"And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel the
words of this song, until they were ended." It is not too much to say
that one of the very grandest and most comprehensive sections in the
divine volume now lies open before us and claims our prayerful
attention. It takes in the whole range of God's dealings with Israel
from first to last, and presents a most solemn record of their
grievous sin and of divine wrath and judgment. But, blessed be God, it
begins and ends with Him; and this is full of deepest and richest
blessing for the soul. If it were not so, if we had only the
melancholy story of man's ways, we should be completely overwhelmed;
but in this magnificent song, as indeed in the entire volume, we begin
with God and we end with God. This tranquilizes the spirit most
blessedly, and enables us, in calm and holy confidence, to pursue the
history of man, to see every thing going to pieces in his hands, and
to mark the actings of the enemy in opposition to the counsels and
purposes of God. We can afford to see the complete failure and ruin of
the creature, in every shape and form, because we know and are assured
that God will be God in spite of every thing. He will have the upper
hand in the end, and then all will be--must be right. God shall be all
in all, and there shall be neither enemy nor evil occurrent throughout
that vast universe of bliss of which our adorable Lord Christ shall be
the central sun forever.
But we must turn to the song.
"Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the
words of my mouth." Heaven and earth are summoned to hearken to this
magnificent outpouring. Its range is commensurate with its vast moral
importance. "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall
distill as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the
showers upon the grass; because I will publish the name of the Lord;
ascribe ye greatness unto our God."
Here lies the solid, the imperishable foundation of every thing. Come
what may, the name of our God shall stand forever. No power of earth
or hell can possibly countervail the divine purpose, or hinder the
outshining of the divine glory. What sweet rest this gives the heart
in the midst of this dark, sorrowful, sin-stricken world, and in the
face of the apparently successful schemes of the enemy! Our refuge,
our resource, our sweet relief and solace, are found in the name of
the Lord our God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Truly
the publication of that blessed name must ever be as the refreshing
dew and tender rain falling upon the heart. This is, of a truth, the
divine and heavenly doctrine on which the soul can feed, and by which
it is sustained, at all times, and under all circumstances.
"He is _the_ Rock"--not merely _a_ rock. There is, there can be, no
other Rock but Himself. Eternal and universal homage to His glorious
name!--"His work is perfect;"--not a single flaw in aught that comes
from His blessed hand; all bears the stamp of absolute perfection.
This will be made manifest to all created intelligences by and by. It
is manifest to faith now, and is a spring of divine consolation to all
true believers. The very thought of it distills as the dew upon the
thirsty soul. "For _all_ His ways are judgment; a God of truth, and
without iniquity; just and right is He." Infidels may cavil and sneer;
they may, in their fancied wisdom, try to pick holes in the divine
actings; but their folly shall be manifest to all. "Let God be true,
but every man a liar; as it is written, 'That Thou mightest be
justified in Thy sayings, and mightest overcome when Thou art
judged.'" God must have the upper hand in the end. Let men beware how
they presume to call in question the sayings and doings of the only
true, the only wise, and the almighty God.
There is something uncommonly fine in the opening notes of this song.
It gives the sweetest rest to the heart to know that however man, and
even the people of God, may fail and come to ruin, yet we have to do
with One who abideth faithful and cannot deny Himself, whose ways are
absolutely perfect, and who, when the enemy has done his very utmost,
and brought all his malignant designs to a head, shall glorify
Himself, and bring in universal and everlasting blessedness.
True, He has to execute judgment upon man's ways. He is constrained to
take down the rod of discipline and use it, at times, with terrible
severity upon His own people. He is perfectly intolerant of evil in
those who bear His holy name. All this comes out, with special
solemnity in the song before us. Israel's ways are exposed and dealt
with unsparingly; nothing is allowed to pass; all is set forth with
holy precision and faithfulness. Thus we read, "They have corrupted
themselves; their spot is not the spot of His children; they are a
perverse and crooked generation. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O
foolish people and unwise? is not He thy Father that hath bought thee?
hath He not made thee, and established thee?"
Here we have the first note of reproof in this song, but no sooner has
it fallen on the ear than it is followed by a most precious outpouring
of testimony to the goodness, loving-kindness, faithfulness, and
tender mercy of Jehovah, the Elohim of Israel, and the Most High, or
Elion of all the earth. "Remember the days of old, consider the years
of many generations; ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy
elders, and they will tell thee; when the Most High [God's millennial
title] divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the
sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number
of the children of Israel."
What a glorious fact is here unfolded to our view! a fact but little
understood or taken account of by the nations of the earth. How little
do men consider that, in the original settlement of the great national
boundaries, the Most High had direct reference to "the children of
Israel"! Yet thus it was, and the reader should seek to grasp this
grand and intensely interesting fact. When we look at geography and
history from a divine stand-point, we find that Canaan and the seed of
Jacob are God's centre. Yes; Canaan, a little strip of land lying
along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, with an area of eleven
thousand square miles, (about a third of the extent of Ireland,) is
the centre of God's geography, and the twelve tribes of Israel are the
central object of God's history. How little have geographers and
historians thought of this! They have described countries, and written
the history of nations, which, in geographical extent and political
importance, far outstrip Palestine and its people, according to human
thinking, but which, in God's account, are as nothing compared with
that little strip of land which He deigns to call His own, and which
it is His fixed purpose to inherit through the seed of Abraham His
friend.[26]
[26] How true it is that God's thoughts are not man's thoughts, or His
ways as man's ways! Man attaches importance to extensive territories,
material strength, pecuniary resources, well-disciplined armies,
powerful fleets; God, on the contrary, takes no account of such
things; they are to Him as the small dust of the balance. "Have ye not
known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the
beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the
inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the
heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in;
that bringeth the princes to nothing; He maketh the judges of the
earth as vanity." Hence we may see the moral reason why, in selecting
a country to be the centre of His earthly plans and counsels, Jehovah
did not select one of vast extent, but a very small and insignificant
strip of land, of little account in the thoughts of men. But oh, what
importance attaches to that little spot! what principles have been
unfolded there! what events have taken place there! what deeds have
been done there! what plans and purposes are yet to be wrought out
there! There is not a spot on the face of the earth so interesting to
the heart of God as the land of Canaan and the city of Jerusalem.
Scripture teems with evidence as to this: we could fill a small volume
with proofs. The time is rapidly approaching when living facts will do
what the fullest and clearest testimony of Scripture fails to do,
namely, convince men that the land of Israel was, is, and ever shall
be God's earthly centre. All other nations owe their importance, their
interest, their place in the pages of inspiration, simply to the fact
of their being, in some way or other, connected with the land and
people of Israel. How little do historians know or think of this! But
surely every one who loves God ought to know it and ponder it.
We cannot attempt to dwell upon this most important and suggestive
fact, but we would ask the reader to give it his serious
consideration. He will find it fully developed and strikingly
illustrated in the prophetic scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
"The Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His
inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling
wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him _as the
apple of His eye_"--the most sensitive, delicate part of the human
body.--"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young,
spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them upon her
wings;"--to teach them to fly and to keep them from falling--"so the
Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. He
made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the
increase of the fields; and He made him to suck honey out of the rock,
and oil out of the flinty rock; butter of kine, and milk of sheep,
with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with
the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of
the grape."
Need we say that the primary application of all this is to Israel? No
doubt the Church may learn from it and profit by it, but to apply it
to the Church would involve a double mistake, a mistake of the most
serious nature; it would involve nothing less than the reducing of
the Church from a heavenly to an earthly level, and the most
unwarrantable interference with Israel's divinely appointed place and
portion. What, we may lawfully inquire, has the Church of God, the
body of Christ, to do with the settlement of the nations of the earth?
Nothing whatever. The Church, _according to the mind of God_, is a
stranger on the earth. Her portion, her hope, her home, her
inheritance, her all, is heavenly. It would make no difference in the
current of this world's history if the Church had never been heard of.
Her calling, her walk, her destiny, her whole character and course,
her principles and morals, are or ought to be heavenly. The Church has
nothing to do with the politics of this world. Her citizenship is in
heaven, from whence she looks for the Saviour. She proves false to her
Lord, false to her calling, false to her principles, in so far as she
meddles with the affairs of nations. It is her high and holy privilege
to be linked and morally identified with a rejected, crucified, risen,
and glorified Christ. She has no more to do with the present system of
things, or with the current of this world's history, than her
glorified Head in the heavens. "They," says our Lord Christ, speaking
of His people, "are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
This is conclusive. It fixes our position and our path in the most
precise and definite way possible. "As He is, so are we in this
world." This involves a double truth, namely, our perfect acceptance
with God and our complete separation from the world. We are in the
world, but not _of_ it. We have to pass through it as pilgrims and
strangers, looking out for the coming of our Lord, the appearing of
the Bright and Morning Star. It is no part of our business to
interfere with municipal or political matters. We are called and
exhorted to obey the powers that be, to pray for all in authority, to
pay tribute, and owe no man any thing; "to be blameless and harmless,
the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse
nation," among whom we are to "shine as lights in the world, holding
forth the word of life."
From all this we may gather something of the immense practical
importance of "rightly dividing the word of truth." We have but little
idea of the injury done, both to the truth of God and to the souls of
His people, by confounding Israel with the Church--the earthly and the
heavenly. It hinders all progress in the knowledge of Scripture, and
mars the integrity of Christian walk and testimony. This may seem a
strong statement, but we have seen the truth of it painfully
illustrated times without number; and we feel that we cannot too
urgently call the attention of the reader to the subject. We have more
than once referred to it in the progress of our studies on the
Pentateuch, and therefore we shall not further pursue it here, but
proceed with our chapter.
At verse 15, we reach a very different note in the song of Moses. Up
to this point, we have had before us God and His actings, His
purposes, His counsels, His thoughts, His loving interest in His
people Israel, His tender, gracious dealings with them. All this is
full of deepest, richest blessing. There is, there can be, no drawback
here. When we have God and His ways before us, there is no hindrance
to the heart's enjoyment. All is perfection--absolute, divine
perfection, and as we dwell upon it, we are filled with wonder, love,
and praise.
But there is the human side, and here, alas! all is failure and
disappointment. Thus at the fifteenth verse of our chapter we read,
"But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked"--what a very full and suggestive
statement! How vividly it presents, in its brief compass, the moral
history of Israel!--"thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou
art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and
lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to
jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they Him to
anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew
not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. Of
the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God
that formed thee."
There is a solemn voice in all this for the writer and the reader. We
are each of us in danger of treading the moral path indicated by the
words just quoted. Surrounded on all hands by the rich and varied
mercies of God, we are apt to make use of them to nourish a spirit of
self-complacency. We make use of the gifts to shut out the Giver. In a
word, we, too, like Israel, wax fat and kick--we forget God. We lose
the sweet and precious sense of His presence and of His perfect
sufficiency, and turn to other objects, as Israel did to false gods.
How often do we forget the Rock that begat us, the God that formed us,
the Lord that redeemed us! And all this is so much the more
inexcusable in us, inasmuch as our privileges are so much higher than
theirs. We are brought into a relationship and a position of which
Israel knew absolutely nothing; our privileges and blessings are of
the very highest order; it is our privilege to have fellowship with
the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ; we are the objects of that
perfect love which stopped not short of introducing us into a position
in which it can be said of us, "As He [Christ] is, so are we in this
world." Nothing could exceed the blessedness of this; even divine love
itself could go no further than this. It is not merely that the love
of God has been manifested to us in the gift and the death of His only
begotten and well-beloved Son, and in giving us His Spirit, but it has
been made perfect with us by placing us in the very same position as
that blessed One on the throne of God.
All this is perfectly marvelous. It passeth knowledge. And yet how
prone we are to forget the blessed One who has so loved us and wrought
for us and blessed us! How often we slip away from Him in the spirit
of our minds and the affections of our hearts! It is not merely a
question of what the professing church, as a whole, has done, but the
very much deeper, closer, more pointed question of what our own
wretched hearts are constantly prone to do. We are apt to forget God,
and to turn to other objects, to our serious loss and His dishonor.
Would we know how the heart of God feels as to all this? would we form
any thing like a correct idea of how He resents it? Let us hearken to
the burning words addressed to His erring people Israel, the
overwhelming strains of the song of Moses. May we have grace to hear
them aright, and deeply profit by them.
"And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, _because of the provoking
of His sons and of His daughters_. And He said, 'I will hide My face
from them, I will see what their end shall be;'"--alas! alas! a truly
deplorable end--"'for they are a very froward generation, children in
whom is no faith. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is
not God; they have provoked Me to anger with their vanities; and I
will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will
provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in
Mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the
earth with her increase, and shall set on fire the foundations of the
mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend Mine arrows
upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning
heat and with bitter destruction; I will also send the teeth of beasts
upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without
and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin,
the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.'" (Ver. 19-26.)
Here we have a most solemn record of God's governmental dealings with
His people--a record eminently calculated to set forth the awful truth
of Hebrews x. 31--"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God." The history of Israel in the past, their condition at
present, and what they are yet to pass through in the future--all goes
to prove, in the most impressive manner, that "our God is a consuming
fire." No nation on the face of the earth has ever been called to pass
through such severe discipline as the nation of Israel. As the Lord
reminds them in those deeply solemn words, "You only have I known of
all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for your
iniquities." No other nation was ever called to occupy the highly
privileged place of actual relationship with Jehovah. This dignity was
reserved for one nation; but the very dignity was the basis of a most
solemn responsibility. If they were called to be His people, they were
responsible to conduct themselves in a way worthy of such a wondrous
position, or else have to undergo the heaviest chastenings ever
endured by any nation under the sun. Men may reason about all this;
they may raise all manner of questions as to the moral consistency of
a benevolent Being acting according to the terms set forth in verses
22-25 of our chapter. But all such questions and reasonings must
sooner or later be discovered to be utter folly. It is perfectly
useless for men to argue against the solemn actings of divine
government, or the terrible severity of the discipline exercised
toward the chosen people of God. How much wiser and better and safer
to be warned by the facts of Israel's history to flee from the wrath
to come, and lay hold upon eternal life and full salvation revealed in
the precious gospel of God!
And then, with regard to the use which Christians should make of the
record of His dealings with His earthly people, we are bound to turn
it to most profitable account by learning from it the urgent need of
walking humbly, watchfully, and faithfully in our high and holy
position. True, we are the possessors of eternal life, the privileged
subjects of that magnificent grace which reigns through righteousness
unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord; we are members of the body
of Christ, temples of the Holy Ghost, and heirs of eternal glory; but
does all this afford any warrant for neglecting the warning voice
which Israel's history utters in our ears? are we, because of our
incomparably higher privileges, to walk carelessly and despise the
wholesome admonitions which Israel's history supplies? God forbid!
Nay, we are bound to give earnest heed to the things which the Holy
Ghost has written for our learning. The higher our privileges, the
richer our blessings, the nearer our relationship, the more does it
become us, the more solemnly are we bound, to be faithful, and to seek
in all things to carry ourselves in such a way as to be well-pleasing
to Him who has called us into the very highest and most blessed place
that even His perfect love could bestow. The Lord, in His great
goodness, grant that we may, in true purpose of heart, ponder these
things in His holy presence, and earnestly seek to serve Him with
reverence and godly fear.
But we must proceed with our chapter.
At verse 26, we have a point of deepest interest in connection with
the history of the divine dealings with Israel. "I said I would
scatter them into corners, _I would make the remembrance of them to
cease from among men._" And why did He not? The answer to this
question presents a truth of infinite value and importance to
Israel--a truth which lies at the very foundation of all their future
blessing. No doubt, so far as they are concerned, they deserved to
have their remembrance blotted out from among men; but God has His own
thoughts and counsels and purposes respecting them; and not only so,
but He takes account of the thoughts and actings of the nations in
reference to His people. This comes out with singular force and beauty
at verse 27. He condescends to give us His reasons for not
obliterating every trace of the sinful and rebellious people--and oh,
what a touching reason it is!--"_Were it not that I feared the wrath
of the enemy_, lest their adversaries should behave themselves
strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord
hath not done all this."
Can aught be more affecting than the grace that breathes in these
words? God will not permit the nations to behave themselves strangely
toward His poor erring people. He will use them as His rod of
discipline, but the moment they attempt, in the indulgence of their
own bitter animosity, to exceed their appointed limit, He will break
the rod in pieces, and make it manifest to all that He Himself is
dealing with His beloved though erring people, for their ultimate
blessing and His glory.
This is a truth of unspeakable preciousness. It is the fixed purpose
of Jehovah to teach all the nations of the earth that Israel has a
special place in His heart, and a destined place of pre-eminence on
the earth. This is beyond all question. The pages of the prophets
furnish a body of evidence perfectly unanswerable on the point. If
nations forget or oppose, so much the worse for them. It is utterly
vain for them to attempt to countervail the divine purpose, for they
may rest assured that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will
confound every scheme formed against the people of His choice. Men may
think, in their pride and folly, that their hand is high, but they
will have to learn that God's hand is higher still.
But our space does not admit of our dwelling upon this deeply
interesting subject; we must allow the reader to pursue it for
himself, in the light of holy Scripture. He will find it a most
profitable and refreshing study. Most gladly would we accompany him
through the precious pages of the prophetic scriptures, but we must
just now confine ourselves to the magnificent song which is in itself
a remarkable epitome of the entire teaching on the point--a brief but
comprehensive and impressive history of God's ways with Israel and
Israel's ways with God, from first to last--a history strikingly
illustrative of the great principles of grace, law, government, and
glory.
At verse 29, we have a very touching appeal. "O that they were wise,
that they understood this, that they would _consider their latter
end_! How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to
flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them
up? For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves
being judges."--There is, there can be, but the one Rock, blessed
throughout all ages be His glorious name!--"For their vine is of the
vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes
of gall, their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of
dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."
Terrible picture of a people's moral condition drawn by a master-hand!
Such is the divine estimate of the real state of all those whose rock
was not as the Rock of Israel. But a day of vengeance will come. It is
delayed in long-suffering mercy, but it _will_ come as sure as there
is a God on the throne of heaven. A day is coming when all those
nations which have dealt proudly with Israel shall have to answer at
the bar of the Son of Man for their conduct, hear His solemn sentence,
and meet His unsparing wrath.
"Is not this laid up in store with Me, and _sealed_ _up among My
treasures_? To Me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall
slide in due time; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the
things that shall come upon them make haste. For the Lord shall judge
[vindicate, defend, or avenge] His people, and _repent Himself for His
servants_, when He seeth that their power is gone, and there is none
shut up or left." Precious grace for Israel by and by--for each, for
all, _now_, who feel and own their need.
"And He shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they
trusted; which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine
of their drink-offerings? let them rise up and help you and be your
protection. See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with
Me; I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal;"--wound in
governmental wrath, and heal in pardoning grace; all homage to His
great and holy name, throughout the everlasting ages!--"neither is
there airy that can deliver out of My hand. For I lift up My hand to
heaven, and say 'I live forever.'"--Glory be to God in the highest!
Let all created intelligences adore His matchless name!--"If I whet My
glittering sword, and Mine hand take hold on judgment,"--as it most
assuredly will--"I will render vengeance to Mine enemies, and will
reward them that hate Me"--whoever and wherever they are. Tremendous
sentence for all whom it may concern, for all haters of God--all
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God!--"I will make Mine
arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh; and that
with the blood of the slain and of the captives, _from the beginning
of revenges upon the enemy_."
Here we reach the end of the heavy record of judgment, wrath, and
vengeance so briefly presented in this song of Moses, but so largely
unfolded throughout the prophetic scriptures. The reader can refer,
with much interest and profit, to Ezekiel xxxviii. and xxxix, where we
have the judgment of Gog and Magog, the great northern foe who is to
come up, at the end, against the land of Israel, and there meet his
ignominious fall and utter destruction.
He may also turn to Joel iii, which opens with words of balm and
consolation for the Israel of the future.--"For behold, in those days,
and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and
Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down
into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for My
people and for My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the
nations, and parted My land." Thus he will see how perfectly the
voices of the prophets harmonize with the song of Moses, and how
fully, how clearly, and how unanswerably, in both the one and the
other, does the Holy Ghost set forth and establish the grand truth of
Israel's future restoration, supremacy, and glory.
And then, how truly delightful is the closing note of our song! how
magnificently it places the top-stone upon the whole superstructure!
All the hostile nations are judged, under whatever style or title
they appear upon the scene, whether it be Gog and Magog, the Assyrian,
or the king of the north--all the foes of Israel shall be confounded
and consigned to everlasting perdition, and then this sweet note falls
upon the ear,--"REJOICE, O YE NATIONS, WITH HIS PEOPLE; FOR HE WILL
AVENGE THE BLOOD OF HIS SERVANTS, AND WILL RENDER VENGEANCE TO HIS
ADVERSARIES, AND WILL BE MERCIFUL UNTO HIS LAND AND TO HIS PEOPLE."
Here ends this marvelous song, one of the very finest, fullest, and
most forcible utterances in the whole volume of God. It begins and
ends with God, and takes in, in its comprehensive range, the history
of His earthly people Israel--past, present, and future. It shows us
the ordering of the nations in direct reference to the divine purpose
as to the seed of Abraham. It unfolds the final judgment of all those
nations that have acted or shall yet act in opposition to the chosen
seed; and then, when Israel is fully restored and blessed, according
to the covenant made with their fathers, the saved nations are
summoned to rejoice with them.
How glorious is all this! What a splendid circle of truth is presented
to the vision of our souls in the thirty-second chapter of
Deuteronomy! Well may it be said, "God is _the_ Rock, His work is
perfect." Here the heart can rest, in holy tranquillity, come what
may. Every thing may go to pieces in man's hand, all that is merely
human may and must issue in hopeless wreck and ruin, but "the Rock"
shall stand forever, and every "work" of the divine Hand shall shine
in everlasting perfection to the glory of God and the perfect blessing
of His people.
Such, then, is the song of Moses; such its scope, range, and
application. The intelligent reader does not need to be told that the
Church of God, the body of Christ, the mystery of which the blessed
apostle Paul was made the minister, finds no place in this song. When
Moses wrote this song, the mystery of the Church lay hid in the bosom
of God. If we do not see this, we are wholly incompetent to interpret,
or even to understand, the holy Scriptures. To a simple mind, taught
exclusively by Scripture, it is as clear as a sunbeam that the song of
Moses has for its thesis the government of God, in connection with
Israel and the nations; for its sphere, the earth; and for its centre,
the land of Canaan.
"And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of
the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. And Moses made an end of
speaking all these words to all Israel; and he said unto them, '_Set
your hearts unto all the words_ which I testify among you this day,
which _ye shall command your children to observe to do_, _all the
words of this law_. For it is not a vain thing for you, because _it is
your life_; and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the
land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.'" (Ver. 44-47.)
Thus, from first to last, through every section of this precious book
of Deuteronomy, we find Moses, that beloved and most honored servant
of God, urging upon the people the solemn duty of implicit,
unqualified, hearty obedience to the Word of God. In this lay the
precious secret of life, peace, progress, prosperity--all. They had
nothing else to do but _obey_. Blessed business! happy, holy duty! May
it be ours, beloved reader, in this day of conflict and confusion, in
the which man's will is so fearfully dominant. The world and the
so-called church are rushing on together, with appalling rapidity,
along the dark pathway of self-will--a pathway which must end in the
blackness of darkness forever. Let us bear this in mind, and earnestly
seek to tread the narrow path of simple obedience to all the precious
commandments of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Thus shall our
hearts be kept in sweet peace; and although we may seem, to the men of
this world, and even to professing Christians, to be odd and
narrow-minded, let us not be moved the breadth of a hair from the path
indicated by the Word of God. May the word of Christ dwell in us
richly, and the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, _until the end_.
It is very remarkable, and indeed eminently impressive, to find our
chapter closing with another reference to Jehovah's governmental
dealing with His beloved servant Moses. "And the Lord spake unto Moses
_that self-same day_"--the very day in which he uttered his song in
the ears of the people--"saying, 'Get thee up into this mountain
Abarim, unto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over
against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the
children of Israel for a possession; and die in the mount whither
thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother
died in Mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people; because ye
trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of
Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because ye sanctified Me not
in the midst of the children of Israel. Yet thou shalt see the land
before thee; _but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give
the children of Israel_.'" (Ver. 48-52.)
How solemn and soul-subduing is the government of God! Surely it ought
to make the heart tremble at the very thought of disobedience. If such
an eminent servant as Moses was judged for speaking unadvisedly with
his lips, what will be the end of those who live from day to day, week
to week, month to month, and year to year in deliberate and habitual
neglect of the plainest commandments of God, and positive self-willed
rejection of His authority?
Oh, for a lowly mind, a broken and contrite heart! This is what God
looks for and delights in; it is with such He can make His blessed
abode. "To this man will I look, even to him who is poor and of a
contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." God, in His infinite
goodness, grant much of this sweet spirit to each of His beloved
children, for Jesus Christ's sake.