Welcome to the Love and Context podcast, engaging in unscripted conversations with your hosts,
Ben and Spencer.
Whether you're tuning in from your car, your office, your home, or anywhere in between,
we are so happy to have you join us today.
Our mission is simple, to explore the Bible through a powerful lens of love.
Together we'll uncover fresh insights and gain deeper understandings of how we can love
God and love the people in our everyday lives.
So buckle up and join us on the spiritual journey as we discover timeless wisdom that
is just as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
Without further ado, let's dive right in.
Welcome back to the Love and Context podcast.
I am Ben.
I'm Spencer.
And we're joined once again by Caleb Fox.
Reminder, he is the chaplain at the local jail here, and he's been joining us for our
back half commentary through Deuteronomy.
Hey, how's everybody doing?
You feeling more comfortable than last time?
Oh, absolutely.
It's always weird when you have a mic in your face and you're not used to it.
Church drummer for over 20 years and just having the microphone this close to my face,
I don't know how to accept this.
Right.
And some of you who have played on church bands, like you're familiar, okay, so there
might be like overhead drum mics and you'll have some like on the snare.
There's never any in your face.
No, and nowadays, like most church drummers are like put behind a cage.
And so they don't even see you.
So they're like, oh, well, I know there's a drum set back there and somebody's playing
it, but they don't see a face.
Yeah.
They're very obscured.
And everybody else on stage gets a bottle of water, but you get skipped over to sing
every time.
Listen, anytime you come and play drums for us, I'll make sure there's a bottle of water
just for you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
It's going to be half drink, but if you could put a fan there at that drum to have some
fresh air coming through, I'd really appreciate that.
Dude.
Okay.
So, so those of you that are watching us on YouTube and you're like, man, this went out
the rails real quick.
You can, you can tell that I'm a portly fellow.
And when I do worship leading, man, I get real hot.
And so like for a long time, I did have a fan like on the floor blowing up at me because
otherwise let's just say that that was when your hair was longer.
So you could have your hair blown in the wind while you're leading worship.
My hair was never that long.
So okay.
So little, little, little side note here because I've heard you both, your wife and my wife
say this and also my assistant at work.
I'm Trevor Lawrence, who plays a quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
And whenever I'll say, and my wife goes, is he the guy with the really nice hair?
And I'm like, yes, yes, he does.
Yes, he has.
He has very nice hair.
So, so anyways, we are in the backend of Deuteronomy and actually we're going to be in chapters
31 through 34.
That's the 31th of the end of Deuteronomy.
Can you guys believe this is the last episode in Deuteronomy?
Yeah.
After this week, we have the Q and A. So if you watch this episode, it's probably the
last chance that you're going to have to get us a question for the Q and A. But if you
have other questions, just keep sending them because we're going to do them periodically.
I think every 25, 26 episodes or so.
Yeah.
We left off the last episode and Moses had come to the Israelites and he said, Hey, here's
your choice.
You can follow God and he's going to bless you or you can choose to not fall after God.
It's not going to end well for you.
Yeah.
You got to make this decision what you're going to do today.
Yeah.
So then chapter 31, Moses goes to all Israel and he says, I'm 120 years old.
It's good life.
And I am no longer able to lead you.
I don't think anybody could lead after 120 years old.
You know, the crazy thing is he's still climbing mountains.
Yeah.
Well, I mentioned back when we were in Genesis when Abraham had his first kid at what, 90
years old.
I think I was Ishmael.
He's right around that age.
You're 99 right around that age.
Yeah.
How miserable would that be?
Yeah.
Like I'm in my thirties with a five year old and I'm exhausted.
Yeah.
Well, like being like in my nineties with a newborn.
So funny story about that is my mom came into town.
So I sent my wife down to spend some time with her dad because he's not physically doing
very well and spend some time with her dad to catch up.
And my mom came down to help with the kids because I had to still work full time.
So I'd have to put them in daycare the whole week.
And by the end of the week I said, well, how's it going?
And she's like, I remember that there's a reason you have kids in your thirties.
And I was like, yeah, I was like, I'm pretty tired too, but I recoup a lot faster than
you.
Well, I sat by your mom in church that week and she leaned over to me and this was day
one.
She's like, I'm already so tired or something along those lines.
That's so good.
She watches this though.
She'll probably affirm or deny that comment.
Yeah, it was something like that.
I can't remember.
So, so right at the beginning of 31, Moses does something that I think is really cool.
I want to point out.
So first he says to all Israel, he got says to go to Israel and Moses says this, okay,
to all of Israel, Joshua's going to lead you.
Okay.
So be strong and of good courage.
Fear not.
God is going with you.
He won't fail and he won't leave you.
And then again, he says to Joshua specifically in the sight of all Israel, to Joshua and
the sight of all Israel be strong and of good courage.
God is going with you.
He won't fail or leave you.
Fear not.
Wow.
Now, this messaging is really good right here from Moses because the first is to everyone.
So he calls the entire, the entire assembly together and he says, this is the message.
This is what's going to happen.
And then he turns and he gives the exact same message to Joshua.
Now I've seen a lot of, I'm just going to call them power transitions in churches where
a senior pastor is stepping down and they're bringing in a new pastor maybe to lead a ministry
or lead the church, whatever it is.
There are good ways to do that and there are bad ways to do that.
One of the worst ways to do it is to tell the congregation one thing and the leader
another.
Yeah.
But I have seen that.
And then also for the pastor to undermine the person coming in behind them rather than
bless 100% correct on that.
I've been a part of church transitions where the pastor that was coming in was told one
thing and the congregation was told another thing.
I've been a part of those and they never end well.
No, like they're sometimes they're able to work things out, but it's usually messy.
Yeah.
Um, in the transition of leadership here, you have Moses actually saying the same thing,
right?
Which is very important.
Saying the same thing to Israel, saying the same thing to Joshua and very important.
And one of the things I think is super key in here is something you said in one of the
first weeks we got into Deuteronomy.
Yeah.
I mentioned that after God says, Hey, you're not going to go into the land.
Stop asking me that right after that Moses shifts and it seems like he starts telling
them how to learn from his mistakes.
Yeah.
And it once again looks here like Moses has probably learned from his mistake and he's
like, I'm going to commission Joshua the right way.
Yeah.
Because he does this right.
This is the right way to do it.
He doesn't try to undermine.
He's not trying to like usurp leadership.
He's like, no, Israel, this is the guy that's going to lead you.
Joshua, you're the guy that's going to lead them.
Yeah.
Everybody knows.
But he's going to be like, who's Joshua?
There's a parallel here too, because this is actually the same language that's used
in the great commission where Jesus is telling the 12 to go out because Jesus is saying,
go and make disciples and remember I am with you.
And so in here you have be strong, courageous, fear not.
God is going with you.
And then Jesus saying, go make disciples.
I'm with you.
Are you saying Jesus, the second Moses is commissioning the church to be like Joshua
and go take the land?
Hmm.
Man, it's weird.
I never are you saying that the Bible is interconnected and the stories are meant for us to understand
the connections?
Can you just knock the sarcasm off a little bit?
Yeah.
No, it's I mean, that's so good.
I mean, you can totally absolutely because like you're supposed to go but is a different
kind of conquest.
Yeah.
Because it's no longer a conquest of swords.
It's a conquest of the heart.
And it's no, it's no longer a conquest of physical land, conquest for physical land.
Right.
It's a conquest for the hearts and souls of the people of the world.
Because you see that echoed then again in Acts where he's saying go to the ends of the
earth.
It's a say it's this same commission that's being laid out.
So good.
I love that.
So in verse nine, if you if you're reading along, you will see that there is a tonal
shift.
From this point on, the writing style is going to shift, which makes sense because it says
Moses, having finished the law, gave it to the Levites to put by the arc.
Okay.
And he finished his what he's actually writing down like his his testament, if you will.
Yeah.
And so the back end of Deuteronomy, you could say probably from this point on was written
by somebody else because they're filling in what happened with Moses at the end.
Yeah.
Moses tells me he says every seven years when you're canceling the debt, which is going
to happen every seven years and then every seven of seven years is going to be the year
of Jubilee Jubilee.
We read about that in Leviticus.
If you are unfamiliar, go back to that episode because it's great.
It says read the law to everyone, men, women, children, even foreigners living with you.
Every seven years, make sure that you're reading the law, which is by the way, a principle
that they come up when they do their Parashah readings each week in synagogues that they're
actually reading through Torah every year.
Yeah.
They're making it make sure it's a very familiar part of their of their yeah, of their practice
of their walk.
Teach them to fear God and to follow the law.
And then here's a really important verse for us.
Okay.
Verse 13, their children who do not know this law must hear it and learn to fear the Lord
your God.
As long as you live in the land, you are crossing the Jordan to possess your children have to
learn.
Yeah.
They're not going to learn if you don't teach them.
Parents listen.
I mean, that's me too.
It's our job.
I do feel like on my portion as a father, the most important thing that I do as a father
is I teach my son who God is and how to have a relationship with him.
Everything else he can walk out, but he's got to know this.
Yeah.
How to hear the voice of God and how to be in in relationship with God.
It rubs me the wrong way when people talk about this is because they're like, oh, you
need to teach your children to obey God.
I said, no, I need to teach them to know God because by knowing God, they'll obey him.
Right.
And we need to we just need to pause here and actually talk about the fear of the Lord
a little bit because if you read Deuteronomy, you're going to see that phrase pop up a few
times.
Francis Chan actually has a really good video on the fear of the Lord.
I love me some Francis Chan.
Yeah.
The bullet point of it is that in the world, we have so many things that we're fearing
and fearing of the Lord is more than just giving on, just giving the reverence because
he is all powerful.
Like, you can't say that when he was delivering the 10 plagues upon Egypt that there wasn't
some like actual fear.
Oh my God can do this.
Yeah.
But when you actually lean into fearing the Lord, almost every time what happens when
someone has a direct encounter with the Lord or an angel, they fall down in fear.
And what does the Lord say?
Fear not.
Right.
For I am with you.
I have Isaiah, you have Mary.
Those are just two examples in scripture.
So when you actually step into fearing the Lord, you have nothing else to fear.
I'm going to pull two verses a little out of context.
So please forgive me because it is love and context.
Pastor next, I love it.
Right.
But one of the proverbs is the fear of the Lord is the beginning of all wisdom.
Now proverbs, of course, we need to understand our pieces of advice for generally righteous
living.
Yeah.
So the fear of the Lord is beginning of all wisdom.
I also reminded of something John says.
He says, perfect love casts out fear, casts out fear.
And so proper recognition of who God is should fill our heart with fear, awe, wonder.
And yes, even like, understanding that he could tremble.
When we understand the love of God, it drives that out and it actually causes us to live
differently.
Oh yeah.
One of the things that is troubling about some of our churches today and some of our Christians
today is that they've got the fear part, but they're not actually having it driven out
by the love.
Right.
Because they go worried about stepping out, they forget to step in.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And I would say there is a part that stays with you knowing that God is all powerful,
knowing that everything is in his control.
There is a guy that goes to our church and he is a former army ranger and he's not a
particularly big fellow, but I've seen him in his gun training and in his combat training
and in like jujitsu.
And he is smaller than me.
But I know- Oh, you'd be a dead man.
I would be a dead man.
If we got into a fight, I would immediately be on the ground and lose.
I was like, he's probably half my size.
Now he is incredibly gentle hearted and a great person, but I also don't forget that
he could take me out probably just by thinking hard.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Growing up, my best friend's dad, he was on a narcotics team with SWAT.
And he was not a big guy.
Same thing, not a big guy.
But it was also like we knew that we would not mess with him.
Even play wrestling, we're like, we're going to lose in a heartbeat.
Having this same kind of recognition for who God is, is healthy.
But you can't do things motivated by fear.
You do things motivated by love.
It has to be motivated by love.
So God then tells Moses, he says, bring Joshua to the tent of meetings and you're going to
commission him.
So Moses brings Joshua and the Lord appears as a pillar of cloud over the entrance of
the tent.
Okay.
Once again, this is the thing they've seen in the desert over and over again.
So then God lets Moses know.
He says, Hey, Moses, by the way, I know that Israel's definitely not going to obey and
they're definitely going to forsake me.
So he gives Moses a song and the song is going to be a witness against them when they turn
away.
Well, so two things have already happened.
One, Moses has written down his law, which he says is going to be a testimony against
them.
And then God gives them a song, which is going to be a testimony against them.
It says that Moses wrote down the song and he taught it to all the people.
I just love that God's like, yeah, they're not gonna, not going to listen.
They're definitely going to do something wrong.
So let's teach them a song that they'll remember and be like, Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Oh right.
That's what we were supposed to do.
Man, right there.
God talking to us about the need to incorporate worship music in our life.
Right?
Yeah.
So you have a four year old, I have a five year old.
How many times do you have to remind your son to put his shoes on in song or by just
regular talking because both of them happen a lot.
Like the other day I was getting Denver out the door for school and it was hilarious because
it was like, Hey, can you get shoes on?
She's like, Oh, okay.
And she goes and grabs her shoes, then sets them down and starts coloring.
And it's like, Hey, can you get your shoes on?
Oh, then she go grabs her shoes.
And then she gets distracted by one of the dogs and starts petting one of the dogs.
Hey, you need to get your shoes on.
I think it was like six or seven times and she was like, finally gets her shoes on, is
out the door.
But I was like, Oh yeah, this is what I'm supposed to do.
It's very similar to James go to your room and get a jacket.
And he comes out and I'm like, where's your jacket?
Oh right.
And he runs back to his room and he comes back out with a toy and I'm like, where's
your jacket?
Oh right.
Like it happens over and over again.
And God is as a good father is like, Hey, I know that they're not going to get this.
Yeah.
I know they're not going to get it.
Uh huh.
So good.
I think the reason I bring that up is because I think a lot of times we read this stuff
being like, Oh, well God's being harsh and it's like, he's being harsh.
He's being angry and we can interpret it in that lens, but that's not what's going on
here.
It's just God saying, yeah, you as my children, you're going to forget.
Yeah.
It's being spoken as this is just a reality that's going to happen.
And this is why we've always, this is why I've said on the podcast, you have to remember.
Yeah.
And I think one of the things that maybe we should explore in a podcast is this whole
thing of the anger of the Lord.
I think people equate it with the anger of you and God's anger is completely different
than ours.
Yeah.
Like it's a completely different kind of thing.
And so I think a lot of times we try to anthropomorphize God as like our anger and we try to define
God by our emotions rather than inviting our emotions by God.
And so maybe one of these times, I think it's probably a good idea.
We should, we should talk about what it means when God's anger burns, what it actually causes
because it's not what you think.
It's actually all motivated toward a perspective of changing you and bringing you to a place
of being faithful.
Amen.
So then God commissions Joshua.
Once again, it comes up, be strong and courageous, which is also going to be the opening lines
of the book of Joshua as well.
This is going to be coming up again.
I'll be with you.
It's pretty comforting when God has your back.
When he's like, Hey, by the way, I'll be with you.
To your point earlier, when you're talking about the great commission, Moses tells him
that that God's going to be with him.
And then God tells him that he's going to be with him.
It's almost like the second Moses and God told his disciples that too, because they
were the same person.
Yeah.
And once Moses was finished with the law, he told them to put it beside the arc once
again as a witness against them.
There again.
So then Moses actually recites the song in chapter 32.
And you know what?
We're just going to read that.
And Caleb, I think you're going to read that out of the NLT, right?
Yeah.
Listen, O heavens, and I will speak.
Hear O earth the words that I say.
Let my teaching fall on you like rain.
Let my speech settle like dew.
Let my words fall like rain on tender grass.
Let gentle showers on young plants.
I will proclaim the name of the Lord how glorious is our God.
He is the rock.
His deeds are perfect.
Everything he does is just and fair.
He is a faithful God who does no wrong.
How just and upright he is.
But they have acted corruptly toward him.
When they act perversely, are they really his children?
They are a deceitful and twisted generation.
Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people?
Isn't he your father who created you?
Has he not made you and established you?
Remember the days of long ago.
Think about the generations past.
Ask your father and he will inform you.
Inquire of the elders and they will tell you.
When the Most High assigned lands to the nations, when he had divided up the human race, he
established the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number in his heavenly court.
For the people of Israel belong to the Lord.
Jacob is his special possession.
He found them in a desert land in an empty howling wasteland.
He surrounded them and watched over them.
He guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.
Like an eagle that rouses her chicks and hovers over her young, so he spread his wings to
take them up and carry them safely on his pinions.
The Lord alone guided them.
They followed no foreign gods.
He let them ride over the highlands and feast on the crops of the fields.
He nourished them with honey from the rock and olive oil from the stony ground.
He fed them yogurt from the herd and milk from the flock together with the fat of lambs.
He gave them choice rams from Bashan and goats together with the choicest wheat.
You drank the finest wine made from the juice of grapes.
But Israel soon became fat and unruly.
The people grew heavy, plump and stuffed.
Can we pause there for a second?
That is also exactly language that shows up in Ezekiel when Ezekiel talks about Sodom and
Gomorrah.
They were fat and overfed and they did not care about those around them.
Continue there.
That's verse 15.
Then they abandoned the God who had made them.
They made light of the rock of their salvation.
They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods.
They provoked his fury with detestable deeds.
They offered sacrifices to demons which are not God, to gods they had not known before,
to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors have never feared.
You neglected the rock who had fathered you.
You forgot the God who had given you birth.
The Lord saw this and drew back and provoked to anger his own sons and daughters.
He said, I will abandon them, then see what becomes of them.
For they are a twisted generation, children without integrity.
They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God.
They have provoked my anger with their useless idols.
Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people.
I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.
For my anger blazes forth like fire and burns to the depths of the grave.
It devours the earth and all its crops and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap disasters upon them and shoot them down with my arrows.
I will weaken them with famine and burning fever and deadly disease.
I will send the fangs of wild beasts and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust.
Outside the sword will bring death and inside terror will strike both young men and young
women, both infants and the aged.
I would have annihilated them, wiping out even the memory of them.
But I feared the taunt of Israel's enemy who might misunderstand and say, our own power
has triumphed.
The Lord had nothing to do with this.
But Israel is a senseless nation that people are foolish without understanding.
Oh, they that were wise and could understand this.
Oh, that they might know their fate.
How could one person chase a thousand of them and two people put 10,000 to flight unless
the rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?
But the rock of our enemies is not like our rock, as even they recognize.
Their vine grows from the vine of Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poison, their clusters are bitter, their wine is the venom of serpents
and the deadly poison of Cogros.
Can we pause there for a second?
Because we were just talking about Sodom and Gomorrah.
And one of the things that is happening in this song over and over again is he's saying
that you're neglecting God, you're worshiping other things, you are worshiping gods that
have just come into existence, gods you've never known, you're betraying your identity.
Wow, right over and over again.
Once again, this is the this is the issue of Sodom is they became the opposite of the
story of God.
They actually became a place where the outsider was treated so poorly.
Israel, you're going to become this.
That's such a such a difficult thing.
That reminds me of where it's talking about, you know, where people will know that is the
Lord that brought these things about in 70 AD when the temple was destroyed, when, when
the sacking of Jerusalem, when Titus led the Roman army, Titus was declared the victor.
Now as a victor, they would give the Romans a wreath of victory.
Titus refused the wreath.
And they asked him why.
And he said that this is not my victory.
I was just a vessel for a divine wrath.
He witnessed it and he gave glory to to God for what happened there.
He watched it come to pass from his point of view.
Yeah.
Titus refused to take the victory for it.
Kind of reminds you of Snekareb later in the text as well.
Oh, yeah.
By the way, that's a great name.
Snekareb.
If any of you are about to have kids and you're thinking of a great name, Snekareb just rolls
right out the tongue.
Right.
Hey, Ben, how do you spell that with a lot of words, letters?
Yes, exactly.
Also, I don't know if it's just the worship leader in me, but I'm definitely catching
a great beat behind the song.
All right.
Let's get up here again.
And verse thirty four.
The Lord says, Am I not storing up these things, sealing them away in my treasury?
I will take revenge and I will pay them back.
In due time, their feet will slip.
Their day of disaster will arrive and their destiny will overtake them.
Indeed, the Lord will give justice to his people and he will change his mind about his
servants.
When he sees their strength is gone and no one is left slavery free, then he will ask,
where are the gods?
The rocks they fled to for refuge.
Where now are those gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices, who drank the wine of their
offerings?
Let those gods arise and help you.
Let them provide you with shelter.
Let's pause there real quick.
Sorry, one more time.
So what are you saying here is why am I knocking you down?
Am I knocking you down to punish you?
Or am I knocking you down so you no longer trust in the gods that you've built up in
your life?
Because now when everything is gone, he's coming and he's like, hey, where are these
gods that you're trusting?
You know, those things that you thought were so powerful, those things that you needed
so badly?
Like, where are they?
Kind of what Elijah said to the prophets of Baal when they were dancing around trying
to call down fire from heaven.
Maybe he's just in the bathroom.
Keep calling.
Maybe he's taking a nap.
I love Elijah's smack talk because he does it multiple times.
But like here, God's going to tell you, he's like, hey, I'm going to bring these things.
But even in the song, you can see his anger is roused for jealousy for the people.
He actually wants them back.
This is what's a part of the story.
And so then let's continue on in verse 39 here.
Look now, I myself am he.
There is no other God but me.
I am the one who kills and gives life.
I am the one who wounds and heals.
No one can be rescued from my powerful hand.
Now I raise my hand to heaven and declare as surely as I live, when I sharpen my flashing
sword and carry it to bring out and to carry out justice, I will take revenge on my enemies
and repay those who reject me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood and my sword will devour flesh, the blood of the
slaughtered and the captives and the heads of the enemy leaders.
Rejoice with him, you heavens, and let all of God's angels worship him.
Rejoice with his people, you Gentiles, and let all the angels be strengthened in him,
for he will avenge the blood of his children.
He will take revenge against his enemies.
He will repay those who hate him and cleanse his people's lands.
So one of the things God's saying here, he's like, hey, I'm going to lay to waste all the
things that you trust in and I will bring you back.
And he's like, don't get me wrong.
As soon as you come back, I'm going to go and I'm going to make atonement for you.
Yeah.
Because people aren't going to go unpunished because they come in and wipe you out.
You're still in my treasured possession.
Now, once again, we need to talk about conquest literature, right?
Because this is very much written in the conquest narrative with my arrows are going to be drunk
with blood and all these different things, which are very familiar to the time but aren't
necessarily reflective of the heart of God.
And we need to be conscious of that kind of literature.
What we always want to do is we want to make sure we're reading the Bible in context and
love.
That's the name of the podcast, right?
In verses 46 to 47, Moses says you need to obey these words.
They're not idle words.
Obey these words that I've given.
They're not other words.
They are your life.
By them you will live.
Now, how crazy would it be if we actually treated the word of God today in our life
as not idle words, but actually the very words by which we live?
Absolutely.
And a lot of people, they read these passages like that song we just read of the Old Testament
and they think that there's a huge contrast between the God of the Old Testament and the
God of the New Testament because they think there's just some sort of injustice coming
out there.
But when you look at the history of what went on in Israel, when they forgot God, when they
went on doing their own things, what they were doing to themselves and also the people
around them, I mean, there was abuse, there was murder, there was cheating.
And the Lord said, I will repay for what you did and I'll take care of it and I'll cleanse
it from there.
So there was a reason for the justice.
Well, and even with that, whose job is it to administer justice?
Not mine.
Not mine either.
It's not Israel's either.
No, it's God's.
It was God's job to avenge and it is his job to administer justice.
Now, right away, coming back to last episode, you think about the statutes, like we're called
to administer justice and bring about justice.
Of course, I'm talking about on a national level.
When we're talking about not necessarily standing up for people, but actually judging, like
standing in judgment of people.
The only person who actually has that authority is God.
We are called to bring justice to all people.
He's the one who actually can judge them.
When we take these words and then to your point where you're talking about what people
where they're like, man, I'm just glad I'm under the new covenant, not the old covenant.
I was like, well, the new covenant is the old covenant made new.
They're actually trying to accomplish the exact same thing.
It's just that Jesus changes our nature and empowers us to live by the Holy Spirit.
But the covenants are remarkably simple.
It's now it was always supposed to be about all nations.
Now everybody's being welcomed in.
He didn't come to scrap the law.
He came to fulfill it.
Right.
Put it on display, show you what it was always supposed to look like.
What we've said is Jesus, Torah made flesh is going to show you what Torah was always
supposed to look like in the life of a Christian or in the life of a Jew in that time, because
Christians didn't exist.
Christians didn't exist prior to Jesus, just so you know.
So in verse 48, Moses is reminded by God that he's going to die.
That's always a good reminder.
Hey, by the way, you're going to die.
He's going to see the land, but he's not going to go into it because both of them, he and
Aaron broke faith with him at the waters of Maraba Kadesh and did not uphold his holiness.
Okay.
So this is what God says.
Hey, you're not you're about to die.
You're going to be taken up to to your people just like Aaron was because you did not make
me holy.
Now there is a whole podcast episode where we talked about how Moses spoke to the people
instead of speaking to the rock and the ways that he didn't put God on display in that
moment.
So go back and check out that episode.
But here's what I think is really interesting about what Moses learns.
Immediately after this, Moses steps up to the people and he starts to bless them.
He's told that he's about to die and he's not going to go into the land because of his
mistakes.
And his response is to bless the people.
I know that I have at times through Deuteronomy been tongue in cheek hard on Moses.
This is a dynamite reaction.
This is one that I mean, I think that we should walk with every day that when we are confronted
with disappointment in life, we bless those around us.
When we are not allowed to do everything that we think we should be allowed to do, we bless
those around us.
When we encounter hardship, we bless those around us.
Going back to the Aaronic blessing, the implication of the Aaronic blessing is that the priest
should bless the people because he says when you bless the people say this.
Well in blessing people who put you through the ringer.
Yeah.
Like is like we often will just kind of dumb down Moses leading Israel out of Egypt and
being like, oh yeah, he led them out of Egypt to the promised land.
Israel put him through the ringer.
Oh yeah.
Like they were not an easy people to lead.
And there was times where Moses was like you stiff necked choice words people.
Stiff necked choice words people.
There was those times and then there was times where the Lord's like, why did I do this?
Right.
The Israelites were not easy people to lead.
And Moses's response at this point is I'm going to bless you.
And to your point with how they felt about it or how he felt about it on multiple occasions
it says he cries out to God.
The word for cries out is the exact same word that shows up at the beginning of Exodus when
they are crying out to the heavens because of their misery.
It's the same word.
He is crying out to God likely because he feels like his life is in danger.
There's also a little word in here for church leaders too or people who are wanting to go
into ministry leadership.
It's a sucky job.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
If you're sitting here listening to this, man, I really feel the Lord's calling me into
ministry leadership.
We will bless you.
It's a sucky job.
No, it's going to be hard.
We talked about Aaron Couch, Mike, my pastor in college.
One of the things he told people is it says if you are called into the ministry, we're
going to do everything we can to help you.
But if you are not called, please do anything else besides this.
Because if you really want to do it, it is a difficult, difficult, difficult job.
If you think loving people as a regular Christian is really inconvenient.
Oh, just wait.
You just wait.
You don't get to get upset when they mess up your order at Starbucks anymore verbally.
Yeah.
Not a sponsor.
Yeah.
He goes and he blesses Israel.
Specifically, he blesses the tribes and he blesses specific people.
I'm not going to go through all of them, but it's in Deuteronomy 33 and I would recommend
that you guys read them because throughout scripture, they're going to reference these
blessings that Moses puts on the people.
It's going to be referenced throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament.
The authors moving forward are going to assume that you know this.
All of Torah, they're going to assume you are intimately familiar with when they write
the rest of their books.
So spend some time and actually learn those.
How crazy.
I mean, I just think about Moses.
This is his last act before he dies.
Can you imagine how amazing it would be, the last act of your life?
You know when you're going to die and that you gather everybody who matters to you and
you pronounce a blessing over them before you die.
Huge.
Can you imagine how powerful that would be in someone's life?
Huge.
Oh yeah.
Like, I'm about to pass on to eternity and I just want to pronounce a blessing over you.
That as God was faithful for me through all the years, he's going to be faithful to you.
God willing, that's going to be us.
Yeah.
Yep, absolutely.
So then in chapter four, or 34, not chapter four, that was a little while ago.
Chapter 34, Moses climbs the mountain and you know what God does?
He shows him all of the land.
I don't know how that works because they describe all the areas and there's no way from the
top of the mountain you could actually see it.
But God does it.
He shows him everything.
He says, this is the land I promised.
I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not go over to it.
And I just love the grace of God in that moment.
Oh yeah.
Well, you know, the Bible Romans 3 23, that verse, you know, for all of sin and come short
of the glory of God, you know, there's sinning, which is open rebellion against God.
But then there's times where, when we're following Lord, those are the times when we fall short
of the goal that God called us to in the first place.
Before you go any further, finish that verse.
But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Awesome, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's so good.
Such a good one, man.
Sorry, I interrupted you there a little bit.
Oh, good.
But like, but yeah, like we're all we're getting captive by the sin, but like the gift of God.
Absolutely.
Jew, Gentile doesn't matter because we're talking about the book of Romans.
He's saying it's not your justification, not the way you were brought up that justifies
you, but it's the gift of God because he's better than our failures.
It's not how you started.
It's how you finished.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
To your point, Moses is sin, but the gift of God, even in this moment, oh yeah, he has
to see the land.
Yeah.
I mean, 40 years in the desert, Moses has been following God for 80 years.
And he actually gets to see what was coming.
And I just love the grace of God in that moment.
He got to witness the blessing that laid before them.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love it.
And there's a call to leaders there too, where your work that the Lord has called you to
is generational.
You should have somebody that you're building up to put in your place.
And a lot of times we've relied on other people to put people in our shoes when we're done.
I don't have anything against that personally, but there should be a building up of new leaders
and a passing of the torch.
Oh yeah.
Because we've talked about living generationally and planting tamarisk trees as a metaphor.
So in case you are not familiar with that, tamarisk trees take 400 years to grow.
Wow.
So when God gives Abraham his promise on the land, Abraham plants a tamarisk tree.
And 400 years later, people come out of Egypt back into the land.
So you don't plant a tamarisk tree for you, you plant it for your kids, kids, kids, kids,
kids, kids.
To your point, we're thinking generationally and it's amazing when God gives you a glimpse
of that future, but our job is to plant seeds and to foster and grow those seeds.
Have we as a church been the ones to bring in the younger to start teaching them?
How good have we done it with that in our areas there?
I think we're doing better.
I actually want to compliment the church.
I think that they're doing a lot better at engaging the next generation earlier and on
their level.
Absolutely.
Like there are definitely churches that do it better and churches that do it worse.
But I think as a general trend, I think that the church is recognizing the need to live
generationally.
Absolutely.
I agree.
All right, and so let's just read those last few verses in chapter 34, starting in verse
five.
So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, just as the Lord had
said.
The Lord buried him in the valley near Beth Piora in Moab.
But to this day, no one knows the exact place.
Moses was 120 years old when he died, yet his eyesight was clear and he was as strong
as ever.
The people of Israel mourned for Moses in the plains of Moab for 30 days until the customary
period of mourning was over.
Now Joshua, son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid hands on him.
So the people of Israel obeyed him just as the Lord had commanded Moses.
There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.
The Lord sent him to perform all the miracles and signs and wonders in all the land of Egypt
against Pharaoh and his servants and his entire land.
With mighty power, Moses performed terrifying acts in the sight of all of Israel.
That's quite the epitaph.
Yeah.
And so like all of our conversation about Moses, we always want to come back to the
fact that there was not a prophet that knew God in the same way that Moses did.
This was a definite change in relationship between God and humanity.
Like something shifted in Moses.
Yeah.
Now I take that step back because obviously in the garden, Adam and Eve had a different
kind of relationship with God.
But this like we talk about Noah and then we talk about like he walked with God, but
Abraham actually had a more symbiotic relationship with God where he was his God and he would
follow him.
But Moses was different.
It was a different thing.
For Abraham's relationship, it was the Lord revealing to him more and more who God was
from the background that Abraham came from with his early childhood and his growing up.
Well, and Moses knew God's name.
I mean all Israel knew God's name, but Moses was the one who was told God's name.
You know, it's interesting Moses didn't want to be the one involved in the Exodus, but
think of all the things that wouldn't have happened.
Now they would have happened because God would have accomplished his will one way or the
other.
Yeah.
But think of the things that Moses would not have got to be a part of if he hadn't said
yes begrudgingly.
Moses is an all too relatable character in scripture.
Because when he was called at the burning bush, he gave five excuses, which are all
too relatable.
Like, I don't talk well enough.
Like I'm just not good at this.
I don't want to.
And his last one was I just don't want to.
Right.
It's too when he was leading, he didn't do things perfectly.
He messed things up.
He had times where we were talking about earlier where he was crying out to the Lord in such
misery and pain because of the position he had that he was like, these people are just
horrible to work with and crying out to the Lord.
He did not do things perfectly.
He messed up.
He screwed up.
And he was someone who followed after the Lord and constantly tried to return to the
Lord and come back to the Lord when he when he was in those spots.
And I think I think we saw that demonstrated through even the book of Deuteronomy.
It seems like Moses, even from the beginning of the book to the end of the book, learned
something about trusting God in the moment, trusting the story.
Yeah.
And part of Moses's difficulty is there's times where the Lord's okay, I'm going to
provide for the Israelites.
And Moses is like, I don't like these people right now.
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, I learned a lot from the water from the rock.
Yeah.
Where the Lord says, hey, go speak to the rock.
And Moses goes over there and hits it with a stick.
Yeah.
And I mean, I totally feel him.
Like I learned as much from Moses's mistakes as I do from his faithfulness.
Yeah.
That that whole experience like you're like, yep, I get that.
I get being upset.
So this is the end of Deuteronomy.
And so let's just let's just take a look back and just think about what's going on in Deuteronomy.
Like the big things that come up over and over again is remember where you come from.
Remember, remember, remember it comes over up over again and again and again and again.
I don't think that we can try to remember the story enough.
Now one of the things you and I had talked about when we were talking about festivals
and we talked about like the Passover, I've done those Seder dinners in the past and they
tell the story of the Exodus and God's faithfulness and bringing them out of Egypt and all these
different things.
And as I'm telling the story, I'm just familiar with the fact that we don't tell the story
often in the church.
Like we're in a hurry to run and talk about Paul, which I love Paul.
Okay.
And we're in a hurry to go and tell the story of Jesus.
And I love Jesus.
But Jesus is taking the story from the Old Testament and bring it into a new context.
We don't tell the story of where we've been.
And a lot of times, like I'll be honest with you, we don't even tell the story of Jesus.
We like to talk about his death, burial and resurrection and forget about his life.
But church, podcast listeners, we need to tell the story.
We need more conversations like this where we just talk about the Bible.
Or we just discuss how God moves and how we can be a little bit more faithful.
Like Deuteronomy, man, next generation.
Remember, think generationally.
You've made mistakes.
Here are pitfalls.
What are your big takeaways from Deuteronomy?
Oh, there's a couple things.
So one, Deuteronomy really in many ways is a love letter to Israel from Moses where he
is explaining his mistakes.
He's telling them about his mistakes.
He's telling Israel like, hey, follow after the Lord.
He reminds them you're going to screw it up.
And the Lord's like, yeah, they are.
All right.
I agree.
Yes.
And so he reminds them you're not going to do this perfectly and Israel does not.
If you continue reading through the Old Testament, you'll find that.
But Moses here is he's saying, hey, I didn't do this perfectly and I really wish I could
go with you.
But I'm going to bless you because I love you all dearly.
Despite the fact that they put him through the wringer.
Even towards the tail end where they do this whole song where it's like you're going to
screw it up and then they're like, hey, but here you're going to be blessed.
Here's how we're going to bless.
So that's one thing takes me away.
That that is a takeaway for me is just the love Moses has for Israel.
And then the other thing is Moses is as much as Moses didn't recount all the stories correctly,
there is an honesty to whether he did things right or wrong in the book and the owning
up to how I did things well and how I did not.
And that in and of itself is huge.
And we need more of that in the church.
What about you, Caleb?
You know, I think some of the biggest takeaways I have from doing Erotomy is that when you
just go reading it, you know, it's our misperception of it is that it's just a bunch of laws of
what to do and what not to do when in reality it explains what happened.
It explains the good, the bad, the ugly.
It doesn't hold anything back.
But yet it's done for, you know, even our own benefit to this day and just the powerful
transitioning for in leadership, you know, to the next generation, you know, to to the
younger, you know, I mean, what if what if Moses didn't take the time to invest that
time into Joshua?
Because with all due respect, you know, the Lord will accomplish his purpose in any way
he can.
But, you know, you don't see the Lord sitting there mentoring, you know, Joshua on on a
mountain somewhere.
But instead, Moses made himself the vessel that was also also giving, you know, Joshua
these years and these experiences.
And, you know, in in what I do as a prison chaplain here in town, I experienced that
firsthand, you know, from the previous chaplain, the previous chaplain trained me up and he
came to a place where he was no longer able to do it.
So I am not qualified to be in the jail, to minister, to to train others.
But I'm called, you know, regardless of it.
And the Lord has blessed it.
And I know what it's like to have ministers in even in the jail turn on me because they
didn't like they didn't like a younger guy.
They didn't like, you know, somebody who presented a different plan.
Many of them are gone and many of them verbally came after me.
But it was the Lord that kept me through it even to this day.
So there's the good, the bad, the ugly.
But the faithfulness of God, as witnessed by Moses, Moses reflected that into Joshua.
Right.
I think of last few weeks, one of the things that I was thinking about is is like last
week we talked about this whole thing of the blessings and the curses and which one are
you going to choose.
And then the curses he talks about how it's it's the outside, then it's your neighbors,
then it's your crops and then it's your food and then it's your animals and then it's your
family.
Everything's going to get devoured.
You see this this cycle of what sin does to you.
It starts with a very small thing, but it completely devours you.
And right about the time that there's no hope, it says, but if you listen to the voice, there
is no shadow too deep.
There is no mountain too tall.
There's no distance that's too far.
There is no egregious sin too big that God won't completely restore you and vindicate
you.
Now, does that mean the consequences of our actions are going to go away?
No, of course not, because Moses didn't go into the land.
But I don't think any of us would argue that Moses was vindicated by God through his life.
Absolutely.
The consequences didn't go away, but he absolutely was vindicated by God.
And I just praise how loving God is in those situations.
If there's one thing that we take away from Torah is that God loves people a lot and he's
going to do whatever it takes to destroy the gods that you trust in so that you place your
faith in him.
So that's Deuteronomy.
That was fun.
Yeah.
That was fun.
If you are looking to get in touch with us, we are available at lovingcontext.gmail.com.
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You can always send us questions for the Q&A.
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Sometimes we'll just write you back answers and then we'll bring your question into Q&A
later.
So we won't make you wait 25 weeks to hear from us.
Caleb, we enjoyed having you.
Hopefully we can get you here for one of our mini-series that are coming up.
All right.
You just hit me up.
I'm available and this has been fun.
We'll just hope that you're not in jail.
Oh, I'm not afraid of going back.
All right.
Thanks everybody.
You have a good week.
That's a wrap for today's episode.
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Welcome back to the Love and Context Podcast.
Thank you for that.
Let's do it one more time.
Moses, and he says, no, sorry, I said that all wrong.
I said it all wrong.
When I edited this out, you were wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong,
you cannot read.
Okay.
Say that again.
Okay.