Deuteronomy 9:4-29

Deuteronomy 9:4-29

Moses next wants to make sure that the Israelites understand the true reason as to why they are entering the Promised Land. He assures them that it is not because of anything that they had done. God was not rewarding them because of their righteousness. Instead, He was punishing the nations that dwelt in the land for their unrighteousness. Furthermore, He was fulfilling the promise that He had once made with Abraham hundreds of years prior to this point. Moses wanted the Israelites to understand that they were receiving blessings from God, but it was not because of how great of a people they were, even if they were better than the previous generation. God was instead proving to them and to all the nations that He keeps His word. He was more concerned about Himself than He was them.

Now reading that statement, we might easily jump on it and question how God can be so selfish. But as I was reading yesterday in Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper, God has every right to glorify Himself. All that we do and all that God does is all for His glory, not ours. We must never think that the reason things happen to us in life (the good things) are because we are such great people and God just cannot help but bless us constantly. Instead, we should seek to glorify Him in those blessings. Yes, God was protecting His people at this point in the story, and yes they were receiving the benefits from His actions. But was it ultimately for their satisfaction, for their enjoyment? No, it was so that they would know and that the surrounding nations would know who God is. It was so that God would receive all the glory, and so that many others would come to know Him.

God did not reward the Israelites for their righteousness because it was never about the Israelites; it was about Him. But another reason that God did not reward them was because they were not righteous. The newer generation was better than their fathers, but we know that no man is righteous, for we all sin. Now this is with the exception of Jesus, who was the only perfect man to ever walk the earth. But Moses made sure that the Israelites understood where they had messed up in the past. He had reminded them of their mistakes many times, but here once more, he wanted to make sure that the Israelites knew where they had messed up so that they would be sure not to make those same mistakes again. So Moses reminded them of how they had constructed the golden calf in order to replace God.

The story that follows the golden calf is the story that we have already seen in the opening chapters of Deuteronomy. The older generation was not allowed to enter the land, and at this point, they had all passed away. Moses was standing before the newer generation of Israelites, and in this section of his speech, he was making sure that they understood that if they fell into disobedience before God, He would punish them just as He had punished their ancestors and just as He was about to punish the nations before them. They were not God’s exception who could sin and get away with it. God had already proven that He treated Israel just like He treated anyone else. If they became disobedient, they too would endure the wrath of God. Once again, this shows how God is a God of the nations, not just of one country. The Old Testament does center around the story of Israel, but in doing so, it also shows how God was constantly reaching out to the other people groups as well. They were punished when they did not follow God, think about the Philistines. But they were also blessed when they were obedient, think about Rahab or Ruth. The point is that we all have a choice: we can either serve God faithfully or live in disobedience.

Matt