Sermon Tone Analysis

The Gospel According to Moses, Part 22; Deuteronomy 9.1-12

"By the Numbers: 3, 1, 2"

I have a question as we begin this morning.

And for those who are closely following the manuscript, you can't answer!

What did we talk about last Sunday?

Give up?

The central idea was that God's people have a thankful heart!

I say this not to embarrass anybody, but to simply highlight a major drawback of going through books of the bible, passage by passage.

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that this is the best way to go through Scripture because we deal with the whole council of the word of God.

We talked about genocide that week.

If my preaching style was topical, then I, and more than likely you as well, would never touch that subject, among many other unpleasant subjects in Scripture.

This is what we pastors often do: avoid the really tough things Scripture deals and retreating to things more comfortable and pleasing to hear.

And in my opinion, it is to our detriment.

Obviously topical sermons have their place, like our yearly Christmas series.

And even stand-alone messages when we have 5th Sunday, to make our time observing the Lord's Supper a bit more special.

But it makes our spirit weak, in my opinion to have a steady spiritual diet of topical messages.

There is another drawback in going through the Bible passage by passage.

We tend to forget the context of what we are talking about on a given Sunday.

And that, too is to our detriment, for rarely can a passage be treated separate from the rest of Scripture.

And this is why I at least make the attempt to catch us up as we dive into the passage in front of us.

And today is no exception.

I may not have made things crystal clear as we have gone through Deuteronomy so far, but let me put it on the table now.

This entire book is a collection of Moses' last words.

He is Israel's pastor par excellence.

And if we were actually there to hear Moses back in the day, there would be no break between what we call chapter 8 and our passage for today.

Today, in Deuteronomy 9.1-14, we will see Moses give further instruction, the Torah in the ways of the Lord.

As we know, Torah means the teaching of God's ways to God's people.

And central to this passage today is the Lord's continued teaching about the condition of Israel's heart: proud and stubborn.

Remember in chapter 8, Moses declared that the Lord humbled them, training them to know that he was all they needed.

After Moses reminded the people of the blessings Yahweh gave them and the promise of so many more, he pressed upon them a grave warning: "Don't go after other gods.

If you worship them, I will expel you from my land.

Because my land is indeed sacred space."

So again, in our passage for today, the Lord through Moses has one thing on his mind to teach the people-I say the number 1 with emphasis: "Don't be stubborn."

We will see how the Lord uses 2 things in this passage as well, demonstrating a profound lesson of grace and mercy.

And of all things, this lesson is wrapped up in the 2 tablets of stone the Lord gave Moses, upon which he wrote the summary of the Torah.

We call them the Ten Commandments.

We will even see how the number 3 comes into play here, in that how the Lord overwhelms the obstacles Israel had raised in the past as reasons, or more accurately excuses as to why they could not go in and take the land of promise 4 decades earlier.

So, the title for this message is pretty clumsy, but I can't think of a better one.

So you are stuck with it: "By the numbers: 3, 1, 2."

In our passage, Deuteronomy 9.1-14, we will see the number 3 in vv.

1-3 as Moses deals with what Israel considers obstacles to prevent them from taking the land.

In vv.

4-7, Moses will expose Israel to their stubbornness, along with the pride accompanying this sin, again, the number 1 issue in these verses.

And in vv.

8-14, we will see how the 2 tablets of stone serve as incredible object lessons of grace and mercy toward his people.

So let's talk about the number 3 in Deuteronomy 9.1-3: "Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, 'Who can stand before the sons of Anak?'

Know therefore today that he who goes over before you as a consuming fire is the LORD your God.

He will destroy them and subdue them before you.

So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the LORD has promised you.

So, what were the 3 obstacles Moses mentioned that would make crossing the Jordan river and living in the land of promise difficult?

Great and mighty nations, 7 to be exact.

These were nations God told Israel to completely wipe out: every man, woman, kid and even the animals.

Obstacle 2: great and fortified cities, such as Jericho, the first city Israel encountered.

And we who know the story know how well those fortifications kept Yahweh's troops out of the city!

Obstacle 3: great and tall Anakim.

Remember who they were?

According to the worldview back then, alluded to in Genesis 6, the Anakim were evil personified.

They were the spawn of the watchers--sons of god who had sexual relations with human women, whose goal was to thoroughly corrupt humanity.

Moses didn't say how many Anakim there were.

Though Scripture gives us various locations of where they lived, it makes one wonder just how widespread the Anakim's influence was on the nations.

What makes these obstacles Moses listed so interesting is that these were the exact same reasons, more properly called excuses the spies gave when they scoped out the land 40 years prior.

As a result, the people became terrified and refused to go to war against the 7 nations to wipe them out.

But now, 4 decades later, what did Moses remind the people of?

The Lord will go before them to confront the 7 nations, plus the Anakim.

And Yahweh will help them in exactly, you guessed it, 3 ways.

He will go before his warriors as a consuming fire with devastating ferocity.

The Lord promises he will destroy the nations.

He will subdue them.

So what do we make of this?

Israel emphatically gave the Lord 3 reasons, labeled as excuses, as to why they refused to take the land, while the Lord gave 3 reasons of his own as to why their reasons were invalid.

It was going to be difficult, no doubt, but the issue was one of trust in the Lord.

He commanded them to engage in the battle, but it was the Lord who would ultimately give his people the victory.

I think there just might be an application for us here.

There is no obstacle too great to prevent the Lord's people from accomplishing what he wants done.

For example, as individual followers of the Lord Jesus, think of the spiritual warfare in which we are continually engaged.

But who lives in us?

The Holy Spirit.

He is the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead!

He is the 3rd Person of the Trinity.

There is no sin stronger than the Holy Spirit who lives in us who know Christ as Lord and Savior!

We appeal to the Lord, seeking his help and we will secure the victory!

When tempted, let's immediately go to battle, directing the focus of our inner being on God's word and prayer.

These are our weapons.

Let's submit ourselves under his mighty hand!

Victory is assured!

Truly, the battle is real.

It's tough.

But by his Spirit we have what we need to engage in the battle and win.

Praise be to the Lord!

I think of the church engaged in spiritual warfare as well.

Jesus promised that he will build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail.

Remember, the gates are a defensive mechanism.

In other words, the gates will eventually give way as the church of Jesus continues to pound on them.

How do we pound on them?

Little by little we take the authority away from the realm of darkness.

Every person who receives eternal life is no longer under the dominion of darkness as Paul tells us in Colossians.

The gates of hell are powerless to prevent a son or daughter of God from leaving the kingdom of darkness!

The Lord Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit.

He is the greatest evangelist ever!

He is right now convicting every non-Christian on the planet of sin, righteousness and judgment.