Monday: Concerning the Days That Are Past
In Deuteronomy 4, we have read the wonderful admonitions that the Lord gave to His people through Moses regarding their great privileges as God’s chosen people. He had redeemed them out of Egypt “by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes” (Deuteronomy 4:34). In other words, not only did God do something great for you, He did it in ways that should help you remember, and never forget, what great things He had done for you.
Read Deuteronomy 4:32-39. What was the Lord telling them to remember, and why was it so important that they remember these things?
Image © Krieg Barrie from GoodSalt.com
Moses points the people back through all history, even to the creation itself, and asks them, rhetorically, if anything in all history had ever been done as was done for them. In fact, he tells them to ask; that is, to study for themselves and see if anything such as what they experienced had ever happened before. By asking them a few questions, Moses was trying to get them to realize for themselves what the Lord had done for them, and thus, ultimately, how grateful and thankful to Him they should be for His mighty acts in their lives.
Central to these acts was the deliverance from Egypt and then, perhaps in some ways even more astonishing, His speaking to them at Sinai, which allowed them to hear “His words out of the midst of the fire.”
Read Deuteronomy 4:40. What conclusion, then, did Moses want the people to draw from these words about what God had done for them?
The Lord didn’t do all those things for no purpose. He had redeemed His people, keeping His end of the covenant that He had established with them. They were freed from Egypt, about to enter the Promised Land. God did His part; they were now called on to do theirs, which was, simply, to obey.
| How does this model represent the plan of salvation as expressed in the New Testament? What did Jesus do for us, and how are we to respond to what He had done for us? (See Revelation 14:12) |
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Moses was near the end of his life when He was admonishing the Children of Israel to remember their past. It was the sort of speech that I would give to my own children. "Your ancestors migrated from England and Scotland to Australia and New Zealand and sucessfully raised their families here and you are the product of that migration!" My youngest grandson would probably smile sheepishly and think, "Who cares?" His main thoughts are about how he can wrangle a bit more time from his Dad and Mum to play the latest computer game. One day, he may reflect, "I wish I had asked Grandad a bit more about our heritage!"
I was talking to one of my cousins about our grandmother and she commented, "I wish I could dig her up and ask her all the questions she never answered when she was alive! She owes us big time!"
Fortunately, in our spiritual lives our heritage is there for the asking. Unfortunately, many of us like my grandson, are more concerned about the pleasure of the moment. Is it time for us to grow spiritually? I am not suggesting that we need to dwell on the past, but reflection on the past gives us confidence for the future.
In mathematics, we often make time based observations and plot these on graphs. Then we try and plot a trend line through this data in order to make a mathematical rule for the relationship between the observations and time. One of the main reasons we do this is so that we can make predictions about what will happen in the future. Predicting the future in this way is called extrapolation and comes with a number of caveats. If we have very few observations or the observations are too close together, then we have a very low confidence that our predictions are valid. Secondly the further we move forward from our observations, once again confidence in our predictions is compromised.
The writer of Hebrews reminds us:
We have the observations; we are assured of the trend line; we have our confidence in Jesus.
Yes, Maurice, I'm living proof of what you told about your grandson, 'One day, he may reflect, "I wish I had asked Grandad a bit more about our heritage!"'. As an amateur genealogist (it's just a hobby for now), I now wished I had asked my grandmother more questions, but back then all I wanted to do was to watch tv. Even when she would try to tell me about her childhood or about our family, I was not listening.
I wonder why we, as humans, do that, won't listen? Or just not interested at all?
I would love to hear what others to respond their answer to this question. Maybe someone out there knows the answer, and it may inspire us as believers to share the answer with non-believers (we are not interested or listening to the traditional Word of God).
Today's lesson states that God takes on the responsibility to provide what we need for salvation. Our part/responsibility is to choose to obey - to be in harmony with - what is needed on our part.
And what is needed on our part?
Salvation is not a passive process on our part.
Moses was reminding the children of Israel what the LORD had done for their fathers, after all how many of them had actually been in Egypt or even at Mt Sinai when the LORD spoke aloud? Many had been born in the wilderness. So why would they be grateful for those mighty acts for their nation?
I imagine myself listening to those words and what I take from them is a better understanding of the character of the LORD and how powerful He is and how much He cares for His people.
How does that impact them? This powerful almighty LORD chose those standing there to be His Special Nation to reveal to the world and the universe His Character.
What an honour! What a responsibility!
Considering the 'Days that are Past' - I think it important to focus on seeing them as the record describing our Creator's purpose to save mankind. The sacred Scriptures give us a glimpse into what went on before we who live now came to live on this earth; showing us how the Creator of Heaven and earth went about working out the rescue of man - the Salvation of His special creation - human.
We also learn who the Creator is, where and how He lives, and who lives with Him. Scripture shows us how Heaven's residents work together to save their special creature - human.
The new world will accommodate a better human, living its life governed by laws and principles of the spiritual Kingdom of God. We are not being lead blindfolded into our future, we are informed in every way about what was, what is, and what is foretold to come upon this world and its inhabitants - Deut.4:39; "Therefore know (understand) this day (today), and consider it in your heart, that the LORD Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath, there is no other."
Using a different way to express the writer's directive at the lesson's end: God did His part; they (we) are now called on to do theirs (ours), which was (is) simply, to trust God as we walk His Path laid out before us to reach our New Home; He is trustworthy, He is committed! Our Creator God and His heavenly hosts have not taken their eyes off humans or missed an opportunity to complete their work of salvaging us.
Forever grateful we praise Him, worship and thank Him, and love Him with all our heart because He is our faithful Father who leads us home.
Sorry, but I can't accept the idea that obedience is our part in the plan of salvation. It is God's part too. (See Philippians 2:12, 13; John 15, Jeremiah 31, Ezekiel 36, and probably other passages that are not coming to my mind right now). Yes, we have to cooperate, yes, we have to give our will to God, but true obedience comes from God. In our fallen state, we are incapable of true obedience, regardless of how many great things we've seen God do. We need a change of heart to truly obey and this comes from God. I keep needing to mention this, and I guess I will keep doing this until the lesson starts emphasizing this reality (which is a part of Deuteronomy - see 30:6, 10:16).
Yes Christina, we all need heart surgery. Sadly, like the Israelites, many today think they can perform this surgery themselves or at least, serve as God's surgical assistants.
Let's be clear, we contribute nothing to our salvation. Not one thing.
There is no "our part."
Paul tell us clearly that ...no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law. (Galatians 2:16 NLT)
Our salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
Salvation is a free gift that the proud human heart still wants to claim as a reward for effort, cooperation, obedience, etc.
It is that proud, self-centered heart that God has to replace with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). Please note Who is doing the surgery.
The author was referring to "our part" in the covenant. Is the covenant equivalent to salvation, in your view?
Do humans have any choice at all in the covenant or in salvation? Or is everyone automatically saved without a choice. If not, isn't at least the "choice" our part? What does this choice look like?
Good questions. We were all (the whole world) saved at the cross and reconciled with God at that very moment (Ephesians 2:16 NLT; 2 Corinthians 5:19 NLT; Colossians 1:20 NLT). In this regard, it has been said that "the ink of history is dry."
Everything after that, "our part," is in response to that full and complete reality.
Yet, some of us don't really believe that Jesus bore our sins, paid the "wages" of those sins on the cross and set us eternally free when we claim that we must somehow "help" God complete the deal by something we do (obey, cooperate, etc.). We don't change history by anything we do.
As to choice, I believe the Bible is clear that everyone who believes is saved (Acts 16:31; John 3:16). So yes, everyone was saved at the cross but that reality only applies to those who believe this incredibly good news.
When slaves were emancipated on January 1, 1863, many slaves did not believe that "good news" and remained slaves because of their unbelief. Likewise, many of us don't believe the good news that Jesus died our second death at the cross, paying for our sins, reconciling us with God and saving us for eternity. Consequently, we remain slaves by our unbelief and choose to pay the wages of sin ourselves (i.e., eternal death).
Thus, our choice is not whether or not Jesus saved us by dying on the cross, thereby reconciling us with the Father (that historical "ink" is dry). Our choice is whether or not to believe that reality and thus make it our reality.
Very well said. Thanks.
Christina - I share your exasperation I detect in the rejection of the notion that 'obedience is our part in the plan of salvation'. I support your efforts in my prayers that God's Holy Spirit will bring clarity regarding this matter to all who seek after His Truth and Light.
At this point of my learning about the principal, spiritual aspect of 'obedience', I have come to understand that it has been supplanted by 'faith'. Steadfast/'faithful' obedience was the gateway for the law to manifest God and His blessings how they effected the believer's life.
Now, as we/our life, is lived and exists in Christ's Righteousness, all the Father asks of us is to believe that we are His as we live the life of a believer by faith.
The author said that
The "new covenant" which God said He would make with Israel reads like this:
Do people have any choice at all in the covenant. If so, what is it?
Good question, Inge. My understanding is that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. It is entirely by God's initiative, by the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit.
On the other hand, we are perfectly capable of destroying ourselves by our choices, acting in spite of God's grace and thwarting His efforts to save us. It is God's part to move upon our hearts. It is our part to yield to His pleadings. Only with our consent and cooperation can God bring us successfully through the salvation process.
Do people have any choice at all in the covenant. If so, what is it?
I believe all covenants from God are one-way promises from Him to His children. For example, what is "our part" in these covenant promises (Genesis 3:15; Genesis 9:15-16)? Is it not to believe? Is it not to say "amen" and "thank you Father?"
We can choose to believe that the rainbow is a natural physics phenomena or we can choose to believe that it is a sign of God's covenant promise to "every living creature." That is our choice. That choice doesn't change the reality of God's promise, it just changes us.
Exactly! Our part is to choose to believe, to actively accept God's salvation and all that implies.
James reminds us that "the devils also believe." (James 2:19) Thus is seems clear that saving belief is more than intellectual knowledge or assent.
Hi my Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
I like the last paragraph of today's lesson, so I decided to add a little more to it (my own interpretation or opinion only):
1. "The Lord didn’t do all those things for no purpose".
My opinion, is that when God does anything (all things) there is a purpose for it, for now and into the future. As Jeremiah 29:11 says, "For I know the thoughts [plans] that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts [plans] of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. KJV"
God already has a plan for all of our lives, He has always done His part.
2. "He had redeemed His people, keeping His end of the covenant that He had established with them."
God has repeatedly fulfilled His plans, his part, of the covenant with us. Now he is waiting for "us" to keep our end of the covenant. We sent a lot of time this year studying about God's covenant, so that we can apply it to our lives, and to take it one step forward, to take God's covenant to the world. This is God's purpose, in my opinion; the children of Israel (and us today) are suppose to take it to the world.
3. "They were freed from Egypt, about to enter the Promised Land. God did His part; they were now called on to do theirs, which was, simply, to obey."
God did not free those crazy people (like "us" modern day crazy people) for no reason. I feel like Moses is telling them, yes, God promised our ancestors (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob), to multiple their seed and to bring them to the Promised Land; but also Moses is telling them that you only have these "privileges" because God chose them, He could have chosen another nation if He wanted to. But, in my opinion, as we have previously studied already this year, He chose the children of Israel (the children of the original 70 offspring of Jacob or Israel, that went to Egypt by inviting from Joseph), to 1) show the rest of the world that "there is no other" God, and to show forth His Power, and 2) to fulfill His promise to Abraham. Israel was/is a Special Nation because God said so, not because of any might or power, or special knowledge that they had more than the other nations. He called them out to show the rest of the World, "I AM", and "there is no other".
Now, here is our modern day and times, "WE" have been chosen. God did not choose us for "no purpose", He chose us for a very special purpose. Moses told them what God expects from them, what their purpose is; it the same purpose for us today:
1)Deuteronomy 4:40, "...keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today," - or To Obey;
2)Deuteronomy 10:18 "He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing." - The Least of these.
When was the last time you personally went to visit a "children's home", or "helped a single parent struggling to raise crazy children on his/her own", or "gave food and clothing to someone, not just because the Church asked you too". These are the things that our Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples, and the scribes and Pharisees, that we ought to be doing, but not leave the others undone; Matthew 23:23 and Matthew 25:31-46.
God chose "us" to spread His Word to the world, and to help "feed His Lambs and Sheep", John 21:15-17. We are so much like the children of Israel, we are Privileged, and most of us are not using our "privileges" to fulfill our "Purpose" from God.
My prayer is that "we all" wake up out of our sleep, and be about our Father's business. And in so doing, we will let the enemy know that "he can not have any of God's precious sheep".
God's blessing to you all!!