Lesson 67 - The Interplay Between the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants

Deuteronomy Lesson 67

The Interplay Between the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants

Deuteronomy 30:1–10
Fellowship Chapel
13 December 2011
Charles Clough
© Charles A. Clough 2011
www.BibleFrameworkApplied.org

Tonight I wanted to begin by referencing an article that appears in The Journal which is a production of the Summit Ministries. I don’t know how many of you know about Summit Ministries; but Dr. Noble started this out in Colorado. They annually train hundreds of people, men and women, who are going to college. They do a fantastic job. A lot of their graduates - it’s a pretty intensive week or two weeks (I forget how long it is.) but many of the graduates of this group have gone on and done some great things. In fact the gal, remember last year the Christian young lady that exposed ACORN? She is a graduate of Summit Ministries. So he’s had quite an effect.

In fact I was talking to Dr. Nobel a year or so ago and he was telling us that Oxford University had asked him to bring evangelical students, a certain number of them, to Oxford University for a semester of studies. I asked him. I said, “Well, Oxford University in England! What in heaven’s name are they going to an evangelical leader and wanting evangelical students to come to Oxford and participate in their training program?” He said, “Well, I asked them that too.” Here’s what Oxford said. “We like evangelical students because they are responsible. They do their assignments. They don’t trash the dormitories; and they’re respectful of the teachers.”

Think about that. What they’re saying at Oxford University is they like the lifestyle that goes with evangelicals. They don’t seem to connect the fact that the reason those students act that way is because they believe a certain way. If you don’t teach the Christian historic faith, they’re not going to act that way. The result is their campus doesn’t work because they don’t have the actions. But it never dawns on these PhDs that are tenured on a college campus that student behavior is related to student beliefs.

So anyway in this article, it’s a comment on the debt crisis in our country. It has some very interesting things. The title of the thing is U.S. Debt Crisis Illustrates Failure of Ideas. It goes on to describe Keynes and some of the liberal economists. Then it gets down to this: A nation’s economy reflects its spiritual state.

Remember when we went through economics and we used the word “impute” which is an accounting term. You impute a certain value to a good or service. That’s what the market’s doing. It’s pricing something because you have all the people out there in the market place that are imputing a value to this good or service.

Then Paul picks this up of course and says, “Well, imputing the value of economic processes are the general revelation of how God values.”

That’s why you use the words “impute the righteousness of Christ to our account.” Well, that’s what he’s getting at here. “The charge that capitalism run amuck is the source of our current economic problems - not true,” says Miller. This is a Christian man that’s working economy.

Economics merely reflects the spiritual condition of a society and is actually a subset of ethics because it measures how moral beings act within markets. The spending culture in Washington based largely on Keynesian economics and a secular humanist worldview also runs afoul of biblical notions of what it means to be human. As dependence on state welfare increases so too does the notion that humans can subsist without producing anything in return. But Scripture is clear. Work was ordained by God before the fall so work is inseparable from the core of humanity. God created us to do something. Our souls matter. Anyone who has ever worked a hard day’s work knows that. In terms of how the problem trickles down to families and individuals…

And then he goes on to describe some practical points.

But I think it’s interesting that he pulled together what we’ve been talking about in Deuteronomy that the economic behavior of society is deeply and profoundly related to the values of society because that’s what economics is doing. It’s valuing things—goods and services. So obviously behind the economics is a value system. So if you have people constantly borrowing because they need something today instead of saving for it; then you’re going to have the thing that we saw in Deuteronomy. The borrower is servant to the lender. It always works that way.

After all that, let’s have a word of prayer as we start with chapter 30 in the book of Deuteronomy.

On the handout under Roman II you see that we’re going now into chapter 30. We won’t get through 30 tonight for the reason that I thought we could. In chapter 30 of Deuteronomy, this is the second of the two chapters that make up this fourth exposition of Moses. If you’ll look up in the block (the Scripture block there) you’ll see the 4^th exposition of the Torah is a prophetic fore view of covenant performance. That’s why chapter 29 deals with a view of history. In chapter 30 we have Moses’ closing challenge.

On the handout I say that you want to keep the big picture of the 4th exposition in view because we’re going to get into some details. Tonight we want to work with a theological problem that is at the foundation of all the prophetic books of the Old Testament. It’s one that’s basic to how the prophets in the later books of the Bible speak of this text.

We want to keep the big picture in mind. First, Israel’s decision enters it into a dynamic relationship with God that features choices and their inescapable consequences. That’s why in 29:19—if you’ll look back on verse 19 Moses said: ^NKJ Deuteronomy 29:19, “and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’ -- as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.” So that’s the exposition that Moses is warning them about is you can’t ignore this. To ignore what Moses is saying is to entertain a false view of history. Ultimate responsibility - and that’s emphasized here because Israel’s future is contingent on their choices. This is the lesson the Jew had to learn in the Old Testament. Our choices determine our future.

That’s true of the gospel whether we accept the Lord Jesus Christ and believe that He is who He claims to be, or we don’t. That’s why John 3 says: ^NKJ John 3:19, “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

Moses wants Israel to understand its historic existence under contracts with God.

Now notice the plural, two contracts with God. That’s the dilemma that we want to look at tonight. On the one hand there is the Abrahamic Covenant. Then some 6 centuries later you have the Mosaic Covenant. These two covenants have different structures. That’s where the tension is.

So point A, is now we want to look at the interplay between the Abrahamic and the Mosaic covenants. That’s the first ten verses of chapter 30. That’s why we have to stop tonight and deal with the ten verses instead of going through all 20. So the first item under A is: do the promised cursings invalidate the Abrahamic Covenant? So let’s turn to Genesis 12:1 and we want to look at three passages about the Abrahamic Covenant. You’ll see on the surface, it looks like a conflict is going on here. We’ve looked at Moses in 29. Chapter 28, he’s talking about the cursing. He’s talking horrible exile. He’s talking about the failure of the nation. It looks like if the nation is going to fail, now the question is - how are these promises of the Abrahamic Covenant ever going to come to pass?

In chapter 12:1, 2, 3 God says:

^NKJ Genesis 12:1, “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house…” So there is a culture break. This is the first Jew. This is the beginning of the counterculture. This is pulling out of paganism. The Gentiles are left to their paganism. Now the Jew has to separate himself to a land, “I will show you.” So now he has to go to a location. ² “I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So clearly there’s a worldwide impact of the Abrahamic Covenant going to happen. It starts with Abraham. This is why we have back in this point is this is where exclusivity really gets clear in the Bible because at this point God is abandoning working with all people groups except one. This strikes the modern mind as very offensive; but this is where it starts. God says, “I am going to do something unique; and I’m going to bless the world. So, I haven’t forgotten all the people groups.” But, the blessing doesn’t come directly to the people groups. The blessing is mediated through Abraham in some way, shape and fashion. This of course, in our gospel it’s still there. “No man comes to God except through Me,” Jesus says. There’s that exclusivity that rubs everyone in the PC culture the wrong way.

Now in the next chapter in Genesis 13, if you’ll look right after Lot and Abraham have their dispute about real estate. In verse 14 after Lot goes away: ^NKJ Genesis 13:14, “And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him:” Now look at the language here. Keep Genesis 12:1-3 in mind but now look how it expands. “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are -- northward, southward, eastward, and westward; ¹⁵ “for all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever. It’s pretty clear that there is a land dimension to Abraham. Now what is not stated in this verse is what are the boundaries. It’s left in a vague fashion. Notice as the prophecies, Scriptures, and revelation continue in history you get tighter and tighter on the specifics. So Genesis 12 it was just “come to the land and you are going to be a blessing.” In Genesis 13 now he’s in the land; and he’s going to own it—his descendants forever. So that’s an advance.

Now we come to Genesis 15. This is when the covenant is actually made and formalized with Abraham. ^NKJ Genesis 15:6, “And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.” That’s the verse that Romans uses that Paul picked out going all the way back to the foundation of this exclusivity—this plan of salvation. It starts not with works. It starts with trust. That’s why Paul can argue that the trust happens in the New Testament the same way. [7] Then He said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to inherit it. [8] And he said, “Lord GOD, how shall I know that I will inherit it?”

Then you go through the making of the covenant and so forth, in verses 9 through 11. Verse 12 is when Abraham falls asleep so that only one person signs the covenant. Abraham isn’t even awake so he can’t sign the covenant. It’s signed only by God. That’s why it’s an unconditional covenant. But then it says:

^NKJ Genesis 15:13, “Then He said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. ¹⁴ And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.’ ” So in continuing in verse 18: “On the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying …” Now as revelation continues, we spell out the details. Now it’s not just the land of Palestine; but now we have the dimensions. “… To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates –

You know in a map of the Middle East. The Euphrates is in Iraq. So what the Abrahamic Covenant is promising the Jews is all the real estate from just west of Gaza all the way through Palestine, all the way beyond Jordan, all the way over into Iraq through Syria. This is an enormous piece of land compared to the little tiny sliver that modern Israel occupies.

So this is the land issue. Then as I point out (turn back to Deuteronomy 30) in the handout later Transjordan is added. In Deuteronomy 1 to 4 we went through that in the early chapters of Deuteronomy. That was something. So then I point out here is an example of Deuteronomy 29:29 working it’s way out. That was the last verse of chapter 29. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever”. God in His omniscience has all kinds of details in His mind. He chooses to reveal some in a progressive fashion. So here’s an example. Deuteronomy 29 where unknown, unrevealed information later adds to the details of the covenants.

Now that’s the idea of history we want to look at tonight. This gets into an example of why paying attention to the Word of God is so, so very important. Until you grasp the prize and the blessing that you hold in your lap (the Bible) information that has come from God’s mind to yours and mine; we don’t appreciate the darkness of the world. As I’ve pointed time and again with this diagram seen again and again, the domain of human knowledge is limited. It’s particularly limited looking at the future. You’re cut off. There is no empirical way to know the future. The future on an unbelieving basis cannot be known—period. The future cannot be known on an unbelieving basis. The only way the future can be guessed at on the unbelieving basis is perpetuating the present into the future. That’s the only tool the unbeliever has.

When we come to passages like this, God is tipping His hand and saying, “I’m telling you certain things about the future. You’re not going to get this from anyone else.” So we have a tremendous blessing in the Bible in that we can know the details in the future because the God of history has told us this. We have therefore truth that is inaccessible to any unbeliever.

So the question now is—what is the history of Israel in light of what Moses has just done in chapters 28 and 29? It looks like it’s left in a mess. The nation goes into exile. The other pagan nations look at it and say, “What a disaster.” It’s a testimony to these people’s disbelief, their disobedience to the Lord. So the question is: if that’s the case, how will the Abrahamic promise ever come into existence? So that gets to point 2 under A. The Abrahamic contract or covenant promised to be fulfilled; but it’s going to be in a way that does not invalidate the Mosaic Covenant. In other words the Mosaic Covenant says, “You will inherit this land when you obey Me.”

That’s volition. That’s the condition. That’s the contingency. But because the Abrahamic Covenant says that this is going to happen…here you have sovereignty and free will at work. The Abrahamic Covenant is a declaration of God’s sovereign will that Israel will come back to the land and they will come back because they obey God and they’re going to repent. So that’s a prediction of human choices. Only God the Creator has control of history like this. This again is the sovereignty-free will issue. The Abrahamic Covenant does not negate personal responsibility, but it does give a hope to the nation.

Chapter 30 now, we’ll look at verses 1 and 2. These ten verses in chapter 30 deal with the interplay between the Abrahamic and Mosaic Covenants. There are three events that Moses speaks of in verses 1 and 2.

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:1, “Now it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you, ² and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, ³ that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity”

Don’t read those verses too fast. That verse is saying an enormous amount of ideas because what God is saying is that, “I know your choices. History is going to cause you to choose and come back to Me—at least some of you come back to Me. The Abrahamic Covenant will be fulfilled.”

So we want to look at the 3 things that comprise verses 1 and 2. The first thing is he says: “when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse …” That is covered in most of the historical books in the Bible so that’s when you go ahead and you read Joshua. You read Judges; you read Samuel 1 and 2, Kings 1 and 2, Chronicles 1 and 2. That’s the recording of the coming of the blessings and the cursings. So that part of the Old Testament documents the fact of the 900-year outworking of blessing and cursing just as God said it would happen. “So those things are going to happen to you.”

Notice which comes first—the blessing. When they went into the land, finally under David and Solomon they basically get some of it together. So they are blessed. Then the nation goes downhill and the nation is cursed—so blessing first, cursing second. That’s 9 centuries. So that’s going to happen. Then it says and this is a key point and this is why you want to look carefully and sort of unpack this verse. There’s a lot in it.

The second event that happens is: “and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you…”

We want to zero in and focus on that phrase, that verb on “when you call them to mind” because this is a revelation of how the human heart works. When you look at this as I point out in the handout, the future historic perception of the design of their history is going to dawn on them. Apparently, they just never got it until after they experienced the horrors of the cursings and the exile. Then something happened. If you’ll look in the handout under parenthesis 2 where I deal with that second event, I quote I Kings 8:47. That’s Solomon’s prayer.

If you’ll turn to 1 Kings 8:47 in whatever translation you have see if in your translations (I’m using the New King James.)—see in verse 47 if it is translated the same way that it occurs in chapter 30 of Deuteronomy.

^NKJ 1 Kings 8:47, “yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive…” That’s the way the New King James translates it: “when they come to themselves”. This is identical to the prodigal son in Luke 15. ^NKJ Luke 15:17, “But when he came to himself…”

So now we have to pause for a moment and see what we are learning about our hearts here. We’re learning something about deception, self-deception, because if you come to yourself (if that’s the expression) these are the Jews in the exile and they call these things to come to mind and they cause these things to come to their heart. Literally in the Hebrew the way it reads is “you will return these things (your history, your experience) and you will return it to your heart.” So they must be missing from their heart. The prodigal son must somehow be separated from himself.

This is biblical psychology in all of its depth here. This goes far deeper than Sigmund Freud. This is very important I think for us to just stop for a moment. In your outline I tell about sin and self-deception. I quote Romans 1:18-23 that famous passage.

^NKJ Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, ¹⁹ because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, ²¹ because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man— and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things …”

What that passage in Romans 1:18f tells us, as I’ve said again and again, there is no man, woman, or child out there who does not know that God exists. The idea that someone doesn’t know whether God exists is an illusion. So we want to deal with that because the Bible says so.

I’m not writing this; Paul writes this. This is the claim that Paul is making—that there are no atheists. Everyone knows God is. Not only that but He uses a very strong verb in the Greek—clearly seen. It’s in the present tense! They are clearly and constantly seeing. All men, women and children daily interact with the revelation of God. They are daily in contact with God’s revelation.

So now the question is why is it that some claim they don’t know that God exists? So what we have here—we’ve to deal with self-deception both from the standpoint of the unbeliever deceiving himself into thinking he doesn’t know God exists and ourselves when we’re out of it - how we deceive ourselves.

So I’m using insights from Greg Bahnsen’s PhD dissertation UCLA 1978 which was a very, very thorough examination of self-deception, theologically and philosophically. What his desertion shows is that your psychological state does not mirror your epistemological state. By that what he means is you cannot really be certain that you know something when in fact you know it.

So there are two ways this works. Number 1, one can deny he knows when in fact he does know. An everyday example is one discovers he really does know how get to a given location thinking he didn’t know. It just sort of comes to him. “Oh yeah, I know that.”

But when he started out he didn’t really think that he really knew that. We’ve all had those kinds of experiences. That’s a trivial everyday example of psychologically not believing you know something when in fact you really do know it. To make sense of all this you have to think about your psychological state, what you’re aware of, versus your epistemological state where in the depths of your heart you really do know something.

Two, one can affirm he knows when in fact he doesn’t know such as a student on an exam thinking they really understood the teacher. But then on the exam it turns out he really didn’t understand the teacher. Now in that case, psychologically the student had confidence that he knew but his psychological state did not reflect his epistemological state. That’s Bahnsen’s point is that there are differences here and you have to distinguish the differences. Your psychological certitude is not a reflection of what you know and don’t know. Sometimes it is; but it’s not always true.

Now when does that happen? Psychological certainty or uncertainty is one thing -following the outline. Epistemological justified belief that one has good and sufficient reason to believe something is true is quite another thing.

Bahnsen gives an example of Mrs. Jones. Mrs. Jones has a son and the son has a problem in school. The problem the son has in school - the teacher’s disciplining her son. They are sending notes back to her that, “Your son is a thief. Your son has stolen other children’s stuff here in the classroom. We’ve caught him doing it. We call you in.”

Mrs. Jones is highly offended that the school is calling her child a thief. She denies this. She gets very angry at the principal and starts episoding with the school board and everything else about the false accusations to her child. But then as Dr. Bahnsen argues in his thesis, he says, “Follow Mrs. Jones home and watch where she puts her pocketbook.” It turns out she locks it. What does that act show you that Mrs. Jones knows? She knows very well that her son is a thief. But it’s too painful form Mrs. Jones to understand and admit this. So psychologically she denies that he is a thief, which leads us now to this comment.

Condition 1 happens when responding to the knowledge entails painful adjustments in one’s lifestyle. It’s the pain of admitting what that basic knowledge determines. When the pain level is high enough, you will psychologically separate from the knowledge. What drives the wedge between psychological and epistemological is the perceived pain. “If I admit that I know this, then certain changes in my lifestyle are going to have to happen and that is painful for me to contemplate.”

So this bifurcation occurs and it occurred with the prodigal son. Remember the prodigal son? He knew his father. He knew his father was worthy. He knew all that; but he didn’t want—it was painful for him to live with that father under those conditions. So psychologically he separates from his knowledge of his father and the assets his father had and his father’s love for him. So he goes and he gets a job and winds up in a pigpen and all the rest of it. You know the rest of the story; you know the story of the prodigal son.

Then the text in Luke 15 says—remember Luke - of all the gospel writers which of the four writers is a doctor—medical doctor? Which of the four gospel writers clearly looks at heart discussions? It’s Luke. That’s what he is. He’s a physician. He spots these things. The ancient physician had to be a very good psychologist because he didn’t have MRIs and he didn’t have x-rays. He had to infer diagnostically from his patient. He had to know whether his patient was putting him on or wasn’t putting him on. So the ancient doctors were really psychologists at heart.

So here’s Luke reporting what Jesus taught on the prodigal son. It encaptures Luke’s mind that, “Gee, you know when Jesus told this parable it says the prodigal son came to himself.”

In the story of the prodigal son, what is it that forces that prodigal son to come to himself? What forces him to conform his psychological state to his epistemological state? What is the process going on with that boy? The process is told in the parable because what happens is painful though it was to admit his father loved him and to admit that he would have to live in conformity with his father’s wishes—that what was painful. But what became more painful? Living without his father. Now the pain level hurts the other way. So it’s the pain of suffering with your allusions and with your deceptions that finally wakens you to the less painful admission.

“Gee, I really know that my father is there and he loves me.” So the prodigal son comes to himself. His psychological state now comes back into union with his epistemological state. He comes to himself. So now in this verse it says, “The blessing and cursing will come to you and you will,” as the Hebrew says, “You will return them to your heart.”

Where does this returning to your heart, where are these people physically located—culturally located? “… and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you.” In other words it doesn’t happen in the land. It happens outside the land because outside the land they’re strangers; they’re foreigners. The cultural pain that they’re living is so painful.

One of the psalms—I forget whether it’s 138 or 38 - one of the psalms where it talks about the fact, “You ask me to sing. I can’t sing in exile. The songs of Zion are too painful for me to sing out here in this culture.” So it’s cultural pain. It’s agony to be under the discipline of God. It’s horrible. It’s pressure. So it’s under that pressure that finally the pain level of discipline is so much greater than the pain level of admitting, “I am a sinner before Yahweh, and I must live by what He tells me to.” That’s painful; but boy it’s not as painful as the discipline. So therefore, I will call these things to myself. My psychological state comes back into coherence with my epistemological state.

This is why Moses leading up to chapter 30 he’s already said in verse 4 of 29 … remember that? ^NKJ Deuteronomy 29:4, “Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.” It’s what Moses observes about these people. “You’ve seen these things; and you just don’t get it.” Then of course as I’ve said earlier, verse 19. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 29:19, “…saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’...” …The idea that you can get away with this; the idea that I want to live my life.

“It is too uncomfortable, too painful to submit to what God tells me to do. I don’t like that. I don’t like the idea that He tells me how to think. He tells me what I am supposed to do in the morning, what I am supposed to do in the evening, what I’m supposed to do with my business, what I’m supposed to do with my money, how long I should take notes out. I’m tired of this. I don’t like it so I’m going to invent my own little thing.”

So now they call them to mind. So this now…I’ve gone through some of these underlines up on the top of the page there - future historic perception of the design of their history. That’s the point. They will understand finally in exile under the discipline and suffering of God’s discipline- pressure. Finally, they perceived there is a design and meaning to their history. “We finally get it. We really see God loves us. We really do see that His way is best for us. We had to experiment because we thought our way was better. Now we’ve learned our way wasn’t better so we perceive the design of history.”

Then we come one down epistemological justified belief that one has good and sufficient reason. That’s the epistemological state that somewhere we have learned something and we know very well it is good and sufficient reason to believe. We do not doubt it. It’s there.

Condition one happens when responding to the knowledge entails painful adjustments in one’s lifestyle. That was the prodigal son.

Now we come down to Deuteronomy 30:1-2—call him to mind. The pain of consequences finally seen to outweigh the pain of acknowledging what they already know. It’s too bad we all learn this way. The best lessons we ever learn are the hard ones. When we screw up and we make a mistake and we suffer. It just seems like that’s what we have to do to learn something. It’s true of us all—me, you, everybody.

So now we have back to the idea as I tried to illustrate in this slide self-deception we have a psychological state of affirming or denying knowledge of X. That’s the psychological state. The epistemological states of knowing or not knowing X—those aren’t the same. They should be the same, but the problem is over here there is pain or pleasure in knowing this. And there is pain or pleasure in affirming or denying it. The pain and pleasure poles play this role.

This is why in this case after the Jews went into exile and experienced that kind of pain associated with that situation they decided, “You know we’re phonies. We don’t have to suffer this stuff. We got ourselves into this thing because we didn’t like God telling us what to do. So I think that’s a better way.” That’s what’s happening here in this second great event.

Now we go to the third step. Then is says repentance. “… and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God drives you …” That’s the heart change. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:2, “and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul …” Of course we’ve seen the whole book of Deuteronomy explaining what that’s all about. But the point is, as I point out here, is repentance (at the bottom of page 2) requires realignment between one’s psychological state of awareness and one’s deep down epistemological state. Repentance, and this is the lesson (insights), we get out of this passage.

Repentance can’t occur until certain things happen. The first thing is the underlying and suppressed truth has to be released. It has to be allowed to bubble to the surface of our conscious mind. We have to give it permission to envelop us. Two, the pain of suppression is seen to be worse than the pain of acknowledgement. This was their experience. Three, the authority of the Word of God replaces the authority of self.

This is what he says. ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:2, “and you return to the LORD your God and obey His voice …” That is, His commands, His scriptures—the Word of God.

Then it says in chapter 30—then after that grand act which is all internal. Notice this is not external. This is an internal heart situation. Then finally in verse 3 we have a political, physical, historical observed thing that happens. Now in verse 3: “that the LORD your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the LORD your God has scattered you.” So that’s verse 3. God blesses after. “…,and gather” This sets up the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant.

It says: ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:4, “If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.” It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, He will restore you to this land. That’s restoration. [5] “Then the LORD your God…” Here’s the Abrahamic promise coming up now. “…will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.” Now this cycle of exile and restoration, this is why I pointed to Deuteronomy 29:29 when the big ideas are progressively revealed in history, you get more and more specific.

So if you look there in the outline, what I’ve done for you is I’ve summarized how many different exiles and restorations are in the Bible. In 721 BC the northern tribes were exiled; in 586 BC the southern tribes were exiled. In 516 BC there was a partial restoration back to the land, but the residue of Jews were still all over the world in the Diaspora. Then in the AD 70 exile of most Palestinian Jews there was a small remnant in the land down to 1948. The question we have to face then is—is the restoration spoken of in Deuteronomy 30, has it ever taken place? There have been partial restorations, but if you look carefully at the language particularly if you look at ^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:4, “If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you.” That hasn’t really happened. There hasn’t been a total restoration of Israel. That’s why we are pre-millenialists. That is we believe the Lord Jesus Christ is going to be involved in this.

Now we go through some verses. So we want to take a quick tour of some of the prophecies of the Scriptures. Now with the background you have from Deuteronomy, you can read these prophetic writings with understanding where the prophets are coming from.

So turn to Isaiah. Let’s go to the big three: Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. These are the big boys. There are other prophets called the lesser prophets. The major ones are Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. ^NKJ Isaiah 11:11, “It shall come to pass in that day …” Keep in mind—when is Isaiah writing? He’s writing in a time of horrendous depression. The nation is about to go into exile. The people need hope. They’re not experiencing any blessing right now. They’re in the cursing phase. Yet Isaiah through God he’s going to give them hope. “… That the LORD shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea. [12] He will set up a banner for the nations, And will assemble the outcasts of Israel, And gather together the dispersed of Judah From the four corners of the earth.” So that’s yet to happen. That has not happened yet.

Let’s turn to Isaiah 27. While Isaiah (he’s not distributing candy here) is accusing these folks of sin and saying, “You are going into discipline. You’re going to suffer.” But he reminds them with these little nuggets that the Abrahamic contract guarantees Israel’s future. ^NKJ Isaiah 27:12, “And it shall come to pass in that day That the LORD will thresh, From the channel of the River to the Brook of Egypt; And you will be gathered one by one, O you children of Israel. ¹³ So it shall be in that day: The great trumpet will be blown; They will come, who are about to perish in the land of Assyria, And they who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, And shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.”

That’s Isaiah.

Now let’s go to Jeremiah, next guy. Jeremiah is the second great prophet. All they’re doing is—what’s happening in these verses that we’re going through—these are amplifying and giving more details to what we’ve just seen in Deuteronomy 30. They are explicitly letting people know Deuteronomy 30 is true and here is some more information about that act.

^NKJ Jeremiah 23:3. “But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. ⁴ I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the LORD. ⁵ Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness; A King shall reign and prosper …”

Now all of a sudden involved in these details of restoration from all the globe back to the land, the Messiah appears. So somehow we didn’t know that back in Deuteronomy 30; but now we do. The prophets are adding new information as this prophecy unfolds. Now we realize the Messiah somehow is going to be involved in this.

Jeremiah 23:7 says: “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “that they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ ⁸ but, ‘As the LORD lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ ”

See what verses 7 and 8 are implying? What is the greatest act of every Jew today thinks of? The Exodus. What this verse is saying is that in the future the nation will say, “Ah, the Exodus was just a little thing. What we remember as Jews in the Millennial Kingdom is how He delivered us from every nation on earth and brought us back.” It’s going to be something far greater than the Exodus that is about to happen. And somehow the Messiah is connected with this.

So now let’s go to the New Testament and see how Jesus picks up and continues exactly same line of thinking in Matthew 24 in the Olivet Discourse. Christians who don’t know their Old Testament kind of mess up here—Christians will tend to read as the rapture into this. It is not the rapture of the church. The church isn’t even in view in the Olivet Discourse. The Olivet Discourse is a discourse to the Jews about their land, about their country.

^NKJ Matthew 24:31, “And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” Same language that we saw in Jeremiah, same language in Isaiah… So if you know the Old Testament we don’t get confused when we come to these passages in the New Testament. That deals with the movement, the physical movement.

Now let’s go back to Deuteronomy 30 and finish up these first ten verses and look at something else, another piece of this future act that is going to eclipse the Exodus. In chapter 30, verse 6 it says…because remember if these people are going to come back and enjoy blessings what has to happen to their heart? They have to satisfy the Mosaic Law. They have to love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul. Well, how’s that going to happen? Verse 6 tells us: “And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

So now we have the nation forecast to be in a 100% state of regeneration. That’s why not all Jews are going to make it at this point. That is unfolded later on in the prophets in the book of Revelation and so forth. There will be a remnant that is going to come back. They will fulfill the Abrahamic Covenant and 100% of them will be believers.

We don’t have time tonight but in your outline right after 30:6, you’ll see I list where this New Covenant is expounded both in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Keep in mind the three big boys: Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. So it was two of the men, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, who forecast details of this New Covenant. The New Covenant is going to be with Israel. It’s going to happen to change their hearts so the whole thing can be fulfilled.

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:7, “Also the LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you.”

Well, that hasn’t happened in history yet; but it’s going to. The nations are going to be judged on how they treat the Jews. That’s why historically in our country evangelical Christians have exercised a profound effect on the foreign policy of this nation toward Israel. It’s deeply resented by those who are not pre-millennial. They don’t understand why we do that. They oppose us. They ridicule us. Nevertheless we do it. So when the liberal denominations are going to pull their stocks out of Israel and Israeli stock, Israeli companies that’s because they’re a-millennial. They see no future in Israel.

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:8, “And you will again obey the voice of the LORD and do all His commandments which I command you today.” So there’s the reestablishment of the authority of the Word of God. [9] “The LORD your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your land for good. For the LORD will again rejoice over you for good as He rejoiced over your fathers.” That summarizes what we’ve been studying in Deuteronomy, does it not? That’s what blessing looked like all through that. That’s why you’ve heard me say, “Look at the details of the Deuteronomic text so you know what the coming kingdom is going to look like.” The blessings that were localized in the land of Palestine are going to mushroom in a much more profound and permanent fashion when Christ comes back.

The other thing to remember about how volition and sovereignty work together—what was the remark Jesus did when He was riding the donkey on Palm Sunday? The crowds worshipped Him. He looked at them because He knew that within hours they would be crying to crucify Him. He knew. He could see through people. He said, “It’s too bad Jerusalem but you will not see me again until you say, addressing Israel, ‘Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.’” …quoting Psalm 19. We gather from this that the Lord Jesus Christ is basically saying that sometime in the future prior to His return the nation Israel is going to repent. They will look forward to the Messiah.

Some have said, and I think they’re correct, that the nation will have their eyes opened at least many of them will, to Isaiah 53, that passage that is read often at Yom Kippur. They will read that and say, “Ah! This isn’t talking about the nation. This is talking about our Messiah and it’s talking about the Messiah in language that can only means He’s Jesus.” That’s the moment where Jesus is cleared to return.

So all this interaction takes place so the blessing in verse 9, the same kind of blessing that we studied over and over again in this book. Then to remind us that the Abrahamic Covenant is sovereignly fulfilled; it’s not independent of volition and choice because it ends in verse 10.

^NKJ Deuteronomy 30:10, “if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” So the condition is never eliminated. It’s just fulfilled. That is how the interaction occurs between the Abrahamic and the Mosaic Covenants.

In conclusion on the handout, here’s the Deuteronomic view of history summarized. Israel’s role to bless the world will be fulfilled. There are three ways in which Israel is a worldwide blessing:

1. Israel is the conduit through which we got the Bible. We didn’t get the Bible from the Gentiles. We go the Bible through the Jew. It was the Jews that gave us the Bible.
2. It is the Jews that gave us the Messiah. Jesus was not a Gentile; Jesus was a Jew.
3. Israel will and hasn’t yet is Israel will usher in world peace and she will do so because she meets the spiritual conditions. Worldwide peace has not yet occurred, but will.

Israel’s role will not be fulfilled automatically. There will be a national repentance that is required. Personal responsibility –this is what we walk away with. Here is the takeaway idea here of all the Deuteronomic stuff we’ve talked about. Do you see and can you appreciate the role of responsibility? Do you see how it’s there—every single chapter of Deuteronomy? Personal responsibility is the primary characteristic of human history that God honors. Not blame shifting, not so-called entitlements, and not attempts to replace repentance with political and economic policies. Political and economic policies will not return Jesus Christ. It is going to be welcoming Him and trusting Him.

That finishes the key hard part of Deuteronomy 30. We should be able after the holidays to finish up 30 and go pretty fast through 31 to 34. We have covered basically the hard stuff. The only hard detailed thing will be Deuteronomy 32 because Deuteronomy 32 is the national anthem of Israel. This is the song of Moses. Unlike our national anthem that deals with Fort McHenry and the Battle of 1812 and so forth that just past - our national anthem commemorates that event in the past. When we study chapter 32 and Israel’s national anthem what we’ll notice is that it deals not just with the past; but it deals with the future. So the song of Moses will be one that gives you the whole panorama.

It’s too bad the Bible doesn’t preserve the music. I wish somehow - some musicologists feel that somehow have the Hebrew text and the psalms have these funny little marks. For years they have tried to do research and figure out - what did the music sound like. These things were sung. Wouldn’t it be neat if we could reproduce what the music was? Talk about a great hymnbook. It would be fantastic, but it’s lost. Obviously the Holy Spirit didn’t see fit to preserve the music. Maybe He wanted to see what we could gin up with our musical skills to accompany His work.

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Under A—Do the promises … involve the Abrahamic Covenant? The Abrahamic Covenant will be violated.

Where? History unfolds in a rational manner. The future revelation - I am is defining what rational manner looks like. Future revelation is consistent with previous revelation. I contrast to Islamic theory of revelation where there can be abrogation.

The future in the Bible has to be consistent with the past.

Okay, are there any questions?

Question

She has raised the issue here - what about faith and belief. I think that you have to distinguish, and I think the Bible does, between the two actions of believe and repent. I see that in Acts 20 particularly because in Acts 20 I think it’s verse 21 (somewhere in there) Paul comes back and he’s explaining his missionary journeys and he very carefully distinguishes God and faith in Jesus.

He says:

^NKJ Acts 20:21 “testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

I take that as a very important verse because I think what Paul means by that is that all men really do know God exists. The problem is that if they don’t repent and acknowledge that they know that God is there; they’re not going to believe in Jesus Christ. In other words, while there’s a bifurcation between the psychological state and the epistemological state, you don’t believe anything. That has to be resolved.

This is why the prodigal son. He comes to himself. He has to do that before he comes to his father. It has to be that heart work, the mysterious way however the Holy Spirit works.

Now when we trust in faith, that’s a response of God speaking to us through the Word of God.

^NKJ Acts 16:31, “So they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.’ ”

That’s information that comes to my ear. It comes to my heart and I trust it. But am I going to trust that message if I’m suppressing my knowledge of God? I find that hard to believe. So I think this is why there has to be a clear…somehow the conscience is also involved in this because you have that passage in 1 Corinthians 8, 1 Corinthians 10, Romans 14 where Paul says, “Look, don’t peer pressure a fellow believer into doing something that violates his conscience because if you do, you’re violating his faith. He just can’t believe the food situation right now because the Word of God isn’t clear enough in his heart. So if it isn’t clear enough in his heart, he’s not going to believe. And if you try to put peer pressure on him to make him conform to more mature believers, now what have you taught him?”

Instead of believing with a clear conscience the Word of God, he’s doing it to please you - peer pressure. This is why within evangelicalism there has been considerable discussion over mass evangelism. This is not to demean Billy Graham in any way. But, one of the problems in mass evangelism that you have is - are we creating a powerful social peer pressure?

“My girl friend is with me, so I’m going to go forward,” kind of thing.

Now that happens but just because it happens doesn’t mean the method’s invalid. It is something that you have to be aware of. Peer pressure at the point of gospel hearing is something to think about because Christianity doesn’t convert by the sword. It doesn’t convert by forcing people to believe. People have to be convinced in their hearts of hearts. The rest of it is just hoopla. It’s social pressure. That’s all it is.

Question

He is asking about the coming to, if it’s literally coming to out of a stupor or something. I think there is probably a parallel to that. Think about the language Paul uses in Ephesians 5:18.

^NKJ Ephesians 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,

If you’re not careful people—we will see pastors sometimes do this.

“Well, the filling of the Spirit is like an alcohol thing.”

No, it’s not. There’s a contrast there. Don’t be drunk. Don’t be in a stupor; but be filled with the Spirit. The parallel passage over in Colossians says, “What is the filling of the Holy Spirit? It’s allowing the Holy Spirit free reign in your heart.”

So apparently, it’s something like when our psychological state is cut off somehow from our knowledge say again like the prodigal son. The Bible calls that a stupor in various passages in the Word, literally.

This is why—I think it’s in Thessalonians—we should not sleep like others. What’s that? Be asleep and come to. So yes, that language phenomenologically that’s very similar to what’s going on there apparently.

Question

How do you get out of the stupor kind of thing? How did Israel get out of a stupor here—or is going to get out of a stupor? It’s not because Israel is on a self-improvement program. Israel gets out of a stupor in this case by the suffering of the exile. It is pressure, a providential working of God - bang, bang, bang kind of - however He works in our lives.

Suddenly, “Wait a minute. Am I stupid here? What’s going on?”

That’s what happens.

Question

Come to your senses same kind of thing. It’s a similar thing.

Question

In that passage? Oh, it’s grace.

Question

He’s asking about—is that a gift of God that comes to Israel in the exile? Well, it’s hard to label what’s going on there other than the fact that God providentially is disciplining them. So it’s not like He left them alone. He’s hounding them.

Some of the old Christian devotional writers—they call the Holy Spirit the Hound of Heaven that barks, comes after us.

I think really if God totally separated from us and left us completely alone, we’d be a mess. He has to come after us because how else do you interpret chapter 30 here, and the prophets? God is mysteriously doing this. That’s why I prefaced it with the Abrahamic Covenant versus the Mosaic Covenant because on one hand it is certain that this is going to happen. Well if it’s certain to happen then somehow God must be sovereign enough to cause it to happen. But how does He cause it to happen? Somehow He does it without violating our responsibility. He doesn’t do a pin like a puppet kind of thing. Because Israel has to suffer. I mean these people go through the wringer. And it’s still happening. Hitler and the Holocaust—they’re still suffering and they still don’t see the point. You talk to the average Jew today and they’re not believing in the God of Israel. In fact they deeply resent the God of Israel.

“If God is so good why was my aunt fried in Auschwitz? Thank you God. Big deal.”

Question

But the restoration, that theme as I broke it down—the exile restoration cycles kind of thing, you see the idea of the restoration happens periodically in history; but it’s never the restoration; but it’s sort of like that restoration.

Question

Arnold Fruchtenbaum and Tommy Ice have studied this a lot more than I have. They point out there’s a passage in Ezekiel where he speaks of a restoration in unbelief. That’s probably what we see today with Israel. It’s certainly not a restoration like this.

Question

He’s saying that there was always a remnant that believed. This is something else that I didn’t cover tonight. The prophets distinguish between a faithful remnant and the nation at large. That faithful remnant did obey the Lord. Their address –if we had time we would go through the big three: Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. You’ll see that when they worked with the culture of their time, they recognized there was a faithful remnant.

In fact if you remember the dialogue between God and Elijah when he was so depressed and thinking he was the only guy left. What did the Lord assure him?

“I have 7,000 people. I have a 7,000 remnant, Elijah. Don’t think of yourself as the Lone Ranger. I’ve got other people there.”

But that’s a lowly, small percentage of the overall nation. So when he says that, now he’s talking nationally. The nation will do what the remnant was doing all along.

Question

God opens your heart. How He does that has been a debate among theologians for centuries. The point is that we are depraved people; and we’re naturally going to disobey God. That’s our nature right now.

None of us here who have believed—we came to faith. I think if those of you who became Christians later in life—can’t you remember events leading up to your conversion? It’s sort of like a pregnancy. I can remember the Lord led me in different little things until finally I believed in the Lord. It wasn’t some flash in the pan thing. It was a series of events and those events happened however He does it. He treats each one of us as individuals. If we had a complete readout of how anyone of us tonight in this room became a believer, every one of us would have a different story. It shows us how God works with us as individuals. You can’t say because God worked that way with person X that’s the model and how He works with everybody. It doesn’t work that way. The Holy Spirit is more of an artist.

Anyway, I hope tonight we’ve gotten to see the complexities of the heart and how we can deceive ourselves and how Israel has deceived itself. It’s still in deception frankly.