Honesty

For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 25:16

You are truth
Your words are true
You do not lie
In all You do
You are the Truth

But we believed The Lie
and now dishonesty
is everywhere with us
the truth is hard to see
because we believed The Lie

You call us to truth
and You change us within us
so that righteousness can be known
as we find truth and life in Jesus
You call us to truth

We know the Truth
You set us free from sin
so that honesty can be known
and truth can flow from within
We know the Truth


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Grace in the past shaping the present

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I command you to do this.
Deuteronomy 24:22

God wanted Israel to remember her past. Both here and just a few verses up in Deuteronomy 24:18, God jostles the memory of Israel's past slavery in Egypt. There the nation was impoverished, a minority, and discriminated against by cruel slavery. That memory was to inform them in their treatment of the poorest of the poor (see Deuteronomy 24:17-18). and in the creation of a means by which the impoverished could work diligently to provide for themselves (Deuteronomy 24:19-22).

God's insistence upon this was not just so that Israeli society would not be blighted by poverty. There was a lesson of national trust and grace and salvation to tell. And by appealing to their past, God was helping them to realize that greater spiritual reality. Helping the poor by providing sustainable work that would meet the basic needs of the impoverished showed God's grace. God cared enough to rescue slaves from Egypt. They should care for each other with that kind of rescuing love and grace.

It is good for me to look at my present through the lens of my past. God has given me a lot from my simple roots. And I must invest my life and my time with the same grace He has blessed me to share with others. It is no bother to help others when you realize just how much God has helped you!


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I Promise

You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the LORD your God what you have promised with your mouth.
Deuteronomy 23:23

A promise made to God is not a light issue. It is not good to be incautious in promising something to God. He expects us to fulfill our vows. The childhood Sunday School song has double impact: "Oh be careful little lips what you say." Good promises can be as important to understand... even more so than why we avoid using bad language. In fact, insincere promises may be more damaging... at least in terms of our relationship with God.

Part of the reason that I pray with people when we counsel together and reach biblical understandings of what they should do has to do with this principle of honoring our vows. They should keep their promise to God, not just to me or to another person. It is in that promise that true and vital accountability takes place. God will make sure by circumstance or conviction of His Spirit that the promise is understood and kept by His child. God is faithful, and He expects the same in us in what we say to Him.

Promises are certainly cheap these days. But they should not be so. We should carefully commit to what we promise to do for several reasons. I'd like to suggest that these three are a good place to start thinking of the impact of our promises:
1) If the promise is a commitment before God, it should be held as a deep conviction, not just a casual wish or desire.
2) God's character ultimately is reflected in the way I keep a promise if I am His child. I should always consider this when I have made a promise to Him, before Him, or because of His work in my heart.
3) Our relationship with God is tested and challenged to maturity by the commitments we make to God. Making such promises and commitments (promises if you will) are then a living path of real sanctification.


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Respect... even in a criminal code

So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, when you do what is right in the sight of the LORD.
Deuteronomy 21:9




This chapter contains wisdom from God on exceptional circumstances showing how to commit to justice despite evil human choices. The first instance has to do with an unsolved homicide. The leaders are to mourn the victim and express horror for the sin through a special sacrifice that the people would witness. This kept murder from feeling commonplace.

The second exceptional case is for a woman captured in battle as a war bride. God is not necessarily condoning the practice. He is addressing calloused heart attitudes. If her husband eventually does not like her, he has to treat her right, even if it means returning her to her own people (Deuteronomy 21:14).

The third case involves inheritance rights in polygamous marriages. Again, God is not condoning the practice. He is ensuring that favoritism is not practiced. The firstborn son, regardless of parentage is to be guaranteed as the heir (Deuteronomy 21:17).

The fourth episode takes place in the case of an openly rebellious child (probably a young adult). Favoritism would not withhold punishment from that child. It would create an evil to keep that sin from being punished (Deuteronomy 21:21).

The final warning is to avoid overt humiliation in the execution of capital punishment. A body was not to be displayed overnight as a grotesque warning. There was to be a level of respect shown even to a convicted and executed criminal (Deuteronomy 21:23).

These all show that God will punish sin, but will not all disrespect of people or of His law in the process.


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When Risk Management Is Not Necessary

for the LORD your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.
Deuteronomy 20:4

I find an interesting thing going on with this verse. It was meant to encourage Israel in the imminent task of taking control of the Promised Land. They were going up against cities and people who were stronger, settled, and more experienced in battle. But God was assuring them victory. He does so with a string of promises. One promise is directed toward their foes. Three promises are directed toward Israel.

The negative promise is toward the enemies of Israel. God had set Himself against them. This was not arbitrary. In this context it is clear that an enemy was any group of people who refused to make peace with Israel (Deuteronomy 20:10-12). Only when a city had set itself against terms of peace could Israel attack. At that point God was against that city as well.

The three positive promises directed toward Israel were meant to show the power of God to them. First, God fought WITH them. He was alongside them and aware of the battle dangers for He was right there with them in the battle, not watching from the distance. Second, God was fighting FOR them. Almighty God was battling their cause. That is sort of an ultimate weapon! The final promise is summed up with the promise "to give you the victory". God had a purpose in the battle that He would work: to give His people the victory. Clearly the battle and its success would belong to God, even though He also asked the people to fight. This is good risk management, if ever there has been!


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Judicial Standards That Make Sense

And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.
Deuteronomy 19:20

The point of good law combined with a fair judicial system that truly punishes crime is the creation of a civil society. When the punishment fits the crime after fair examination to all involved and justice is met, the net result on a society should be moral commitment. Other people should respond with satisfaction that justice was served. And the real punishment should help deter future actions of the same kind.

It is debated that just sentences are actually a deterrent, and the high end of the debate centers around the death penalty. But it seems to me that right here in this scripture we have wisdom from God confirming that just sentences on carefully tried and convicted criminals serve as an instructive deterrent to the rest of society. I believe God teaches this principle so that we can have His heart on sin and punishment.

We must remember the issue is not the practice of rash or arbitrary harshness. No one could be convicted on circumstantial hearsay. Two or three witnesses were required by God's instructions (Deuteronomy 19:15-17) and false witnesses were fated to suffer the intended punishment of the one falsely accused. To lie about a murder put the liar in jeopardy of the death penalty. So there were built in prescriptive principles to prevent abuse. The result of such careful legal consideration was fear of God and fear of punishment. Both of them were a positive result. That is a good thing for all of us.


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Leaders & the Law

And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
Deuteronomy 17:19-20

This requirement that Israel's king maintain a personal relationship with God through the Law was meant to help secure strong spiritual leadership. The king was to handcopy the Pentateuch (see Deuteronomy 17:18). He was to keep it handy and read from it daily.

The benefits of such a daily regard for scripture were personal and also protective for the nation. Personally, the king would learn to fear God by such commitment to His Word. He would learn to keep the Law and do what God commanded. This would keep the king tender toward God. It would keep God clearly in control of the kingdom because the king answered to God and looked to God's Word for guidance and leadership himself.

The nation would be protected if the king did this. He would not be easily swayed from putting aside God's instructions for the nation. Idolatry would be difficult if he daily practiced this discipline of reading God's Law. God promised a long rule and a strong family to the king who would practice daily study in the Law. The nation in turn would benefit from the rule of a spiritually healthy king and his sons after him. Leaders who obey God will bless many generations.


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Some thoughts on justice

You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Deuteronomy 16:19-20

Justice matters to God because it is righteousness applied to the most difficult human circumstances. God is just. He treats humanity with grace and mercy. He does not let sin go unpunished, yet He forgives the truly repentant and extends mercy. He has pity on the needy and truly cares for them.

God also cares about human justice and those who are charged with dispensing it because it is a means that He has set up (that's what the last half of this chapter in Deuteronomy is all about) to answers the prayers and right the wrongs of people in need. It is not the only answer to their prayers, but righteous judges acting on biblical principles, practicing true justice are meant to be dispensers of God's mercy and help. In Israel, justice was not about human power to gain. It was about the human power to aid others and to give.

A rant about the absurdities of any one system of human justice corrupted by sin would be pointless. Biblical principles of justice must still frame the Christian worldview on society, even if much of our culture disdains biblical christianity and sees no need for it with stringent secular commitments. Secularism as a model, especially naturalism, cannot be fair or equitable because at its heart it has to be committed to survival of the fittest or strongest. Justice is thus impossible and the situation is warped into injustice by sinfully, selfishly warped human nature. God's truth, however, is still the corrective.


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The call to charity for those in poverty

For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.'
Deuteronomy 15:11

God's plan for Israel was that a responsible society would help all of its members. If find it interesting that God Himself acknowledges that in any human society the reality of some poverty would always exist. Even in Israel... even in the Promised Land. God said that while Israel existed as a nation, poverty would be a social issue.

We should help those in need. That is a given. The deep question is how. But nowhere in scriptures are we told to expect that by human effort alone the elimination of poverty is possible. Human systems and social orders are too corrupted by sin to achieve this. Instead, God wisely instructed Israel that care for the needs of the poor was a matter of personal moral conviction and action. "YOU... open wide YOUR hand... to YOUR brother... to the needy ... to the poor... in YOUR land." It is a part of good personal character to not ignore the extreme need of those in poverty.

I prefer to view this not in terms of income levels or lack of dollars, but in terms of human need for the basics... food, shelter, safety. The poor of the bronze age Middle East were victimized and often died in starvation and abuse. God would not let His people tolerate and perpetuate that kind of treatment of the neediest people made in His image. Instead, care for the poor meant employing them (read the rest of Deuteronomy 15) and feeding the poorest of them. Lives would be saved and grateful service rendered in return (Deuteronomy 15:16-18). So charity from the heart can fend off the worst parts of extreme poverty.


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Holiness is a two way street.

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
Deuteronomy 14:2

This emphasis comes at the short reminder of dietary law restrictions to the Jews in Deuteronomy 14. And in it I realize that God intended holiness to be a relationship, and not just a condition. They were to sanctify themselves by obeying a holy God. And the Law was meant to show that Israel was a unique and holy people, chosen by God and set apart to Him.

It is easy for me to look at these more restrictive and peculiar parts of the Pentateuch and throw out accusations of arbitrariness. But there is purpose behind even the strangest restriction or command. The purpose was to reflect the holiness of God in the lives of His people. It was to draw them into relationship with Him. That certainly was not arbitrary.

That principle holds true in Christ Jesus. I am part of a holy people, the Church, who are the Body of Christ and are destined to be the Bride of Christ. And we are loved, made holy, as we worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness! Holiness is as much about relationship with God as it is about a theological or personal condition. It is a sacred and unique personal relationship. God calls us to Himself, saves us in His Son, declares us holy and helps us live that way through the guidance of His clear Word and personal presence of His Holy Spirit guiding us. He helps us live in holiness with Him, for Him, and to Him because He loves us.


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Faithfulness to the Lord can be tested.

You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.
Deuteronomy 13:4

This is a call to faithfulness to the Lord. It is a command surrounded by a warning to not drift into any kind of idolatry. There are three ways in which the worship of other gods might drift into Israeli society. These were to be guarded against.

The first warning (Deuteronomy 13:1-5) is to guard against false prophecy. It was likely that someone might initially seem to speak words from God. They might twist His words to their own agenda. That kind of thing might even be accompanied by some display of unusual spiritual power. But if the prophet leads people away from the worship of the Lord, he is to be rejected by the people and executed. He is an idolater.

The second source to guard against was close association of family or friends (Deuteronomy 13:6-11). If anyone wants to advocate the worship of anyone by the Lord God of Israel, they are leading people into idolatry. The temptation might come from close associations and thus be socially complicated, but it is still to be dealt with severely.

The third influence in this chapter (Deuteronomy 13:12-18) was from cultural forces outside immediate personal contact. These cultural forces were never to be allowed to twist thinking towards the acceptance of idolatry. Fierce loyalty to God was to mark all the relationships with family, with friends, and even with the culture in Israel. And they serve as reminders to watch these relationships in ourselves today.

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Two Dangers When Responding to Scripture

Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
Deuteronomy 12:32

The call to obedience to God's Word means the strict avoidance of two clear extremes. The first thing to do is to avoid adding to the command of God. It is more than just a simple "interpretive error" to twist scripture to make it say something more than it says. Adding to the Word of God always exalts a human contrived thought to the same authority as one of God's thoughts. It gives a man the authority of the Word of God. That is a dangerous and deadly kind of rebellion.

The second danger is equally insidious. It involves diminishing God by diminishing His Word. We must not take away from His commands. This is the danger of liberal theology. It insists that sections of scripture have no authority and do not claim to be what they are. In the end this makes the whole Bible completely unreliable. Cults have mastered this technique through "interpretation" that takes away real meaning and authority.

Actually, throughout human history both of these dangers have been used to support apostasy of every kind. When Israel strayed from God at its worst, it either forgot to keep God's Words in idolatry, or it added unfathomable amounts of additional regulation to it making it totally impractical. Both extremes led to sin and judgment. Accepting God's Word at face fall is the goal of every day in any believer who wants a consistent faith.


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Love & Keep

You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.
Deuteronomy 11:1

God did not want to make of His people Israel a nation of blind adherents to the Law. The key to the relationship was love. God loved and cared for them. They loved and kept His commands. The reciprocal nature of the relationship was meant to build the nation into a powerful witness to the world of God's great and unfailing love.

God enters into relationship with us and we should act on our end of that relationship. We should love God. He is always the initiator because we are unable to truly come to Him as dead sinners. But when we feel the call, we must respond! That way that love is expressed is by living for Him, keeping His commands from our hearts. Living as a Christian is all about making our heart's passion that of pleasing our Lord. It is surrender and love in being all consumed in Jesus! It is like what a married person knows in finding joy in the things that delight and please their spouse.

The challenge for me today will be to love God by doing what He loves and commands. It means practicing the right choices, loving people around me even while they are imperfect and even hurtful, just like God loves every sinner while they were still sinners. It means expecting righteous living in my own heart, thoughts, and actions just as God expects that those who love Him would truly love Him from the heart!

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Great in power, choosing to love.

Behold, to the LORD your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the LORD set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day.
Deuteronomy 10:14-15

Moses gave a charge to the next generation of Israel, reminding them of the greatness of God and the compelling nature of God's loving choice of them as His people. They were to enter Canaan and take over its territory because of God's might, power and love. God's ways were powerful, beyond anything that they could ever do. His love that was set upon Israel was great beyond all other love. He stayed with them even when they strayed.

God never is diminished by faithfully loving His creation. Love is not a weakness. It is part of His majestic power. Moses sets the scene of God's inexplicable, amazing, loving choice of sinful Israel by first talking about God's power and sovereign control of all things. His love is thus a sovereign choice rooted in His wisdom... down deep in His ways.

Love is an emotion, but that is often so corrupted in weak human nature. We frequently love imperfectly with sentiment and self driving a feeling we have. And if someone does not feed that sentiment or selfish impulse, we can quickly switch from love to anger or hurt or even hate.

But that is not what God does. God loves because it is His nature to love and He is sovereign and strong in His great love. His love does not just hurt, but it heals and brings glory to Himself by so doing. God is great in love. His is majestic and holy in love. He is wise and sovereign in love. I have a lot to learn from Him about how to love!


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Nobody Deserves God's Grace.

Know, therefore, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.
Deuteronomy 9:6-7

Israel was blessed solely by the promise of God and not because the present generation had earned the gift of the Promised Land. It was clear that they could not be righteous under their own power. God was helping them by the gift of the Law, by the leadership of Moses, and by bringing them into the Land He covenanted to give to Abraham.

Any grace we are given by God rests solely in His nature and benevolence. It does not come because we earned it (Ephesians 2:8-10). God loves us while we are yet sinners (Romans 5:8). He did so with the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness. He does so with rebellious post-moderns who must look to the cross of Christ for forgiveness, perspective, and life.

I too am a rebel heart. I must not forget that. I must not think that I ever earned anything. Hell is what I deserve. Separation from God was my destiny. But mercy and grace were offered by Christ at the cross. I accepted it, and Christ's righteousness has been the only fitness that could take me to God.

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Family Discipline in Love

Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the LORD your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.
Deuteronomy 8:5-6

Discipline is a mark of love. God speaks these words through Moses to a generation that had grown up in the harsh wilderness of Sinai. They were fed by manna from heaven. Their clothing and shoes miraculously lasted an entire generation. They looked for everything to come from the hand of God even as their parents suffered punishment for disobedience. They learned discipline that led to continued obedience.

Hard circumstances enter the lives of God's children. That is true. And the question is often "Why does God bring them?" You can say "allow them" if you like, but personally, for me, that softens none of the reality of the hardship. God is sovereign and pain and difficulty do not supersede His control. If they come to us, He has full knowledge and control over that truth. So, He must be God beyond our thoughts about hardship and He must be a God Who will use hardship in us for His purposes.

When life is hard, it is for our good. God is disciplining us... not in a punishing sense, but in a maturing sense. Difficulties bring their own growth moments. They are deep. They may be emotional. But they are still chances for us to grow closer to our Father as we learn discipline.


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Fear of man or Faith in God?

You shall not be in dread of them, for the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.
Deuteronomy 7:21

Human beings intimidate each other. The bully will always exist as long as one kid is bigger than another. It is the nature of fallen people to hurt and to be hurt. This is true both of individuals and of larger groups of people. Any form of human violence has at its core this kind of pride. And it breeds fear.

Israel could easily be afraid of the task in front of them as they prepared to enter Canaan. God had not chosen them because they were militarily superior or because of their great strength in numbers. They were an insignificant people group on the world scene by God's own estimation (Deuteronomy 7:7). He was going to display His power and strength among them. That is why they did not need to fear what any of the people in the lands surrounding them could do to them. God was in their midst and on their side.

God is great and awesome and powerful. That was true for Israel at the cusp of the conquest. It is always true for those who know God and are His people. There really is nothing to fear when God is in our midst! The task may seem impossible and the opposition looks impressive. Neither of these stand against our great and awesome God. There is really nothing to be afraid of with God in our midst.


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Two Dangers in Dealing with Scripture

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.
Deuteronomy 4:2

There are two dangers mankind always confronts when handling the Word of God. The first danger is to add human constructions to it that are viewed as equal to it. The second danger is to diminish scripture by taking away from its authority. These are both equally dangerous.

Moses warned Israel that both extremes would not be the way to "keep the law" given to them. They needed to guard their hearts from these tendencies. Respect for the God of Israel meant at a practical level honest love and respect for the Word of God. God had revealed His will and ways in His law. They would serve God by not adding or taking away from it.

And the history of Israel eventually led to a dismissive attitude toward this command. The Jews of the First Century had groups that put high regard on oral traditions of the Rabbis. Some invested those traditions with the authority of scripture. Others denied the authority of much of the Old Testament and thus also disobeyed this command.

Both types of groups rejected the "Word made flesh" in Jesus. So disrespect for God's Word defined the generation of Israel of Jesus' contemporaries. This was ultimately a disrespect for God, as shown in the gospels in the way Jesus was treated.

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God...on our side.

And I commanded Joshua at that time, 'Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings. So will the LORD do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing. You shall not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you.'
Deuteronomy 3:21-22

Moses gives credit where credit is due. God had given Israel victory west of the Jordan in order to confirm for the next generation of leaders that the conquest of Canaan would be God's doing. Moses did live to see these initial victories. Joshua would be used by God to lead Israel to the final possession of the Promised Land.

The secret strategy behind Israel's success was not a big secret: God was on their side and their foes did not stand a chance under those conditions. God is with His people. That is an unchanging truth. The same reality marks my life today. The apostle Paul put it in a rhetorical question: "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). Indeed. Joshua and Israel lived this truth every time that they went up against another Canaanite stronghold. And God won.

Lord,
We acknowledge that You are on the side of believers, though at times it may not feel like it when tragic evil seems so strong in our experience. But not even death is our final foe, for Jesus, You have conquered even that! May we follow Your command to experience all that You want to give us!
Amen


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The Good Desert Sands

For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.
Deuteronomy 2:7

Moses talked about the wilderness wanderings as a real spiritual experience of great positive impact... why? The reason he could do so has to do with the audience to whom he is recounting this history. This is the generation that will enter Canaan. The grumbling, faithless Egyptian slave generation have all died in the desert. This new generation, the children of slavery, has grown up in the wilderness. They understood God's provision and leadership in the desert sands. It defined their relationship with God.

In many ways God will use the difficult circumstances of our lives to shape us into a people of faith. That is what I know about God. I appreciate that God saw fit to save me, save my parents when I was very young, and provide me solid church and schooling experiences. My share of desert difficulty came in my teen years, and later in young adulthood. God is sovereign and His purposes prevailed! For through it all, I believe God shaped me for the unique ministry of working with hurting or confused people, some of them casualties of Christian snipers... my own experience at times.

In the desert, Israel lacked nothing. The nation had all she needed in a sovereign, loving, and caring God. The same is true for me. My deserts have been moments where God has become the dearest thing to me. In the desert I have lacked nothing, because the Lord my God has been with me.


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