Tuesday, 26 May 2020 Deuteronomy 9:1-29
“Yet they are Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm.” –Deuteronomy 9:29
Our reading today echoes what is written in 2Timothy 2: 13, “If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.” Faithfulness is a divine attribute—both in the Old and New Testaments we see how God dealt with His people and then how His faithfulness was revealed through His Son towards all the people in the world.
Duet. 7:9 says: “Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant ...” God’s faithfulness is not dependent on how we behave to Him; but entirely on His character! Romans 5:8 says: “But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The promise made to Abraham, that in Him all the nations of the world will be blessed, was fulfilled by a faithful God – “… that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles.” (Galatians 3:14)
The Israelites had been walking for 38 years (Deut.2:14) and now come to the final stage. Moses wanted to remind them that their going to possess the land was not based on their righteousness, but God’s righteousness and faithfulness, ”in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your forefathers….” He told them not to forget how they had provoked the Lord. (Deut. 9:7)
However, we can see a great intercessor between a faithful God and rebellious people. Deut.9:18-19: “I fell down before the Lord……. the Lord listened to me that time also.” Even as Moses was pleading for the people, he was reminding God about the promises He made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! (Deut 9:27). God heard the prayers of his servant Moses and spared the people and brought them to the promised land (the second generation) and they were going to conquer “great cities fortified to heaven, a people great and tall and the sons of Anakim.”(Deut 9:1.2) These were the things that their fathers said earlier, they would not be able to conquer. [Refer Numbers13:28-31] Nevertheless Caleb and Joshua said something different! Num.14:8: “If the Lord is pleased with us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us…” Then they stated something profound in Deut 9:9: ”Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them.”
Dear reader, is this not a picture of our own lives? We have the promises of God, yet we were not able to feed on to the faithfulness of God to hold on to those promises. The fortified cities and the giants are the very things their next-generation conquered by God’s strength, which they themselves could have conquered, had they trusted in His faithfulness! 1Cor.1:20: “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him (Christ Jesus) they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.”
We need to understand some principles from our Reading today.
Promises of God are for Conquerors not for cowards God brought them to conquer the land knowing that there were fortified cities and giants. But as Joshua and Caleb testified, their protection was already gone! We need to have the spiritual eyes to see this and thus take the courage to conquer and possess the promises.
Even when we go away from the Lord, He still remains faithful to fulfil His promises through the ones who rise up to God’s standard and receive them. Heb.6:12: “…so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
Those of us who are strong in their faith should consider it as a duty to themselves to intercede for those who have hardened their heart, just as Moses was interceding for the thousands of people in the whole congregation.
Think on: “He who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God and he will be My son.” -Revelations 21:7