Disbelieving God’s Promise Leads to Wandering

To paint a picture of the opening scene of Deuteronomy, I would start with the book’s author, Moses, that servant of the Lord, standing at the center as if at a pulpit on an elevated rock. Now to your far left, imagining yourself in that great congregation, we will see references to creation, to the covenant promise, and then the exodus event, where God redeemed his people. Continuing to come toward the center, from left to right, there is the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, and then finally, just to the left of Moses, with him as a part of them, is that assembly of Israel themselves, the older generation that had left Egypt. They were the Moses generation. Of course they fell in the wilderness, but we are combining an imagined storyboard with the physical scenery. Now move from center to the right. There is a new generation, with Joshua at their head. They are the immediate audience of this book. And then finally to the far right, let us picture an enormous window, sunlight beaming into our stage. This is Canaan. Or as it is better known at this point, The Promise Land—a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:8). And the author of Hebrews teaches us that this land was a type and shadow of the eternal rest of all believers (Heb. 4:1, 6, 8-11).

The ancient Jews had their own title to this book, after its first words: דברים But what happened in the second century B. C. is that the Jews who had been in exile in Alexandria had taken on Greek as their common language. They needed those Hebrew Scriptures in Greek and so came the Septuagint. And one of the features of that translation was new Greek names to books like בְּרֵאשִׁית, “in the beginning.” So they just took the Greek word for a thing’s beginning, γεννάω, and came up with Genesis. Now the word DEUTERONOMY means “second law” from the Greek words for second (δεύτερος) and law (νόμος). And that doesn’t mean a new law, as if the law at Sinai was getting replaced. Rather it was a “second reading,” or an unpacking, or an application of that law, specific to this new generation that would survive the wilderness and enter the land. And so putting this land and this law together will be crucial to rightly applying this book to our own lives.

• Promise

• Disbelief

• Wandering

Doctrine. Disbelieving God’s promise leads to wandering.

Promise 

Verses 1 to 8. Here we are shown where they are and where they’ve come from—from Horeb [or Sinai]1 (v. 2) to the plains of Moab (v. 5), which is still beyond the Jordan (vv. 1, 5), which just stresses that they were technically still in the wilderness. So I say our “window” is to the far right, but technically they hooked around the Dead Sea and were at the east side of the Jordan. But the key verses here are 5-6 and 8. There are two points on a map—Sinai and Canaan—and the line that connects the two dots is made of law and promise. Note that the covenant of grace that God made with Abraham wasn’t left somewhere back behind Mt Siani, and now the covenant of works with Moses has taken over. 

Beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying,

“The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, ‘You have stayed long enough at this mountain … See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them’ (vv. 5-6, 8).

Paul explains Israel’s itinerary: “This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise (Gal. 3:17-18). Just prior to this Paul had said that the promise was ultimately made to a singular Offspring (v. 16) whose name was Ye-ho-shua (יְהוֹשׁוּעַ) or in our English, Joshua, or from the Greek, simply “Jesus” (Ἰησοῦς). Moses was the man of law. It was not fitting that they be taken into the land by works. Joshua’s name means “the LORD is salvation” (Ps. 3:8; Jon. 2:9), so it was fitting that Jeshua took them into the land of promise. But as they move forward by grace alone, through faith in the Offspring to come, what does Moses do when they arrive in Promise Land? Answer: Moses undertook to explain this law (v. 6). And there’s your verse for the meaning of the word DEUTERONOMY: Moses is going to unpack the law for the Joshua generation. The law for the people of grace. Not just that—the law to live long in the land. The law for a new creation. 

Verses 9 to 18. In the youth of Israel, one man would have tried to carry them all on his shoulders, but God used a pagan like Jethro to advise Moses:

What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening? … look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. And let them judge the people at all times” (Ex. 18:14, 21-22).

Something of a repeat of this happens in the New Testament church’s youth, when the Jerusalem Apostles were bearing the whole burden, until the Lord moved them to appoint similar men that we call deacons to free those elders up to the ministry of the word and prayer (cf. Acts 6:1-7). But leaving aside the specifics of church government, this is the youth of the Moses Generation. Brand new Christians: fresh out of the chains of Egypt, having witnessed the deliverance of God, and ready to take on the world.

But the whole reason for that need for leaders to lift Moses’ burden is the number of the people. This is another way for Israel to remember, “Oh, yeah, God has already been fulfilling his promises to Abraham.” How so? The Lord your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven (v. 10). That was a promise to Abraham wasn’t it? And here they were, a living, breathing proof of God’s promises. 

Disbelief 

Verses 19 to 25. We don’t have to know all the exact geography from Egypt to Canaan. But what we do have to notice here is “the LORD our God commanded us” (v. 19); “which the LORD our God is giving us” (v. 20); “See, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers has told you” (v. 21). See the constant interplay of law and gospel, command and promise. I am giving you this. Take it. 

Verses 26 to 33. This is the sending out of the spies. In spite of the good report from them, the people as a whole were struck with fear. We find the story in Numbers 13:26-14:10. “The sons of the Anakim” (v. 28) were there. These were believed to be giants.2 Regardless, God’s word calls their attitude and their action REBELLION. Why? It says, “Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God” (26). God commanded what he had promised. Yes he commanded a hard thing; but he had already told them that he promised that same thing. And we dishonor God in a double way when we refuse what he freely offers. It is one thing to disbelieve God and it is another to disobey God. And both are worthy of God’s curse and wrath. But when we marry disbelief and disobedience, failing to claim his promise, we make him out to be a stingy and weak-armed liar, which is blasphemy.

Wandering

Verses 34 to 43. Quickly go back to verse 2—ELEVEN DAYS. Just eleven? How did eleven days turn into forty years? Many times in life we take wrong turns. I can remember taking a wrong turn off of I-4 in Orlando on my way to RTS and being so irritated that I cost myself what seemed like an hour (but was probably only 15-20 minutes tops), and we have all had that experience of watching a movie that turns out to be a dud, and what do we say? “That is two hours of my life that I can’t get back.” Two hours tops. Try forty years. A forty year “wrong turn.” But come to think of it, many, many Christians have been watching a movie, or listening to the wrong GPS, that does take years or even decades of our lives that we can’t get back. And all of a sudden we find ourselves in the midst of this ancient people. We have been them. 

The next thing to see is God’s response: “And the Lord heard your words and was angered” (v. 34). Even Moses is forbidden entry on account of his own disbelief3 (v. 37). But there is a special emphasis here on one’s children. Notice one main reason why God was going to judge the Moses generation: “And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there” (v. 39). There is a kind of fatalism or pessimism that is hateful. It is one thing to be a realist about human nature and the future of one’s own country, and shake your head and lament where things are headed. But it is another thing to give into that darkness and yet have children; like Hezekiah letting those Babylonian spies in to scope out Judah’s gold. And when Isaiah called him on it, what did that otherwise righteous king say? After the prophet said this will bring God’s judgment in the form of the Babylonian armies: “Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘Why not, if there will be peace and security in my days?” (2 Kings 20:19) So many have secretly reasoned, Well, I will be long dead by then. Who cares!

Here is a crucial verse in looking in the book to our “left,” to that Moses Generation: ‘But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea’ (v. 40). The first curse in the book of Deuteronomy is the one that had already happened in their history, forty years prior. The people’s disbelief brought the curse of wandering. By WANDERING here we are not speaking of some cute or harmless “midlife crisis” or season of “self-discovery,” but rather a waste of the lives that God has given us. 

As one commentator says, “Israel moves from the disobedience of inaction to the disobedience of self-chosen action.”4 ‘Then you answered me, ‘We have sinned against the LORD. We ourselves will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us’ (v. 41). In Exodus 23 God had promised that “if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries” (v. 22). But it gets reversed if they disobey. Here the Amorites are compared not to giant things, as they were worried about, but to swarms of bees (v. 44). And that signals to us that it is ultimately God fighting for them or against them that matters.

Verses 44 to 46. We could say that disbelief in God’s promise leads to “wandering … and even an occasional slaughtering.” Now when a Christian takes a turn that is so wrong, that forty years pass before they see it, verse 45 says, “you returned and wept before the LORD,”—though you may be saved (and please hear this, the generation was not necessarily all going to hell: they are a type)—but God doesn’t do reincarnation, or Groundhog Day, or anything like that to rewind the clock. We get one life. As Paul speaks of those who will be saved, but “as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). Life here will have been wasted, And there is nothing for the Moses generation in this life once we return to this law, but to hear it like we couldn’t hear it back at Sinai, after that glory of our salvation from Egypt. What can we do now but return to it for this second look, and weep? But actually there is much to be gained. We will limit ourselves to three applications for the lives of those in the Moses generation and those in the Joshua generation. 

Practical Use of the Doctrine

Use 1. Instruction. Our first application has to be to think through how to apply this book in general. Let me start you with a hermeneutical principle right from the book itself. Moses addresses later generations through the generation that is right in front of him. And that means that (whoever they are), God is really addressing those future generations:

Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess (31:9-13).

Not just future generations, but Jews and Gentiles (the sojourners). But beyond this text, there are Paul’s words: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring” (Gal. 3:16), and who are those offspring? “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham” (Gal. 3:7). This helps explain why Deuteronomy is the third most quoted book of the Old Testament, in the whole Bible. From this book Jesus answers both the devil in the wilderness5 and the man who asked him what the Greatest Commandment was.6 It was Deuteronomy that upheld how God rules his people, whether by judges or kings, and it was this book that a righteous young king named Josiah rediscovered that touched off the last and great Reformation of the land. Deuteronomy is that “second law” that echoes down through the ages, and builds in clarity to those seeing into the Land.

Use 2. Admonition. Moses gives what might look like a mere side-note: ‘Our brothers have made us hearts melt’ (28), and then precedes their fear of the people and their cities. Don’t be like those brothers. Don’t be like those who told William Carey, “No, don’t preach to those heathens in India,” or who said Ann Hasseltine, “Don’t waste your life getting married to that Adonirum Judson and dying in the jungles of Burma!” or those who tried to intimidate Athanasius or Martin Luther, “Why fight over that? You’re tearing the world apart!” Don’t be like those brothers: because for all your fear, no one will remember what you do. This world will be enough fire to melt your courageous brother’s hearts. Don’t be that fire! In other words don’t think and speak and do all that you do all for reasons not to believe God or not to obey God.

The charge implied by this text is the exact opposite. Be a Joshua or Caleb, who were not mindlessly optimistic about the road ahead. They saw the giants just the same as the other spies did. But they knew that, “you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 Jn. 4:4). Don’t be those spiritually spineless critics. Believe God’s promises and stand firm!

Use 3. Consolation. Are you wandering personally? Have you disbelieved God’s word? There is going to be a lot of death in this book. Shocking death. Senseless death. So it would appear. God is putting these kinds of death in our face. A generation dies physically. Faithful Moses dies in the wilderness. Cities are annihilated in holy war at God’s command. All perplexing. All unfair. Skeptics snarl at such things and say, “Looks like your God missed a spot. And how can you justify this devoting everyone in these cities to the sword?” But actually, both they and often we have missed the biggest things. God is perfectly aware of the senselessness of all this death. But he wants to place before our eyes the hard truth that our disbelief is to blame for this wasteland. Wandering is what the people of the devil do by nature. But for God’s people to wander represents a most serious and tragic missing of the point of life. 

But to return at all, to still hear his voice, is an opportunity to believe his promise. We are not gathered to this second law merely for a second chance at life. We have not been awakened from our wandering to return to Moses. He too died and stayed dead. The Gospel is far better news that that, because of what this Land is going to represent. 

“For you were straying like sheep but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Pet. 2:25).

You were wandering, but Jesus has sought you and bought you with His redeeming blood.

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1. “The name Horeb is normal for Sinai in Deuteronomy except in 33:2. Elsewhere Horeb is used only in Exodus 3:1; 17:6; 33:6; 1 Kings 19:8; Psalm 106:19; Malachi 4:4” - J. A. Thompson, Deuteronomy, 82.

2. Numbers 13:22, 28, 33.

3. Numbers 20:2-13

4. Edwards J. Woods, Deuteronomy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 85.

5. Matthew 4:4 citing Deuteronomy 8:3

6. Mark 12:29-30 citing Deuteronomy 6:4-5