The Song of Moses and God's Faithfulness

This is called the Song of Moses, chapter 32 of the book of Deuteronomy. The Song of Moses was written because God instructed Moses to write this song. He told him that he wanted him to write it to be able to tell the people of Israel what he understood about them. You can call this a prophecy, but prophecies don't necessarily mean that God says, okay, I'm going to make this happen. A prophecy can be that you know the people well enough to know what's going to take place. If you brought a piece of cake and set it down in front of Doug Burt, I could prophesy he'd eat it. It's not that I know what God's going to do, I just know Doug. And a lot of things that God tells about in the scripture is not the result that he sees the future so well as he knows the people so well and what we're like and what we do and our mindsets and our hearts. And so because he knows us like that, he can tell what's going to happen whenever circumstances occur. And God knew the nature of these people. He'd been trying to bring them out of Egypt and into the land of promise for a long, long time. And he saw their hardheaded and stubborn nature and how difficult it was for them to do the right thing. So he was getting ready for them to enter the land of promise. He told them everything they were supposed to do. And then when he finished, he said to Moses, I want you to write this song. And this song is one that they're supposed to sing at their festivals. So it tells them about, I'm going to say it now, about what's going to happen to them. And then when they sing this song, they'll say, wow, this is exactly what God said was going to happen to us. We hate to create such a problem for you, but they're all sitting down on this end. So you have to walk the whole road to get out of these people. You can sit right here if you want. If you don't like your friends anymore, you can sit there. Yeah, so what? Friends are a dime a dozen, aren't they? So he was prophesying exactly what was going to take place for them. And what he started with, I'm just going to go through this briefly so you'll understand the issues that are being raised. He told them that this, entering into the land of promise, that God was going to do everything he said he would do for them. He'd provide a way for them. He was going to make sure that they had everything that they needed, all this provision for them. He said he would be a rock to them. He would do everything that they needed to be able to support them. He told them all the things he was going to do for them. He said that he would repay those who left him and turned away from him, the Most High God. He said he would deliver them and give them the very best that he could give them. He said they were to be successful, and if they forgot and left him, the success would fail. They said God will reject them when they abandon him, and he will destroy them. He said he is open to save them, and his salvation to them was not going to be because they earned it, but because he didn't want their enemies to think that their gods were stronger than he was. He said in the end what he wanted was to defeat their enemies and to give them the land so they could live and fulfill their purpose on earth. Now all of this long string of things is sort of like a lawsuit that God had brought to them. Now when it's finished, the part I want to focus on today, whenever Moses finished this song, he brought it, Moses came with Joshua the son of Nun in chapter 32 verse 44. You want to find that. Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. It was the first time they'd heard it. Now they hadn't even entered the promised land yet. They were waiting on the verge of going in, and here God is telling them that they're going to go in. Wonderful things are going to happen. They're going to turn against him. He's going to turn against them. He's going to bring them through all kinds of difficulty, and at the last time he would actually help them, but he would only do it because he was afraid that it would ruin his reputation as not being able to take care of his people. Not a very good song and not a very good prophecy, but what he's done is given them this as a warning for us. The warning that was to come to them to say, be careful what you do because your actions and behavior have consequences, and I won't stand by idly when you do these things. I'm going to be actively involved in what takes place. I'm going to give you everything you need even though I know that as soon as you get everything you need, you're going to turn against me. You're going to begin to drop away from me. I will be patient with you, but finally I'll bring judgment on you so harsh, so powerful, so strong that it will overwhelm you, but I'm not going to destroy my people. In the end, I will rescue those who are faithful, but I want to tell you it's not because you deserved it. It's because I don't want other people to think their gods are stronger than I am. I'm going to win. This is really an important thing for the people of God. I am going to win. Sometimes you get in circumstances where you think there's no way you can win. God is a God who wins. He doesn't get lost or defeated. He wins. So Moses then comes and sells this song that he's written to the people. When Moses finished reciting all the words to all Israel, he said to them, take heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. They are not just idle words for you. They are your life. By them you will live long in the land you're crossing the Jordan to possess. He starts off with this by saying, I want you to take heart as to what's said in this song. Believe that it's really true. To take this to heart means that you accept it as the truth and you use it as a part of your life that's in your character and in your nature. So I want you to listen to what I've told you and believe that these things are really true. When you see them taking place, you'll know that this is exactly what I told you would take place. You will see at each stage an opportunity for you to reverse the course of what's happening. You will know what's taking place and you'll know what's going to take place next. Now what God does with all of us is he tells us this plan that he has, his plan to be able to make us to be like himself. He also knows that we don't necessarily hold on to the true things that we start out with, that we fail and we falter and we make mistakes and we make choices that are destructive to us. But all of this is his way of saying, I'm used to what it means to work with people like you. God does not expect, even though he wants us to be perfect, he does not expect it of us. No husband is perfect, no wife is perfect, no couple is perfect as parents, and no children are perfect. God does not expect perfection. He didn't say to the people of Israel, I want you to go into the land and I expect you never to do anything wrong. He's too realistic to know and ask that of us. He expected that they would get into the same position that all people get into. They get to the place where they're safe and secure and then they forget the dangers that are out there. It's hard to be troubled about something if you don't have any worry about it. There was a guy who joined our church years ago and he was here about a couple of years and he came to me and said, I can't stay here anymore, I've got to leave. And he sold burglar alarms, fire alarms. And I said, why are you leaving? He said, well, I bought this franchise to come here, but it's really hard to sell a burglar alarm to people that don't lock their front door. Before all the crime hit Great Bend years ago, wasn't as much as there is now, people didn't lock their car doors, they didn't lock their houses, because it was rare to find someone who was robbed. Before all the drug stuff and all that came about. If you're not worried about things, it's hard to be alarmed about it. What I want you to see, he said, is that these things that I'm talking to you about are real. And when they start happening, there's a way by which it alerts you to something that's gone wrong and you know what you should do. You go back to what you were doing before, the faithfulness that you were giving to me. He said, you're to take these to heart and begin to not only listen to them and believe them, but you're to make them a way of life for yourself. Make sure you put into practice what I've talked to you about. Even in the New Testament, when the Lord calls us to be followers of his, he wants us to know what this is all about. What it means to follow him and the dangers that come whenever we begin to fall away from him or to backslide or to turn away and to see the warning signs that come to us. No one who started following Christ hasn't come to times in their life when they were not as faithful to God as they were at other times. But if you recognize what's happening to you and you see that you're drawing away from God, you have in your own mind then the remedy for it. You come back to God and you say, now I see what happened. I know you really want to help me and I'm going to recommit my life to live in obedience to you. We're to learn the dangers that come to this and to be able to recognize what happens whenever we fail to do this. That's what it means to take it to heart. We take it seriously. I want you to recognize that you've been chosen by me for a purpose. That's what he's saying to them. I want you to recognize you've been chosen by me for a purpose. And when we choose to follow Christ, he's chosen us and we've chosen him and he has a purpose for our lives as to what he wants us to do. Whenever Jesus walked on earth, he made sure that the disciples he spoke to and called knew who he was, what he expected of them, and what they were supposed to do. He made sure that they understood exactly what he wanted from them and that he was a guide for them and he would provide for them, he would protect them, he would take care of them. Those factors are essential in following what God wants for us. Whenever people become satisfied in their physical, emotional, and personal lives, we are not very vigilant about concerns. So what God said about the people of Israel, you're going to go into the land of promise and you're going to have everything you need and you'll be like fat cattle and you'll just want to lay down and take it easy and do whatever you want. You'll lose the sense of urgency that you had when you started this. So I want you to recognize what it is and I want you to recognize that I've provided a means and a way for you to be able to follow me no matter where you are. He wanted them to be able to follow the pattern that God had for them that he was laying out in the Ten Commandments and the law. When Christ came, his own disciples, he gave them the same patterns. He told them exactly what he wanted them to do. He told them he would guide them in their life, their personal choices. He would watch them. He wanted them to build in their life the reality that he was the guide for them. Now what it means to take this to heart, it means that you put inside of yourself the passions and the thoughts. When the Bible talks about the heart of a person, it's talking about the deep thoughts that they have, the purposes they have, the values that they hold. What Christ did when he called his disciples, I want you to reshape your values. I want you to look and see that the world has a set of values and I have a set of values. And whenever you become a follower of mine, you begin to look at how your values and the values I hold are different. And I want you to choose to say, okay, I'm going to give up this value because it's in conflict with the value that God has for me. And this has to do with how you use your time. It has to do with how you use your money. It has to do with the things that you count as important, that you don't want to give up, that are really meaningful to you. All of these things in our life are guided by Christ so that we know what he says is critical and they become a part of our nature. The longer you walk with Christ and you read the Bible and you see what God is saying to you and the more time, the longer you practice this, the more it becomes just second nature to you. That's what he means when he talks about taking it to heart. You don't have to stop and say after a while, what should I do about this? Because you already know. You know what you should do and you've practiced it enough so that it now becomes a part of your lifestyle. You just expect every day that you're going to get up and talk to God. You expect every day you're going to read the Bible. You expect that whenever church is available, you're going to come and hear God instruct you and teach you. You understand that these things are critical to your life. That's what he means by taking it to heart. Then he says to them, not only are they to take these things to heart, but he declares to them that after they've done this, they are commanded to teach their children these very same things that they've learned. You take this to heart so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. Now when he's talking about it, he's not talking about just the song that he's talking about, but now he's talking about everything from the Ten Commandments on that he's been instructing them about. We're to pass these on to our children. You notice two things in this. One is, he says you can't pass on something that you don't believe. It's not in your heart. It has to be a part of you. If you're trying to pass on to someone something that you don't understand yourself and you don't know and you don't really believe, it's hard to make sure that you can convince someone else to do it. If you're going to ask your children as they're growing up not to listen to their friends who tell them to steal something, then you have to be honest yourself and you have to let them know that this is a policy of your own life. If you want your children to be moral people and make moral decisions, you have to say not only I want you to make moral decisions, but you have to practice that yourself. That's why taking it by heart is essential before you instruct them as to what they should do. The Bible is very focused on the reality that we should pass on to our children the things that we've learned to be the truth. The Bible never says that when you pass this on to your children, they will always take it and it will always work for them. I know the Proverbs say that when you train a child and they're young, they'll not depart from it when they're old. That's not a promise guaranteed for every child in the world. Some of you in this room had godly parents and you can testify that it didn't necessarily make you godly. You strayed away from this and you did things you shouldn't have done even though you knew better. But what it means is that this is predominantly the way people come to be followers of Christ, learning from the very beginning how that's going to be. You want to give your child an advantage in this. They already know the things that are right. And they're not going to do the things that are right if they don't know what they are. They may know what they are and some of them may not accept it. But if you don't tell them, they don't know. So he's saying to the people of Israel, you take this to heart and you pronounce these commands to your own children so they'll know what they should be. Now I want to just focus a minute on this. This is really a hard area, a difficult area. Because churches want to have children in their churches and they want to have young people in their churches. And the great temptation is to do whatever it takes to get young people and children in church. And so we focus on things that kids would love to do, things that they enjoy doing, things that are attractive to them. And I'm afraid sometimes we get so caught up in this that teaching them and commanding them to do the things that are right sort of slips out of the way. I've watched over the years how many young people we have who are in the seventh and eighth and ninth grade. And they're so ready to come to church. If you come and get them, they'll come to church because they don't have transportation. They're ready to go on any trip that you want to take, a mission trip or whatever it is, because they want to go somewhere. And then when they get to be juniors in high school and they get a driver's license and they can get a job, they're gone. So you'll have a group of seventh and eighth and ninth graders who may have fifteen or twenty in the church. By the time we come to celebrate the graduation, I think we had twelve kids that graduated this last time, and we had none of them who came to church. We had a celebration here for them, and I think one came. The others were gone. Those are the things that are more important to do. We can't mistake that just having kids in church is the same as what he's talking about. I want you parents, and this is where he put the burden on, I want you parents to teach your children what's important and what's right. I don't have or encourage a children's church here. I don't know of a family when they're watching movies at their house that say, okay, we're going to watch a movie here. It doesn't have to be a nasty movie or a dirty movie, but it's just beyond your capacity to understand as children, so we're going to have a TV in the other room where you can watch and then we'll have a TV in here for adults with complicated subjects like love and marriage and things like that that you can't grasp as a five-year-old. No, we have them all sitting there with us because they're learning as they watch what we do and how we live. We have a small one with us this week, and she doesn't know very many words. We use lots of words she doesn't know. We don't just identify the few words she has and those are the only ones we say because she's only going to learn more words if she hears different words. And your children around you when they're in church and they watch you sing and they see you put money in the offering plate, they're learning something. They're learning what it means to be a follower of Christ by watching us. If you isolate them in a room where the gospel is sort of dumbed down so that it's nothing more than they can understand, they don't get the bigger picture of it. When they get into youth area and they have a youth church, then they don't get the bigger picture of it. And when they're through and they go out as adults, they only know how to look for a children's church and a youth church. They don't know what an adult church really is. So on purpose, we've tried to make it so that the children come. They watch you. They listen to you. They hear what goes on. It's difficult and hard for them. Georgia came up to me Sunday and she looked at me and said, you talk a lot. She's right. I talk a lot. But I talk about things I bet she doesn't hear in her house. I talk about things that she looks around and sees other people, you people, listening like it's really important. She's learning that the Word of God is important. She hears some of that and she doesn't understand it yet, but she hears it. That's what we're trying to do is to plant in the minds of the children. Take these words to heart. I solemnly declare to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of the law. We're trying to teach children from the earliest days to obey the ones that they can. And as they grow to a new level, we introduce that too. And so you start talking to them about the things they understand, hitting their brother or sister, not having respect for you. Then when they start to school, respect for their teachers. This is what God wants you to do. And then as they start having money, you teach them about how to manage their money and how to save money and what the purpose of it is. All those things you're teaching them at stages of their life, you see. So then when they get to be adults, they'll know how to live the Word of God. So you teach them carefully to obey all the words of this law. And he ends this with a very powerful thing. The Bible, what I've said to you, they're not idle words. They're not idle words. They're not words that are empty. They're not words that are discasual. By them, you will live. You will live long in the land you're crossing the Jordan to possess. They are your life. These words in the Bible are not simply words in a book. They're our life. They tell us how to live. They tell us how to treat people. They tell us what to avoid. They tell us what kills us. They tell us what destroys our marriages. They tell us what destroys our land. They tell us what destroys everything in the world so we can avoid them. They tell us what makes for great, successful lives. And if we live these words, we find life. Does it mean that every person who doesn't follow the words of the Bible has a miserable life all the time? No, it doesn't. But it means that they will never have as good a life as if they had followed these words. And what we have to say to the world is, this is my life. It is the road map as to how I'm living. And I've bet my life on it. It must be that serious for us. It can't be casual, second-handed, insignificant. It has to be the center of everything we do. That's what Moses was trying to get the people to understand. It's what the song was about. I want to tell you what will happen when you get good, successful, and happy. How you'll drift away from me. And when you drift away from me and you start realizing your life is not as good as it was in the past, stop and say, what am I doing now that's different than I used to be when I was so close to God? Go back and start doing it again. And I'll tell you, I will bring into your life some punishment when you stray away from me. So if you find hard times, you might want to stop and say to yourself, am I doing some things that years ago when I first started this walk I wouldn't have done? Am I neglecting some things I used to do? Ask yourself that question. But you belong to me and I'm not going to destroy you because I don't want the world to look at you as my follower and say he can't save his own people. I will rescue you. But I will also make sure that you understand when you stray from me. God says these are words that give us life. And without them, we will never have the life God planned us to have. Could you bow your heads please for a moment and pray. Many people are born in this world, Father, and they don't have any idea what to do. They don't know what money is for. They don't know what love is. They don't know what relationships really are supposed to be like. They just grow up doing what feels right to them. And we're surrounded by millions of people who are doing what seems right to them but find life empty and broken. You placed us in the world to live by these words that the people around us would look at our lives and say you have something I don't have. Help us, Father, to be that light. In the name of Christ I pray, Amen. I want to tell you a story. I got a call on the phone the other day. And the lady on the phone said my husband's in the nursing home and we belong to another church but the pastor of theirs left and so we need some help. Would you go visit my husband? So I go out to see this guy I've never met before. And I start talking to him about his life. He had an accident in a hospital when he was 50 years old. He's 82 now. And he hasn't worked a day since then. He was a farmer before that. And he's been unable to work. His life was totally changed. Everything he knew had been taken away from him. He started saying we had a common friend together. And this person who was a friend of his became a friend of mine. I met him in the nursing home and he came to our church and did his wife's funeral and his funeral. And he was completely against church when I first met him. Every time I'd see him he'd just tell me he didn't believe any of that stuff and didn't go to church. All he was interested in was money. And he said this guy used to come over to my house and sit down and talk to me. Now here he is. He can't do anything. He's so paralyzed. I mean he's not paralyzed but he's so in constant pain so he can't do anything. He said to me one time, I come over here and talk to you because I see something in you that I wish I had. A guy who lost everything. But there was a quality in him that this guy was looking at and said I just want to come and sit here and talk to you because I want what you've got. Well you don't have to be up and at them and knocking on doors. You just have to have the character of God in your life. And it touches people around you. These are the words of life for us. And they will change the lives of people around you. That's what God was talking about. Thank you.