Moses takes his last stand on Mt Nebo

When we arrived at Deuteronomy, Moses as you know was now at the borders of the promised land, looking across; he sensed his own end in coming; he was disqualified from entering it; he accepted that his heart got the better of him, and after leading them for 40 years and seeing a whole generation perish in the desert without hope of seeing the land, he now say the same words to a new generation, ready to be led by Joshua. If you recall the words earlier in Deuteronomy 6:6 – And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. He recognized his own failings and now warns them to heed these words in their heart. He realize the potential dangers of one’s heart – Scripture records these very solemn words – Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. With this:

Let’s open your bibles then to Deuteronomy 24 and we see a parallel here as we discuss the issue of the heart.
I like to call it

No 1 – Knowing the heart of God so that I can show LOVE

V1 – “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, 2 and if she goes and becomes another man’s wife, 3 and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, 4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. God is leading us to see a problem here. In the heart of it all, when you read the book of Deuteronomy, is not so much the covenant laws that govern their day to day aspects of life even though it does tells them what to do in a crises, but it is really about how the Lord’s people are to live in a covenant relationship. In the heart of it is really all about sanctification, how we ought to live before the Lord in that precious covenant relationship. Anything short of this as we shall see here; how when people want a short fix and manipulate their way round it, will only lead to rebellion, further complication even apostasy. That’s why this particular law of divorce had to be created in the days of Moses. The shortfall came from men. This came from the wicked intentions of the heart. This was further compounded by the religious leaders years later. All these laws were meant to relieve people; to helped them; these are simple laws; laws essential for the preservation of God’s people; but men’s heart was so deceitful that it became a burden; many took advantage of it for their own gain; instead of setting them free; it shackled them to a wicked system of greed and lust. I must be very careful to emphasize that Moses did not institute divorce in this chapter, in case some of you are wondering whether this is the loophole the world is looking for. This was the permission clause that the Pharisees used; a mistaken view that was corrected by Jesus a few hundred years later. It was the weakness of men that resulted in this law. It is probable in the days of Moses, that the people took their marriage irresponsibly and carelessly; that it appears that the practice of divorce was very widespread among the Israelites.

This appears to be something they caught on with the wicked practices of the Egyptians, when they were living there; of

Because of your hardness of heart

constantly changing wives as a sort of a convenience. The verse seems to suggest that Moses had tolerated these long enough and this evil system had to be dealt with. What Moses was concern about primary was the aftermath of such a divorce? After seeing someone divorce and remarried a second time, there cannot be another divorce or another separation, to made legal the first marriage all over again because the woman now is bound to the first husband all over again, V4 explains it very clearly. So this law is to protect them, to free them, not bind them. Which was why this was used many hundred years later by the Pharisees to question Jesus in Mark 10 and in Matthew 19? Under their written code, they say to Jesus: Moses permitted (allowed) a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away” and what did Jesus say to them – “Because of your hardness of heart that he wrote this commandment. That sums up the problem. It is very clear to Jesus that the original standard was given in the creation ordinance of Genesis 2. This was how it began – Jesus said. Deuteronomy 24 is a reminder to us that there is no convenient way out of a personal and family responsibility. It is an appeal to the Lord’s people to commit themselves to the covenant way of life and not to deviate from fidelity and commitment. It is not like the one they saw and tasted in Egypt which was the expression of everything that is treacherous, deceitful, selfish and devious? Very much like our world today. The heart of man is the problem.

In a recent paper last year by Professor Samuel Chan from the faculty of Education, University Technology Malaysia in a family counselling seminar, the top three reasons for divorce in Malaysia is no 1 – infidelity, No 2 – when 2 people are no longer in love and No 3 – emotional distress. But top of the list is infidelity. It is a violation of the heart. When there is a breach of trust in an inter-personal relationship; when there is a violation of a mutually agreed-upon rules or boundaries of a special relationship with 2 persons. When you and I lost our love in our human covenant-relationship and sought somewhere else. We were told that Solomon had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 1 Kings 11 – For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God. It was lust and greed and total self-indulgence of the worse kind. The heart leads us to many things and just the amount of social laws derived from this problem. We don’t have the luxury of time to look all of it but basically these are things that are essential to preserve God’s people. In V5 law about newly married couples, how the man is exempted from military service for 1 year, to look after the wife, again to preserve the relationship. We will skim right through very quickly because of time:
V6 – a man must loved his own life and cannot use his life as a pledge.
V7 – Kidnapping. You steal another person’s life away from their loved ones. That’s why kidnapping is such a horrible crime.
V8 – leprosy.
V10 – lending money to your neighbours is a form of love and the dignity of asking your money back especially if the person is poor, is a form of love.
V14 – dealing with hired servants. How do we treat our colleagues under you; – dignity and respect. That’s love.
V16 – The prescriptions of who is to pay for past sins is no longer applicable. That’s love.
V17 – Loving outside the scope of people we know is a form of love. Foreigners, fatherless, orphans.
This is exemplified by leaving what is not harvested for the sake of the orphans and widows. That’s love

Now the pressing question is this – Do I love him? Do you love him? You see we do not prove it when we gather here in this sanctuary. We do not prove it when we sing. We do not prove it in our ministry or in some form of work we are doing for him. We do not prove it when amid some sufferings and the pains that surrounds us, we are showing our faithfulness to him all these years. I may even lift a psalm of praise in my quiet devotion and feel blessed and refreshed – but it does not prove love. Only 1 thing and only 1 can prove it – When in answer to His Word you straightaway do what he tells you. You prove your love when in answer to his word, you straightaway do what he tells you. This is the demonstration of love for which He is seeking today from us. I am crushed even as I speak to you. God helped us all. Today as we go deeper into very heart of God, sometimes we feel his pain. He is saying to us, if you truly love me, do what I tell you – straightaway.

No 2 – Understand the heart of God so that I can show GRACE

25:1 “If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty, 2 then if the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to lie down and be beaten in his presence with a number of stripes in proportion to his offense. 3 Forty stripes may be given him, but not more, lest, if one should go on to beat him with more stripes than these, your brother be degraded in your sight.4 “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.

Amidst God's punishment, there is grace.......

It is strange that I would use the word grace for this chapter; but let me explain that even in the executing of punishment there is grace. After inflicting discipline on your child for disobedience, after the appropriating punishment is melted out, what is the proper precaution to maintain your son or your daughter’s dignity and how can restoration take place?. Grace. When you cane your son or your daughter, hey, there is no delight in it. I believe the hurt is tenfold to the parents. After that we hug them and we love them. That’s grace. Even though the criminal must be shamed and in great pain, yet care should be taken that they are not totally shamed and degraded, some level of dignity must be in place. The new testament teaching from 2 Thessalonians 3:15 tells us that the guilty one must still be looked upon as a brother. His reputation as such was to be preserved by this merciful limitation of his punishment. Grace is applied.

In V5 -10 – this is about the marriage obligation of surviving brothers. In ancient Israel, it was seen as a great tragedy for a man to die without leaving descendants to carry on his name, and to give his family an inheritance. Therefore, if a man dies and has no son, it is the responsibility of one of his brothers to take the deceased brother’s widow as a wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. If the practice is not followed, the surviving brother is stigmatized for his failure. The book of Ruth is an excellent illustration of this law. That’s grace. Inn v11-12, we find a wife that totally inappropriate herself when she was punished for helping her husband in a fight with another man. So ladies, don’t get involved when you see two grown men fighting. Run or call your elder! I think here she failed to show grace because ladies have a way of showing grace, husbands will come to their senses when you show grace. Even in business, we can show grace. V13-16 it’s about honesty. We can be vicious in business. We lived in a world where it is the survivor of the fittest. We delight at someone else’s expense. It doesn’t have to be this way as a believer in Christ. Showing grace in the way we honestly do business is our strong testimony. We don’t have to be ruthless and cold-blooded. We can show grace even in business.
And last of all the rooting out of the Amalekites, a nation that showed no mercy upon Israel. They are enemies of God and they have no fear of God whatsoever. If they have any fear or reverence for God, they would have heard how God delivered them out of a mighty nation; but no; they assault the very apple of God’s eye. Such men trample again and again upon the grace of God; and as such, only the judgment of God awaits them.

Lastly, chapter 26 and what a joy it is when we understand the heart of God, we can now GIVE

... so that I can Give

How appropriate it is V 1-11 – The presentation of the first fruits, and here Moses concludes his 2nd sermon, all the way back from chapter 4. A fitting end to his sermon before he says godbye. Chapter 26:1 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. 3 And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.’ 4 Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.

It is a declaration that we have entered the land. The baskets represent his acknowledgment of the blessings received from the Lord. Understand this, they are only at the border; they have not even entered in; and Moses gave them the victory that has already been won. What a declaration! Isn’t that sounds so familiar with our faith? The Victory has been won by the Lord Jesus; we just follow him and claim our inheritance. A few things straightaway you will notice in the text; firstly – to acknowledged that you have entered the land – you touchdown – you set foot finally on this land – I profess that I have come now at last into the land; after 40 long years of wandering. I want you to imagine the emotions of finally entering in, their eyes flooded with tears, people were kissing the soil and some openly wept. I declare today to the Lord God that I have come into the land. 40 years is a long time. They remembered their parents in Egypt, who were generation of slaves, poor, despised, oppressed; entirely under the domination of another nation; subservient to another race; completely without hope and a future; and now they are here; they are not only free; they are entering their own land. Oh what joy beyond words and expression? How else can they show their gratitude? How can they be thankful? What can they repay? Well. The answer is in their giving. One must thankfully acknowledge God’s great goodness for bringing them out of the depths and oppression of Egypt into the freedom and joy of their great inheritance. V10 tells us that he must offer his basket of first fruits and worship. So when we offer to God today in our giving, it is not just about the 10% and what is right for him; God has no need of our money; like the Israelites; we come to remember where we were before; that we were shackled by a heavy iron around us; we were slaves; we were without hope and a future; we were under the complete domination and dominion of the power of sin and Satan; as Paul rightly says in Ephesians 2 – we were dead. We were so far off from a point of no return. No hope. No God. When we offer our first fruits, we looked back. And to be brought to such a lofty, bountiful, esteemed position and be called his son can only have one response – worship. When we give to him – we looked back, and then we look at our present life with exceeding indebtedness to him. Then we look into the future with eager anticipation. Surprise how much we can learn so much about giving from this text. And just as we think we are finished and done with about our giving; there is twist here in V12-15. And this will hit home to some of us, and it is this. Make sure that what we give is clean. It is a holy offering. Make sure that what we put into the bag is sacred. I mean, if you rob a bank and then give 10% away; or you cheat your partners of a million dollars and give 10% of that sum away or someone put 1 million dollars in your hand to keep you quiet and you gave 10% away from it. Make sure it is clean. It is our own responsibility to keep our conscious clear at all times, so that when we come to give, we may give an account to God; we may lift up our face with cheer and delight, and count it all joy to give.

I really have to end now. Time is up. V16-19 – all the basic demands of the covenant as Moses concludes his sermons, was repeated here: to love the Lord your God with all their hearts. The last word is how we begin this morning – the heart – loving God with all our hearts. That’s the summary of the law made simple. I must go deeper and deeper into the heart of God so that I can learn to love, so that I can learn to give grace; and so that I can fully know what it means to really give. Let us pray that there will be an increase in our devotion until at last nothing but love will possess our soul and nothing but obedience will express our love.

End of message.