that section?  What is Moses getting at?  Why is he throwing the discourse out of chronological order?  The reason is because heÕs emphasizing the contractual relationship that is established, broken and then restored.  So the point he wants to get across is trace the relationship: you broke it, I broke the tablets, and then we had to reanalyze it and so forth.

 

Then he casually adds verse 21É oh, by the way, I threw the idol down the mountain stream, then in verses 22-24 he talks of other incidents, both before and after Sinai, that confirm the self-righteousness of the nation, and then verses 25-29.  These two here, verse 21, 22-24 all speak of actual locations, so now again we see, why do we have an actual location?  What is the Hebrew mind?  Remember when we were conquering the land, after it was all over what did he do?  He said you want to see the bedpost of the king; itÕs over there.  See that mentality? In other words, here it happened, there it happened, this has happened and this has happened.  So whereas in this section he was emphasizing the relationship, in this section heÕs emphasizing the events, where they happened.

 

And then he concludes the chapter, verses 25-29 the logic that he used to renegotiate the contract. That logic that he uses to renegotiate the contract is very, very important because that is a fore view of the Lord Jesus Christ.  At that point Moses is acting as the mediator, as the intercessor, and you donÕt ever get what an intercessor does, except in the New Testament it mentions it, but the New Testament sort of assumes that you already know what a mediator does.  And this event gives you an example of what happens here. 

 

So conclusion: success, particularly involving the triumph of good over evil, sets one up for another prosperity test, whether to deny or affirm my fallen creaturehood. ItÕs not just my creaturehood, but the fact is that IÕm fallen, that I do not deserve this, that our God is a God of grace.  And in the refutation from verse 9, all the way to 29, how has Moses argued it?  Is this a theological argument?  Well, yes, itÕs a theological argument, but itÕs historical.  You see, whatÕs he talking about? Covenant, written on tablets, broken, restored, actual locations where this happened, restored relationship because of forty days of negotiation.  ThatÕs how he argues his case and thatÕs the biblical way of thinking these things through.  Remember, zakar, the Hebrew verb to remember.  Remember, remember, remember; we have to remember these events in time.