Deuteronomy 32-34

Deuteronomy 32

I think as a man, I am fairly ignorant of the matters of the heart.  But who knows man’s hearts have dedicated much of His Word to songs and psalms.  I suppose learning a song has some learning or teaching values.  Catchy rhymes probably are good ways to memorize a list of information.  But I suspect the Lord’s purpose in giving us songs goes farther than His people merely being able to memorize facts.  The psalms themselves are reflections of what God has done, they represent time spent in on meditating on His goodness, or His other attributes.

I think Moses song then is more than just passing along information of God’s works to the future generation, but an attempt to change the meditation of God’s people.  If you are what you think, then God wants to change what we think.  In our private times and public time, He has given us songs to sing that meditate on the only thing in life that could possibly matter, which is living in a right relationship with God.  Nothing men do will last, only what God approves will continue into eternity and so this song in the hearts of God people causes them to meditate on who He is and what sort of heart we should have towards Him.

“He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his wars are judgement (justice): a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”(v4)  If this is one’s heart meditation throughout the day, then it conditions a correct response to Him in the light of our sin and the outcomes of it.  The responsibility of suffering and chaos that exists in the world falls on human shoulders.  God cannot be blamed for a single instance of it.

“They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children; they are a perverse and crooked generation.”(v5)  When our trial begins, God’s righteousness will stand firm and we’ll be the one’s to blame.  Men are the failures.  We were given the mark of God when He made us, but now we are marked with the blemishes of our own failures and rebellion against Him.

“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generation; ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.” (v7) The song calls for us to remember the goodness of God, and what better way to remember than in the lyrics and melody of a song?  Even though we have rebelled against God and somehow we come to suspect God of withholding goodness from us, we may consult our own history and the how God has manifested is goodness to humankind.  God did not own man anything, it was not his fault for our rebellion, yet He comes looking for us.  He saves us from the problems we created for ourselves. “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.” (v10)

God displayed His power in a desert land.  Can man produce honey and oil from a rock? God provided everything Israel needed and more in place where normal people could never survive.  They didn’t just scrape by, God cared for them. “He made him ride on the high places of the earth, and he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock.” (v13)

But despite of all of God’s goodness, the garden of Eden, the rescue from Egypt, the care in the wilderness, men forget God and replace his glory with idols. “But Jeshurun (Israel) waxed fat, and kicked: thou are waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods… ” (v15-16)

So God will allow the folly of humankind to run its course.  Human decisions to reject God will lead to their own desolation and when it happens, it will stand as testimony against their pride.  God will be vindicated, He is the only true judge of the universe.  It won’t matter what people thin of Him, they will have nothing to say in the end.  “And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.  And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are very forward generation, children in whom is no faith.” (v19-20)

But God will still show mercy to His own people, those who forsake their rebellion against Him. God will make their past rebellion vanish along with everything else that is vain and temporary. “For the LORD shall judge (vindicate) his people, and repent himself  (have compassion) for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.” (v36)

As does everything in scripture, this chapter points to coming day when God will at the same time be vindicated and express His compassion on a people who deserve death for their rebellion and wickedness.  This day was realized when God became a man and became the scapegoat for man’s rebellion.  Yes, God’s wrath burns hot, but the melting heat of His wrath fell on Himself as He sacrificially took the place of sinners on the cross.  So the more God’s wrath and justice of God can be described in all of its terrible detail, the more His goodness is displayed at the cross where we took the punishment for us.  He is vindicated.  He is good and just, and is unfathomably merciful towards undeserving sinners.

Deuteronomy 33

Deuteronomy 34