Schoolmaster to Christ
DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER 29
Schoolmaster to Christ
DEUTERONOMY CHAPTER 29
Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 29 (KJV)
This chapter closes the second grand division of Deuteronomy. In it we have a solemn appeal to the conscience of the congregation. It is what we may term the summing up and practical application of all that has gone before in this profound, practical and hortatory section of the five books of Moses.
"These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which He made with them by Horeb." Allusion has already been made to this passage as one of the many proofs of the distinctness of the book of Deuteronomy from the preceding section of the Pentateuch. But it claims our attention on another ground. It speaks of a special covenant made with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, in virtue of which they were to be brought into the land. This covenant was as distinct from the covenant made at Sinai, as it was from the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In other words, it was neither pure law nor pure grace, but government exercised in sovereign mercy.
It is clear that Israel could not enter the land on the ground of the Sinai or Horeb covenant, because they had completely failed under it by making a golden calf. They forfeited all right and title to the land, and were saved from instant destruction only by sovereign mercy exercised toward them through the mediation and earnest intercession of Moses. It is seems plain that they did not enter the land on the ground of the Abrahamic covenant of grace, for had they done so they would not have been turned out of it. Neither the extent nor the duration of their tenure answered to the terms of the covenant made with their fathers. It was by the terms of the Moab covenant that they entered into the limited and temporary possession of the land of Canaan.
We now turn our attention to the solemn, practical application of all that has passed before us to the conscience of every member of the congregation.
"And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles; yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day."
This is peculiarly solemn. The most astounding miracles and signs may pass before us, and leave the heart untouched. These things may produce a transient effect on the mind and the natural feelings; but unless the conscience is brought into the light of God's presence, and the heart brought under the immediate action of truth by the power of the Spirit of God, no permanent result is reached. Nicodemus inferred from the miracles of Christ that He was a teacher come from God; but this was not enough. He had to learn the deep and wondrous meaning of that mighty sentence, "Ye must be born again." A faith founded on miracles may leave people unsaved, unblessed, unconverted – awfully responsible, no doubt, but wholly unconverted. At the close of the second of John's gospel, we read of many who professed to believe on Christ when they saw His miracles; but He did not commit Himself unto them. There was no divine work, nothing to be trusted. There must be a new life, a new nature; and miracles and signs cannot impart this. We must be born again – born of the Word and Spirit of God. The new life is communicated by the incorruptible seed of the Gospel of God, lodged in the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not a head belief founded on miracles, but a heart-belief in the Son of God. It is something that could never be known under law or government. "The gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Precious gift; glorious source; and blessed channel – universal and everlasting praise to the Eternal Trinity.
"And I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot [wonderful clothes; wonderful shoes; God took care of them and made them last]. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink; that ye might know that I am the Lord your God" (emphasis added).
They were fed and clothed by God's gracious hand. "Man did eat angels' food." They had no need of wine or strong drink, no need of stimulants. "They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." That pure stream refreshed them in the dreary desert, and the heavenly manna sustained them day by day. All they wanted was the capacity to enjoy God's provision.
Here like us they failed. They got tired of the heavenly food, and lusted for other things. How sad that we should he so like them. How humbling that we should fail to appreciate that precious One whom God has given to be our life, our portion, our object, our all in all. How terrible to find our hearts craving the wretched vanities and follies of this passing world – its riches, its honors, its distinctions, its pleasures that perish in the usage, and even those lasting for while cannot compare with "the unsearchable riches of Christ." May God, in His infinite goodness, "Grant us, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height: and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God."
"And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan [formidable and much dreaded foes] came out against us unto battle, and we smote them" (emphasis added). Had they been ten thousand times as great and as formidable they would have proved to be as chaff before the presence of the God of the armies of Israel. "And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh." Israel had the direct authority of God for what they did to Sihon and Og. The introduction of God and His authority is the one perfect answer to every question, the divine solution of every difficulty. May we always keep this weighty fact in the remembrance of the thoughts of our hearts, as a divine antidote against every infidel suggestion.
"Keep therefore the words of this [the Moab] covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do" (emphasis added). Simple obedience to the Word of God always has been, is now, and always will be the deep and real secret of all true prosperity. Of course, to the Christian prosperity is not in earthly or material things, but in heavenly and spiritual. We must never forget that it is the height of folly to think of prospering or making progress in the divine life if we are not yielding an implicit obedience to all the commandments of our blessed and adorable Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
"If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."
Here is true Christian prosperity. May we earnestly long after it, and diligently pursue the proper method of attaining it.
"Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp." How exquisite, how deeply affecting the expression "thy stranger." What a powerful appeal to Israel's heart on behalf of the stranger – "From the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day; that he may establish thee today for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath; but with him that standeth here with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day; – for ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by; and ye have seen their abominations [that is, the objects of their worship, their false gods], and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them" (vv. 10-17; emphasis added).
This earnest appeal is not only general, but also intensely individual. This is important. We are always prone to generalize, and thus miss the application of truth to our individual conscience. This is a grave mistake, a serious loss to our souls. We are each responsible to yield an implicit obedience to the precious commandments of our Lord. Only in this way can we enter into the real enjoyment of our relationship, as Moses says to the people, "that he may establish thee for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God."
Nothing can be more precious or simple. There is no vagueness, obscurity or mysticism about it. It is simply having His most precious commandments treasured up in our hearts, acting on the conscience, and carried out in the life. This is the true secret of habitually realizing our relationship with our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
For anyone to imagine that he can enjoy the blessed sense of intimate relationship, while living in the habitual neglect of our Lord's commandments is a miserable and mischievous delusion. "If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love." This is the grand point. Let us deeply ponder it. "If ye love me keep my commandments." "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." "Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God."
These are seasonable words for this day of easy-going, self-indulgent, worldly religious profession. May they sink down into our ears and hearts. May they take full possession of our moral being, bringing forth fruit in our individual history. We feel persuaded of the need of this practical side of things. While seeking to stay clear of legality, we are in imminent danger of running into the opposite evil of carnal laxity. The passages of Holy Scripture just quoted, supply God's safeguard against both these pernicious and deadly errors. It is blessedly true that we are brought into the holy relationship of children by the sovereign grace of God, through the power of His Word and Spirit. This one fact cuts up by the roots the noxious weed of legality.
But surely the relationship has its suited affections, duties and responsibilities, the due recognition of which furnishes the remedy for the evil of carnal laxity so prevalent in this age. While as Christians we are delivered from law-works, we are not to be good-for-nothing, self-pleasers. No, life-works should be produced in us to the glory of Him whose Name we bear, whose we are, and whom by every argument we are bound, to love, obey and serve.
May we, earnestly seek to apply our hearts to this practical line of things. We are called on to do so, and we may count on the abundant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ to enable us to respond to the call, in spite of the many difficulties and hindrances that lie in our way. Oh, for a deeper work of grace in our souls, a closer walk with God, a more pronounced discipleship. Let us give ourselves to the earnest pursuit of these things.
We now proceed with the lawgiver's solemn appeal. He warns the people to take heed, "Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood."
The inspired writer of Hebrews refers to these searching words. "Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled."
These are weighty words, full of admonition and warning. They set forth the solemn responsibility of all Christians. We are all called on to exercise a holy, jealous, godly care over each other, which is little understood or recognized. We are not all called to be preachers, pastors or teachers. The passage just quoted does not refer particularly to such. It refers to all Christians, and we are bound to attend to it. In this age, it is not uncommon to hear complaints of the sad lack of pastoral care. No doubt there is a great lack of true pastors in the Lord's church, as there seems to be of many other gifts. But, this is only what might be expected. How could it be otherwise? How could we expect a profusion of spiritual gifts in our present miserable condition? The Spirit is grieved and quenched by our lamentable divisions, worldliness, and gross unfaithfulness. Should we marvel at our deplorable poverty?
But in the midst of ruin and spiritual desolation, our blessed Lord is full of deep and tender compassion toward us; and if we only humbled ourselves under His mighty hand He would graciously lift us up and enable us to meet the deficiency of pastoral gift among us. Through His precious grace, we might look more diligently and lovingly after one another and seek each other's spiritual progress and prosperity in a thousand ways.
Do not imagine that we mean to give the smallest countenance to prying officiousness or unwarrantable espionage on the part of Christians. We look on such things in the Lord's church as insufferable. They stand at the very moral antipodes of that loving, holy, tender, diligent pastoral care of which we speak, and for which we long.
But does it not strike the student that, while giving the widest possible berth to these contemptible evils to which we have just referred, we might cultivate and exercise a loving prayerful interest in one another and a holy watchfulness and care that might prevent many a root of bitterness from springing up? We cannot doubt it. It is true we are not all called to be preachers, teachers, or pastors. It is equally true that there is a grievous dearth of pastors in the Lord's church. Of course, we mean truly qualified pastors; pastors given by the Head of the church – men with a pastor's heart and real pastoral gift and power. All this is undeniable and for this reason it should stir the hearts of the Lord's beloved people everywhere to seek of Him grace to enable them to exercise a tender, loving, brotherly care over one another which will no doubt help toward supplying the need of pastors or shepherds among us. One thing is clear, that in the passage just quoted from Hebrews 12 there is nothing said about pastors. It is simply a stirring exhortation to all Christians to exercise mutual care and to watch against the springing up of the root of bitterness.
How needful this is; how terrible are those roots; how bitter they are; how widely spread their pernicious tendrils. What irreparable mischief they do; many are defiled by them; many precious links of friendship are snapped, and many hearts broken by them. Yes, and we have often felt persuaded that a little judicious pastoral or even brotherly care, a little loving, godly counsel might have nipped the evil in the bud, hindering an incalculable amount of mischief and sorrow. May we take these things to heart, and earnestly seek grace to do what we can to prevent roots of bitterness springing up and spreading their defiling influence.
Let us hearken to further weighty and searching words from the beloved and venerable lawgiver. He paints a solemn picture of the end of the one who caused the root of bitterness to spring up. "And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst [what a fatal delusion; crying peace, peace, when there is no peace, only imminent wrath and judgment]. The Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and [instead of the peace which he vainly promised himself], all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven" (emphasis added).
Awful warning to those who act as roots of bitterness in the midst of the people of God, and to those who countenance them. "And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law; so that the generation to come of your children, that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath."
Soul-subduing examples of the governmental dealings of the living God that should speak with a voice of thunder in the ears of those who are turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the Lord that bought them. "Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt; for they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book; and the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day" (vv. 19-28).
How solemn all this is; "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." And again, "Our God is a consuming fire." How important it is that the Lord's church should give heed to such warnings. She is called to learn from the history of God's dealings with His people Israel. Romans 11 is perfectly clear and conclusive regarding this. The apostle, in speaking of God's judgment on the unbelieving branches of the olive tree, the apostle appeals to Christianity, "If some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off; and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God; on them which fell severity; but toward thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off."
The Lord's church has not continued in the goodness of God. It is impossible to read her history in the light of Scripture and not see this. She has grievously departed, and there is nothing before her save the unmingled wrath of Almighty God. Sadly, in this present age there are many who truly seek the Lord Jesus Christ, but are mingled with the mass of man's religious corruption. But let us pray that all true believers will see how wrong it is to remain in connection with what so flagrantly opposes the mind of Christ, revealed with divine clearness and simplicity in the Holy Scriptures.
But man's organized religious institutions will be "spued out" and "cut off." It will be given over to strong delusion, to believe a lie, "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
What tremendous words. May they ring in the ears and sink into the hearts of thousands who are going on from day to day, week to week, and year to year, content with a mere name to live, a form of godliness but denying the power, "lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." What an awfully graphic picture of so-called Christian America. What an appalling condition – the destiny of the pleasure hunting thousands who are rushing blindly, heedlessly and madly down the inclined plane that leads to hopeless and everlasting misery. May God, in His infinite goodness and by the power of His Spirit and by the mighty action of His Word, rouse the hearts of His people everywhere to a more profound and influential sense of these things.
Before closing this lesson, we briefly direct attention to the last verse of this 29th chapter of Deuteronomy. It is one of those misunderstood and misapplied passages of Scripture. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law." This verse is constantly used to hinder the progress of souls in the knowledge of "the deep things of God;" but its simple meaning is this: the things "revealed" are what we have had before us in the preceding chapter of this book. On the other hand, the things "secret" refer to those resources of grace that God had in store to be unfolded when the people have failed to "do all the words of this law." The revealed things are what Israel should have done, but did not do; the secret things are what God would do, in spite of Israel's sad and shameful failure.
Thus, when rightly understood, this passage encourages the heart to search into these things that, though "secret" to Israel in the plains of Moab, are fully and clearly "revealed" to us for our profit, comfort and edification1. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came down to lead the disciples into all truth. The canon of Scripture is complete; all the purposes and counsels of God are fully revealed. The mystery of the church completes the entire circle of divine truth. The apostle John could say to all God's children, "Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things."
Thus the New Testament abounds with evidence proving the mistaken use that is so constantly made of Deuteronomy 29:29. We have dwelt on it because it sadly hinders the Lord's beloved people in their progress in divine knowledge. The enemy always seeks to keep them in the dark, when they should be walking in the sunlight of God's revelation – to keep them as babes feeding on milk when they should be "of full age," feeding on "strong meat" freely provided for the Lord's church. We have little idea of how the Spirit of God is grieved and Christ dishonored by the low tone of things among us. How few really "know the things that are freely given to us of God." Where are the proper privileges of the Christian understood, believed and realized? Our apprehension of divine things is so meager; our growth so stunted – our practical exposition of the truth of God so feeble. What a blotted epistle of Christ we present.
Let us seriously ponder these things in God's presence. Let us honestly search out the root of our lamentable failure and have it judged and put away, so that we may more faithfully and unmistakably declare Whose we are and Whom we serve. May it be more thoroughly manifest that Christ is our one absorbing object.
