Deuteronomy 11

The true life of loving the Lord God in this present age is a battle. The people of God can expect continual assaults urging us with every enticement that can be imagined, sometimes whispering and sometimes screaming in the ears of our hearts, “Take me, instead of your God! Why do you have to be any different than anyone else? Why not satisfy your flesh now?”

We need to be disgusted by what God finds disgusting, and we need to love the Lord our God with all our hearts. This battle that we have today was also the battle of Israel as the Lord's people prepared to take the land. The temptations they would face would be urged upon them by the example of those who were in the land, but there would be any inner enemy in their own flesh, and a legion of voices from proud spiritual realms pressing them to find their satisfaction in everything that perishes, and not in God.

In opposition to that chorus of accommodation of their flesh and surrender to base desires, the voice of the Lord insists that we should love our Creator and Redeemer. Fitting hand in glove into a dying world will not be the answer for us. As the Apostle Paul would urge upon the Jewish and Gentile Christians in Rome 1500 years after Moses, “The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:11-14)

As an inducement in the direction of faithful obedience, Moses urged the Israelites to consider the power of God against the Egyptians and even against the wilderness generation of Israel. As they now prepared to go into the promised land, this was no time for half measures. They needed to keep the whole commandment of the Lord.

The chorus of inner and outer voices, both then and now, would continually suggest that keeping the whole commandment of the Lord is too extreme, abnormal, unnatural, and even harmful to your health. But having the earth open up and swallow the arrogant is worse.

They needed to consider the goodness of the Lord's gift to them in the land of Canaan. But we have been given heaven itself through the blood of Christ. And we have been assured that the meek will inherit the earth. Is this any time to decide in favor of our flesh and against the Lord who died for us?

Moses also reminded Israel of the Lord's promise of great blessings in the land if the whole community of faith would follow the whole commandment of the Lord. But the eternal promises that we have are so much bigger. Should we not be willing even to suffer greatly in this life with an eye to the eternal weight of glory that the Lord has promised to all who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit?

This gift of the Holy Spirit for us is a great New Testament blessing that has been poured out upon the church, beginning on the feast of Pentecost in the year when Jesus died as the Passover Lamb. This gift of the Spirit will enable us to live a life of holiness in a more fruitful way. Merely hearing the Law with our ears and applauding it with our minds has never been enough. But now we have the mind of Christ in us. Will we just give in to the flesh? How can that be? How can we turn aside to other lords and serve them? That would only lead to death. But we are not people of death. We have eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The conquest generation was to bind the Law of God and the preaching of Moses upon their bodies. But now that the Word was made flesh, freeing us from the power of sin, we can do something that will prove far more victorious and enduring. We can put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to satisfy its lusts. We can let the living Word of Christ dwell within us more richly, for we have the prophetic Word made more sure living within our souls.

As Israel of old, we can teach this Word to our children, and we must. But they must let that Word dwell within them as an inner power of divine love and holy conquest, and not merely as an outward command that condemns them. They need Christ in them just as surely as we do. If they will not yield to Him, how will they avoid yielding over and over again to every temptation?

Moses reminded the conquest generation of the blessing and the curse of God. We remind ourselves today that the Lord has come. He has taken our curse and has granted us an eternal hope. That does not mean that the warfare for holiness in our life is over. It means that the battle is on, and that the victory belongs to the Lord.

What voice are you listening to today? Hear the voice of Your Redeemer and King, and give Him glory in worship. He came because He loves you. Enjoy Jesus today as you follow Him in the way of the cross and the resurrection.