A TIME FOR RENEWAL
I find it very hard to slow down and remain in the moment where we are when we reach Deuteronomy Chapter 27.
The reason is complicated to explain; but it mostly has to do with the fact that from Chapter 27 on through the rest of Deuteronomy, one continuous event for the people is being planned out by God and Moses.
Are you aware that God has things planned out for you ahead of time? It is always better not to jump too far ahead and just trust Him to let things unfold as planned.
This time Moses gets to help God implement His plan. Yet; Moses will only give the instructions. God is not allowing him to go through the event with the people.
The event is a very important and symbolic ceremony to renew the Covenant that God gave to Abraham.
WELCOME
Welcome to the every-Thursday COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY where we are trying to walk through the scriptures page-by-page and word-by-word.
This week has been a challenge! We have been waiting and waiting and waiting and my natural tendency is to want to jump ahead.
The pages and the words of scripture keep melting together and one blends into the other in order to have the whole story.
There is no good stopping place!
Perhaps we will just have to tell the whole story in several different ways from several different points of view.
God will lead us.
STILL CROSSING OVER THE JORDAN
I know you might be tired of hearing the phrase “just before the people crossed over the Jordan and moved into the Promised Land” and frankly; I’m also pretty tired of saying it.
There are SO MANY instructions from God being given to Moses that they have actually taken up chapters and chapters of the Torah. Deuteronomy seems like one long chain of reminders and instructions for the people to remember how God wants them to live.
We are all getting antsy and beginning to think we are NEVER going to cross the Jordan and arrive.
Just imagine how hard it was for the actual tribes of Israel who were living this out.
A TIME FOR REPETITION
The law is repeated and repeated and repeated.
Every possible scenario concerning the keeping of the law is spoken of and discussed.
Here we begin to realize that The Old Covenant Law is so VERY important.
This law is the foundation that teaches us the perfection of God’s holiness. It reveals the vast caverns of our continuous sins and then it shows us the only Way and the only One who is able to fulfill the hard requirements of the law.
PROMISES TO ABRAHAM BEING KEPT
In today’s passage which begins in Deuteronomy Chapter 27; we are looking off of a cliff that tunnels straight down into a vast land that goes on and on and on. We are reminded of the astounding fact that every single spec of sand in that land out before us has been given to God’s people from a promise made to Abraham long ago. This promise was made in order that Israel would be able to form a holy nation, so that the world could eventually benefit from the miracle of a Messiah named Jesus Christ.
Not only does the gospel hide in the pages of Genesis; we see it here too; deep inside the pages of Deuteronomy and never has it been so clear as in today’s lesson.
A CITY BETWEEN TWO MOUNTAINS
If you know the landscape in Canaan you know that a city named Shechem lies right in the middle of two beautiful mountain peeks. One mountain peek is named Mt. Gerizim and it’s twin peek on the other side of Shechem and is called Mt. Ebal.
The land in between these two mountain peeks where the city of Shechem lies, forms a natural amphitheater.
The people at the foot of Mt. Ebal can hear everything that is being said from Mt. Gerizim; and the people at the foot of Mt. Gerizim can hear everything that is being said from Mt. Ebal.
God; having created this natural amphitheater, tells Moses that in order to conduct this ceremonial event, the people entering the land should be lined up in a particular order at the base of each of these two mountain peeks.
Six tribes are to be positioned at the base of each mountain.
Then God gave the order that he wanted them to be standing in their designated places as they heard the words that would soon be repeated from the mountainsides.
BLESSINGS AND CURSES
God said for the tribes of Ruben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan and Naphtali to stand at the foot of Mt. Ebal, where the words of curses would be read aloud to all of the people.
At the same time the tribes of Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph and Benjamin are to stand at the foot of Mt. Gerizim which would be the mountain from where the blessings were to be read to the people.
Whenever the people arrived in the land there was to be an altar erected at Mt. Ebal. There were to be pillars built from unhewn rocks and they were to be plastered. Upon those plastered pillars were to be written the Laws that God had given Moses at Mt. Sinai (The Ten Commandments.)
So the first thing a person coming up to worship would see would be the commandments written upon two strong pillars; then they would encounter the altar of sacrifice. The first meeting to worship God in the new place would be to renew the Covenant of God with offerings and sacrifices.
A DEFINING IDENTITY WITH HERITAGE
Coming into the places of Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizum with the city of Shechem in the middle would definitely remind the People of Israel of their heritage and their identity as children of Abraham.
The altar on Mt. Ebal was near the old trees of Moreh in Schechem; it was the same place where Abraham had first built an altar to worship God as he journeyed on to the place where God was leading him to go. This was the place where God had promised Abraham that his offspring would one day be given all of the land. (Genesis 12:6-7)
When the people came into the land of their inheritance, they were to stand at the foot of these two mountains and listen to the reading of the words of the law; then Joshua was to read to them the blessings and the curses of God.
A WARNING TO BE OBEDIENT
The people knew and understood that blessings were a gift from God because of obedience and faithfulness; and all curses were a punishment from God for sinfulness and disobedience toward God.
Joshua was to warn them that to keep the law would bring national blessings and to disobey the law would destroy the nation forever.
As they gathered between the two mountains that were symbolic of blessings from God and curses from God, they were to renew their vows to be faithful to the LORD. They were to promise never to serve other gods.
A VERY SIGNIFICANT OLD WELL
Next to this place of the altar, not too very far away was a deep old well.
This was a well that had first belonged to Abraham, then later; it had belonged to Jacob.
The deep, deep well of pure refreshing water stood between these two unmovable mountains that represented the opposite consequences of the people’s obedience or their disobedience to the Law of God.
What if the people failed?
In the picture of the well, we see the refreshing waters of God’s limitless depths of grace.
KNOWING THAT THEY WERE ONLY HUMAN
The people of the tribes that stood at the bottom of Mt. Ebal (which represented the blessings of obedience) knew they would never be able to keep all of the law of God without some type of supernatural help.
Also; the people standing at the foot of Mt. Gerizim knew that they would most likely fall into the trap of the curses of the mountain, because they would not be able to attain such high standards simply by walking in their own strength.
Everyone was very thankful for the well.
The well in Schechem, which stood in the middle of the mountains of blessings and curses, represented God’s grace toward mankind.
THE MAN BESIDE THE WELL
Long years into the future, long after the Israelites had renewed their vows and then proceeded to brake every one of them, which resulted in them being dispersed into the world and far away from their beloved Israel; an amazing man named Jesus came to retrieve a drink from this old, old well.
There He met a Samaritan woman and He offered her living water from which she would never thirst again.
But let’s get back to the beginning; our story in Deuteronomy:
MOSES TRUSTED GOD
In the days that Moses was receiving his last instructions from God for the people; he did not know how to tell them of the One who would come later.
He was blindly trusting God to guide them on and hoping for a Messiah who would be sinless to come and fulfill the meanings behind the law so much better than any one who had ever tried before.
Standing there gazing out over the valley and seeing the two twin peeks that lay before the people of God; Moses knew that The People of Israel had every opportunity to begin to move forward.
God had provided everything they needed for a full and prosperous life.
Moses passed this on to Joshua, who would soon take up the mission of God after Moses remained behind to be gathered to his people.
THE BALANCE OF A GREAT NATION
Moses told Joshua all about the mountain of blessings, the mountain of curses, the correct positions of the people, the two pillars containing the words of the law, the altar of sacrifice and the place of the well.
It would now be up to the people to obey God and find the balance that they needed to be molded into a great nation.
Israel was looking right into the future and their destiny was clearly being made known to them.
Some really HUGE moments were about to happen in the history of God’s people.