The Christian life is not a thoughtless life—it requires intentional dedication to the Lord. Today, W. Robert Godfrey demonstrates how the warnings in the book of Deuteronomy are relevant and insightful for God’s people today. Get W. Robert Godfrey’s teaching series Discovering Deuteronomy on DVD, plus lifetime digital access to the messages and study guide, for your donation of any amount: https://gift.renewingyourmind.org/3605/discovering-deuteronomy Meet Today’s Teacher: W. Robert Godfrey is a Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow and chairman of Ligonier Ministries. He is president emeritus and professor emeritus of church history at Westminster Seminary California. He is the featured teacher for many Ligonier teaching series, including the six-part series A Survey of Church History. He is author of many books, including God’s Pattern for Creation, Reformation Sketches, and An Unexpected Journey. Meet the Host: Nathan W. Bingham is vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries, executive producer and host of Renewing Your Mind, host of the Ask Ligonier podcast, and a graduate of Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne, Australia. Nathan joined Ligonier in 2012 and lives in Central Florida with his wife and four children. Renewing Your Mind is a donor-supported outreach of Ligonier Ministries. Explore all of our podcasts: https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts
Reformed theology quite right says that any individual who has true faith, any individual who has been regenerated by the Spirit of God, will be preserved by God to everlasting life. But while that's true of individual Christians, that same promise has not been made to congregations.
What we see in the book of Revelation, both in the letters and in the vision of Christ walking in the heavenly temple amongst the land stand, is serious warnings to churches that as congregations they may prove faithless.
Yesterday, we began looking at the warnings Moses gave to the Israelites in the final chapters of Deuteronomy. And as we continue our study of these warnings, detailed and lengthy warnings, it raises the question of how they are relevant, if at all, for you and me living in the 21st century.
That's one of the questions W. Robert Godfrey will address on this Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind as you get just a little taste of his extensive series, Discovering Deuteronomy.
Tomorrow is the final day that we'll be in this series, so don't forget that if you'd like to own Discovering Deuteronomy, you can request it online at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes when you give a donation of any amount in support of Renewing Your Mind. Thank you.
Well, here's Dr. Godfrey in chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, continuing his study of these warnings for God's people.
Well, we're looking at the section in Deuteronomy that we're calling Warnings, a section parallel to the warnings at the beginning of the book, a reminder about the seriousness with which God takes His covenant with His people. and the call to faithfulness that God issues there.
And these closing sections of the book, we might say, the warning section and the history section, these closing sections in a way are clearer in their meaning You know, as we were looking through some of the laws, we scratched our head a little bit and wondered exactly what the laws meant. Why are we not allowed to weave with linen and wool together to make clothes?
And we tried to find the meaning there. In this section, it's not so much that the meaning is in doubt. The question more is theologically, what is the significance of this? And particularly theologically, what is the significance for us today? it's fairly easy to see the significance for them. But how does this continue to apply for us?
So that's part of what we're going to be looking at as we go along. And it's very much about responsibility before the Lord. It's very much about the future the Lord has planned for His people. And the interface of Israel's responsibility with the Lord's sovereign plan is one of the interesting things that we'll be trying to figure out what's being taught as we go along.
We're at chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, and in chapter 28, the Lord, having given this symbolic moment of one tribe on Mount Gerizim and one tribe on Mount Ebal, blessings and curses, having displayed that visibly in a ceremony, the reality of a future of blessing or a future of cursing, the Lord now develops that theme in chapter 28.
And he begins by talking about the blessings for an obedient people. One of the things we'll be discussing as we go along in these sections is, what is exactly the nature of that obedience that the people are called to? Is it an obedience that will earn for them the blessings, or is it an obedience that flows out of faith?
and it raises questions about the fundamental nature of the Mosaic covenant. Is the Mosaic covenant fundamentally a covenant of works, or is the Mosaic covenant fundamentally a covenant of grace? And how do these things interact?
And it's interesting, if we were to review, and you'll be thankful we won't, but if we were to review the history of Reformed reflection on the covenant with Moses, we'd see there's quite a variety amongst theologians. And when you find quite a variety among good theologians, you can conclude the issue must be a little complicated.
And the Westminster Confession of Faith summarized what the Puritans and the general view of the Reformed was when it said, the Mosaic economy is an administration of the covenant of grace— with a legal character to it. So it's two things at once. It both has a strongly legal flavor, but it is an administration of the covenant of grace.
And you'll be glad to know I agree with the Westminster Confession, and we will be proceeding to analyze it in those terms. So the obedience called for here is not, I believe, a meritorious obedience. The Lord is not saying, you have to earn my blessing. But what He is saying is that to receive my blessing, you must live out the grace I have worked in you as my people.
Therefore, obedience, I think, here always ought to properly be understood as the effect of faith. This is not setting obedience against faith, but this is looking at obedience as an evidence of faith. I think that's what's happening here, and we'll return to that as we go along. But here is laid out, then, the blessings the Lord will give.
give to His people as they enter this promised land, remembering that the promised land itself is a symbol of God's plan for all of history to restore to Israel and to His people, His covenant people that will include Gentiles in the future, to restore to them the world that He originally created for them.
Now, sometimes we get into big eschatological debates about the future, and people talk about the promises of a restoration of Israel to the land. How is that to be fulfilled? And there are legitimate differences. Well, not legitimate. There's only one right opinion. But there are differences which we can understand between people equally committed to the Bible.
And some people say, well, if you don't believe Israel… will be restored to the land. You don't really believe the promises, but the great land promise is a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. That's what we always have to keep in mind.
So the promised land in the Old Covenant is always pointing forward to that state of holiness in the new heaven and the new earth when Christ returns in glory. So all of those things have to be kept in mind. I'm already confused. I hope you're not too confused. as we go along and look at these things. So here's the blessing, and it's a comprehensive blessing.
Every area of your life, the Lord says, I will bless if you live in covenant faithfully with me. I'll bless your family, I'll bless your work, I'll bless your crops, I'll bless your flocks, I'll bless your politics. Everything will be blessed by me if you are a faithful people. That too is a picture, isn't it, of the new heaven and the new earth.
We know we're never going to see fully the fullness of God's blessing until Christ comes again to make all things new. But there's an anticipation of that in the life of the people of God. So we have these blessings in the first part of Deuteronomy 28 and 28. Verse 13 says, And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall go up and not down.
If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them. That was a theme we heard regularly in these opening sections. Be careful, be careful, be careful. And here it comes back again. We're to be a careful people. We're to be a thoughtful people. And that's not just an Old Testament command.
You remember Paul in Ephesians 5 also, be careful how you walk, he says to Christians. So there too is a point of continuity. The Christian life is not a thoughtless life. It's not an undisciplined life. It's a careful life. And so we listen to this command. And then verse 14, the end of the blessings section here of chapter 28. And if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command.
So here is a reminder of the fullness, the breadth and depth, the extent of the covenant as God has given it governing all of life. All the words that I command you today to the right hand or to the left hand to go after other gods to serve them.
Again, we're right back where we began in these opening sections that the focus of obedience to God, the focus of covenant keeping to God is always to be found in worship. Worship is where we look directly to God. And if we can't be faithful in the moments we give consciously to God, what kind of faithfulness will there be in the rest of life? That's sort of what's being said here.
And again, a theme at the early part of the book is faithfulness. picked up again here, you see Moses is a good preacher. A good preacher always has to repeat himself. And a good preacher recognizes that what you said early in the sermon may not be remembered at the end of the sermon. So here we are with themes.
Now you might have been saying, well, if Moses had only had an editor, this book could have been about half as long. And there's a certain truth to that. There's a lot of repetition in this book. But what I have found, and I hope you'll find as you ponder this book in the future, that repetition is really helpful because we really do forget things.
We really do fail to keep the balance that we ought to keep in understanding God and His ways. And this repetition then is helpful that way. Then in verse 15 of chapter 28, he turns to the other side. If you obey, you'll receive blessing. If you disobey, you'll receive curses. And the curse is really serious and extensive. All the areas of life will be cursed.
Just as all areas of life were promised blessing, so all are cursed. You'll be cursed in your family. You'll be cursed in your work. You'll be cursed in the field. You'll be cursed in your politics. Everything will suffer the judgment of God. It will lead to sin. all sorts of confusion and frustration, as we see there in verse 20.
The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of your evil deeds because you have forsaken me. It's a horrible thing to contemplate, isn't it? Confusion, frustration, destruction—it's not a future that you would have thought anyone would want to look forward to.
And they don't look forward to it, of course, but they don't take the Word seriously enough. And one of the intriguing things here is the Lord says, I'll do this on you quickly. But in point of fact, the Lord is remarkably patient. It's hundreds and hundreds of years that Israel survives until the Lord finally loses patience and brings judgment.
But at most of the points through that history, the rebellion, the stubbornness, the confusion of Israel is rather manifested. So this strong warning is not listened to. Verse 25, The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way before them and flee seven ways from them, and you shall be a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
That too had been a warning at the beginning. Don't become a byword. Don't become a proverb. You know, Proverbs are brief ways of reminding ourselves of our history and what has happened. My wife, I may have mentioned before, is Hungarian. And the Hungarians suffered a great defeat in 1526. You all remember that.
The Hungarians suffered a great defeat at the hands of the Turks in 1526 on the plain of Mohacs. And the Hungarian king and much of the Hungarian nobility and all of the Hungarian bishops were killed in the Battle of Mohacs. And the Turk moved through and occupied the country. And to this day, there's a proverb amongst Hungarians, and if something really bad happens...
The Hungarians will say, more was lost at Mohacs. So, you know, it's sort of Calvinist comfort. Cheer up. Things could be worse. But Proverbs work that way. And what Moses is saying here, you don't want to be a proverb and have the nations say about you, Israel was destroyed. Israel was punished. Israel was abandoned.
You know, if something bad happens, you don't want people saying, well, it's not as bad as Israel's punishment. We don't want to be a proverb. We don't want to be a horror. We don't want to be a byword. That's the warning that the Lord brings here. And then in verse 27, he says, the Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch of which you cannot be healed.
What a horrible thing to contemplate that Israel... might experience the same judgment that had been visited on Egypt. What Moses is really saying here is, beware lest in your disobedience God turn you into Egyptians as the object of His wrath and of His punishment. This would be the loss of everything. So you can see how serious this all becomes as a warning.
And while the blessings are 14 verses, the curses go on and on and on. And the curses are articulated at length because the Lord knows Israel needs that warning. And the Lord knows, of course, that in the long run, they will not heed the warning. And it's interesting as you read the curses. It begins very much in terms of a possibility. I lay before you blessings and curses.
I lay before you life and death, choose life. So there's a covenant possibility, in some ways at least an open-ended history laid before them. But it's somewhere along the line of the curses, it shifts to not being just a possibility, but being a prophecy.
And I think we begin to see that at verse 36 of chapter 28, the Lord will bring you and your king whom you set over you to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. So here's a prophecy of curse leading to exile, of curse leading to the loss of the promised land. Think how dramatic that is. Here they are standing at the very moment of entering the promised land,
And already Moses has to warn them seriously that they may lose this promised land if they are not careful in their service. And this too had been said back in Deuteronomy 4. There too there had been this warning, really prophecy of exile that's being articulated here. So it's a bleak picture that begins to be painted here.
This is Moses' intention, that these people would think about the horror that awaits them, would be confronted by it. Down at verse 47, we see an interesting contrast. This is going to happen, verse 47 says, because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of all the abundance of things he gives you.
Again, that's a verse that reminds us that this relationship between God and His people was never intended to be simply a legal relationship. God is not the great accountant in the sky. Nothing against accountants, but God… wanted a personal, loving relationship with His people. He loved them. He acted for them. He wanted them to love Him. This is the relationship.
He wanted them to be joyful and glad for all the good things that they brought into their lives instead of just ignoring Him. And You know as well as I do that the history of Israel is so often that when things go well for Israel, they forget the Lord, and when things go badly for Israel, they complain against the Lord.
And I fear that's a human pattern beyond just Israel, that when things go well, we just assume that's all right. Of course things will go well. I'm an American, I'm a Christian, whatever, things... have to go well. When things don't go well, then I complain. I'm always amazed Probably shouldn't say this, but anyway, I'll say it anyway.
I'm always amazed when personal tragedy strikes an individual. Maybe somebody dies in the family unexpectedly. Somebody dies in the family young. Some terrible accident happens. Some terrible disease comes. And people say, well, I just can't believe in God anymore. Now, I don't want to be...
too hard-minded or hard-nosed, but I always want to say, maybe it's the historian in me, maybe it's the theologian, I always want to say, so you've lived all these years, you've seen all these tragedies happen to other people, and it didn't particularly bother you. And now if it happens to you, it really bothers you.
Now, I understand if it happens to me, it bothers me more than if I see it happen to you. I mean, that's human nature, isn't it? But to look at human history and say, oh, I can't believe in a God that let that happen to me, even though I can believe in him if he lets it happen to all sorts of other people, is a very peculiar conclusion, isn't it?
As far as I can see as a historian, the death rate amongst humans is pretty close to 100%. You know, what can we think of? Three exceptions. You know, I don't want to ruin your day, but the likelihood is we're not going to be one of the exceptions unless the Lord comes in glory. That's our hope. That's part of why we pray, come quickly, Lord Jesus. But...
The reality is the human condition has fallen and misery comes into our lives. There's struggle and difficulty in the life. And the Lord is warning about that. The Lord is reminding us that we can't avoid that in a profound sense. But here he's saying to his people, it will go better for you if you're faithful to the covenant.
And particularly, it will go better to you in remaining in the land that I'm giving you as a symbol of the new heaven and the new earth that I'm going to bring to pass. course, one of the questions we might ask at this point is, do these blessings and curses apply to the church, or is this unique to Israel? These blessings and curses are
often related specifically to the land and the possession of the land, and since the church doesn't have a land, since the church is not a nation in the sense of possessing territory to govern politically, except for the Pope and the Vatican, but in general terms, the church is not a nation in that sense, so are these curses and blessings really relevant to us? Do they really apply to us?
And I think what we have to say is, yes, they do. Yes, they do. Certainly, in the coming of Christ, in the new covenant, there is a greater emphasis on joy and blessing and faithfulness and preservation. But there remains in the New Testament clear warnings, and clear warnings specifically about the possibility of faithlessness in the church.
Now, our Reformed theology quite right says that any individual who has true faith, any individual who has been regenerated by the Spirit of God, will be preserved by God to everlasting life. But while that's true of individual Christians, that same promise has not been made to congregations or to denominations. In fact, it's kind of hard to find denominations in the New Testament.
I think the Dutch Reformed are there, but I… But what we see in the book of Revelation, near the beginning, don't we, both in the letters and in the vision of Christ walking in the heavenly temple amongst the land stand, is serious warnings to churches that as congregations they may prove faithless. Now, the church as a whole will be preserved by Christ. The church as a whole will never fail.
There will always be faithful congregations. But there is a serious warning to Christians, very much in the spirit of Deuteronomy 28, that congregations can lose their faith. They can lose their first love. They can be removed as lampstands from the heavenly temple. And we have to take that very seriously. And one of the
The dangers for the church, as for Israel, is to say, oh, God has made His promise. He stuck with us. And God always wants to say to His people, I'm not stuck with you. I keep my promises, but my promise is I'm going to keep the lampstand in the temple for congregations that are faithful. And that ought to cause us to be serious and reflective in looking at these matters.
So again, while these things relate… in profound particular ways to Israel, they continue to have a significance for us and call us to a serious reflection on the Christian life. Moses goes on then in chapter 29 to renew the covenant. Very specifically, this comes as the moment in which he again reviews their history. I love that Moses is a historian. He loves history.
That should encourage us all to read more history. But he reviews the identity of Israel and then says so. You need to keep covenant, so you need to be faithful. So today is the day of honoring and recommitting to the covenant of God.
You're listening to the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. The Old Testament can be hard for us to piece together, especially if we didn't grow up in the church or haven't been taught the history of the Old Testament, the Israelites and their leaders.
That's one reason why a series like Discovering Deuteronomy with W. Robert Godfrey can be so helpful as you learn not only the history of God's people in the Old Testament, but also see how this book relates to the Christian life today.
So I encourage you to request the entire study with Dr. Godfrey when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. We'll send you the series on DVD, plus give you digital access to all of the messages and study guide. The study guide includes discussion and reflection questions, review quizzes, and more.
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