Deuteronomy 1: The Prologue. Why Should I Care?

The word Deuteronomy is not only one of the hardest books of the Bible to spell, it is also has a meaning most people don’t know. It means “Second law.” That is the focus on this book. Deuteronomy is the last sermons Moses will preach to this young nation who is about to enter the Promised Land.

What are his final words of motivation? Trust and Obey. It’s the only way to keep the freedom God has given them.

What about you? What will you pass on to the next generation? Let’s read Deuteronomy as the final sermon of a man who saw the miracles of God. His final words are to trust God completely and obey God completely. It’s the way of continued freedom.

Outline

1. Prologue (1:1-5)
2. Moses’ First Speech: Historical Prologue (1:6-4:43)
3. Moses’ Second Speech: General Covenant Stipulations 4:44-11:32)
4. Moses’ Second Speech: Specific Covenant Stipulations (12:1-26:19)
5. Moses’ Third Speech: Blessings and Curses (27:1-28:68)
6. Moses’ Third Speech: Final Exhortation (29:1-30:20)
7. Succession of Leadership (31:1-34:12)

“Today I have given you the choice between life and death… choose life. You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20 NLT

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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Purpose, And Today’s Focus
• 1:03 Why Deuteronomy Matters
• 1:59 Community CTAs And Engagement
• 2:44 Who Wrote Deuteronomy And When
• 3:46 From Exodus To The Jordan: The Timeline
• 5:12 Moses’ Final Mission: Trust And Obey
• 6:23 Reading Deuteronomy 1: Setting The Scene
• 8:07 Leadership Burden And Appointing Judges
• 10:32 Scouts, Fear, And Rebellion Recalled
• 12:40 Consequences, Caleb, And Joshua’s Calling
• 14:15 A Leader’s Lament And Hope
• 15:38 Our Turn And The Next Generation
• 17:08 The Core Charge: Choose Life
• 18:29 Prayer And Closing Encouragement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. In this podcast, we will be breaking down the Bible one chapter a day. Whether you are a new believer or have been following Christ for a while, we believe that you will learn something new and fresh every single day. So thank you for joining us. Let's get into breaking down the Bible together.

SPEAKER_01: 0:23

Well, everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Deuteronomy chapter one. And I am really excited to get into this. We're just going to call this the prologue because it is amazing what the book of Deuteronomy is. And it's amazing how many of us have no idea the treasure that is the hardest to spell book of the Bible. I can't think of one other than Deuteronomy that is harder to spell, but it is an absolute treasure. And we're going to jump into that. Today we're going to talk about why the book of Deuteronomy is so important. And then we're going to give you some background to it and just jump into it. So before we do that, as always, if you like what we're doing here, make sure you are liking, subscribing, commenting, telling people about this if you're watching it on the YouTubes. And then if you are on the podcast, make sure you leave us a five-star rating. Also give us a some information about that. And we would love to know about that. And please, please, please go to the uh Facebook group and let us know how this is impacting your life. Bible breakdown discussion. And the question of the day is do you struggle to spell the book of Deuteronomy? I get it wrong so bad that my spell check doesn't even know what to do. It just says try again, basically. That's how bad it is. But it is important, and we're going to jump into it right now. And so let me give you kind of some information and then we're going to give you a little bit more. Now, first of all, the book of Deuteronomy was the final book written or commissioned to be written by Moses. Now, this idea of Moses sitting along in a tent writing this down, uh, likely that is not what happened. Moses likely was dictating this to scribes who are writing it down. But this was the last one that he wrote. And he didn't finish it because the Bible, uh, the book of Deuteronomy actually says, and Moses died and was buried. So he didn't write that before he died. So the very end of it was written probably by Joshua, or it was commissioned by Joshua, but it was written about around 1406 BC. So long time before now. Almost, you know, 3,000, 3,500 years before now, written by Moses, and it was just before they were heading into the Promised Land. Now, the reason why Deuteronomy is so hard to say is it's actually a Greek word. It is a Greek word that means second law. So, what the book of Deuteronomy is, is it is a retelling of the last parts of the book of Exodus. And so I want to get into that for a moment and kind of give you the timeline of what's been going on and why Deuteronomy is so important. So, if you've been with us for the past while, a few months ago, we read through the book of Exodus together. And when Exodus begins, the nation of Israel is in Egyptian bondage. And they've been there for about 400 years. And finally, when the fullness of time has come, God raised up a man named Moses who was an Israelite, but had been an ex-con. He was convicted of murder, and he was out in the middle of nowhere for 40 years. God calls Moses to come and uses him to liberate the nation of Israel. They are now free from Egyptian bondage and they have all these amazing miracles. They go through all these different plagues that get them out of Egypt. And then once they're out of Egypt, they escape from the Egyptian army by crossing over the Red Sea on dry ground. And then that Red Sea comes back over and destroys the Egyptian army. Then they go to Mount Sinai, and it's while they're on Mount Sinai that God gives them the covenant, saying, Hey, I want you to stay free. This is how you're going to stay free, is by doing these things. And this is how we're going to be able to be in relationship together. And so they get the law, and now they're headed to the promised land. And then the book of Leviticus was written on that, or in that moment when they're still at Mount Sinai, because the book of Leviticus is all about how to worship God, how you're supposed to maintain that closeness to God. Because the goal was always that they would go out of Egyptian bondage and go into the promised land with God. God wants to be part of the journey that we go through. And so Leviticus is there, they get ready. And then the book of Numbers is all about that journey because they get about halfway there and they send some scouts. The scouts come back and say, No way, we're not going to be able to do this. And so God's like, fine, then you don't get to go. Your children will go instead. And so for 40 years they wander around in the wilderness. And that's what the book of Numbers is all about is about the wilderness wanderings of the nation of Israel. And when the book of Numbers ends, which is right before Deuteronomy, they are right there on the edge of the promised land. All they've got to do is cross over the Jordan River, and they will technically be in the promised land territory. So they're right there. They've already fought a few battles. They're getting ready to go in and take over the land. But here's the problem: because Moses sinned while they were in the wilderness, Moses has been told by God, you are not going to be able to continue to lead these people into the promised land. That is going to fall to Joshua. So the time is almost over for Moses. He is about to die. And the book of Deuteronomy is the last set of sermons that God gives to the nation of Israel through Moses. And so that's what it is. You'll see a group of sermons where Moses is telling this now generation, let me tell you about that covenant. Let me renew that covenant so that when you go into the promised land, you can stay free. And so I want to kind of frame it this way, and that is, if you knew that you were about to die and you had seen the glory of God, what would you say to the next generation? Just think about it for a moment. Moses got to see God in a way that nobody else in history has ever been able to see. The Bible said that when Moses would go into his tent, that he would talk with God face to face as a man talks with his friend and would come back out again. He had been such in the presence of God that his face would glow. And it was creepy. It was creepy enough that they actually told him to put a veil over his face so that it didn't scare everybody. And so he would do that. He'd walk around with a veil over his face, and then he would go back into the presence of God, take the veil off, and talk with God as a man talks with his friend. He saw the lowest moments of being separated from his family because of a sin he had committed. And then God redeems him 40 years later, brings him back to the place where he had committed that sin, Egypt. And then he liberates an entire nation. Then he's used by God to do all these amazing miracles. He goes up on the mountain. He has seen the glory of God. And now he's about to die. And unfortunately, he is not going to be able to go with the nation of Israel. And so what he wants to make sure they know is he wants them to know that the only way to keep the freedom that God has given them is to trust and to obey. That's what you got to do. Is that if you will trust God and you will obey him, he is going to do everything he has said he is going to do. Trust and obey the Lord. And so I want to ask you this question as we get ready to get into this. If you had one statement, one set of sermons, put that way, that you could give the next generation to encapsulate all you have experienced this far in your relationship with God, what would it be? Well, Moses, who had seen everything, says, if I could sum it up, trust God, obey Him, and you will experience the glory of the Lord. And so that's what the book of Deuteronomy is all about is he is telling the next generation the goodness of God in the past, the problems that they dealt with and had to overcome. And now this is how you get to go into the next generation. So once again, if I were to give a theme to the entire book of Deuteronomy, it would be Moses is telling the people, if you want to see the glory of God in your generation, like I did, trust and obey. It's the only way. Trust and obey, it's the only way. And so, with that being said, let's get into Deuteronomy chapter one. And I want you to kind of get the mental image. Moses is there in front of the assembly, and he is preaching a sermon to the nation of Israel. And this is the first sermon, the prologue to the first sermon that he is going to preach. So if you have our NLT Bibles open with us, we're going to jump into this. And the more we dig, the more we find. And so let's read what Moses has to say to this young generation when he is giving them his final addresses and he's saying, Trust and obey is the only way. He says this in verse one. These are the words that Moses spoke to all the people of Israel while they were in the wilderness on the east side of the Jordan River. They were camped in the Jordan Valley near Surf, between Paran on one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hezroth, and Dai Zahab on the other. Normally it only takes twelve days to travel from Mount Sinai to Kadesh Barnea, going through the way of Mount Seir. But forty years after the Israelites left Egypt on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses addressed the people of Israel, telling them everything that the Lord had commanded him to say. This took place after he had defeated King Sihon of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon at Edri, and had defeated King Og of Bishon, who ruled in Estheroth. While the Israelites were in the land of Moab, east of the Jordan River, Moses carefully explained the Lord's instructions as follows. So pause first of all. Do you notice that he said it really wasn't supposed to take very long to get from Mount Sinai to the staging zone where they were then going to go into the promised land? So it wasn't because God couldn't get them there. It was because of the disobedience that had stopped them. And that's what Moses is committed to not happening again. And so what you're going to hear over the next several chapters is Moses saying, Don't be like us. Don't not trust. Don't not obey. Like if you if you will love God and you'll trust and obey, you'll be able to keep the freedom that we didn't really use real well. So here we go. Verse 6. When we were at Mount Sinai, Moses says, The Lord our God said to us, You have stayed at this mountain long enough. It is time to break camp and move on. Go to the hill country of the Amorites and to the neighboring regions, the Jordan Valley, the hill country, the western foothills, and the Negev, and the coastal plain. Go to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, and all the way to the great Euphrates River. Look, I am giving all this land to you. Go in and occupy it, for it is the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to all their descendants. Moses continued, At this time I told you, you are too great a burden for me to carry all by myself. The Lord your God has increased your population, making you as numerous as the stars. And may the Lord your God of your ancestors multiply you a thousand times more and bless you as he promised. But you are such a heavy load to carry. How can I deal with all your problems and bickering? Choose some well respected men from each tribe who are known for their wisdom and understanding, and I will appoint them as your leaders. Then you responded, Your plan is a good one. So I took the wise and respected men that you had selected from your tribes and appointed them to serve as judges and officials over you. Some are responsible for a thousand people, some for a hundred, some for fifty, and some for ten. And at that time I instructed the judges, You must hear the cases of your fellow Israelites and the foreigners living among you. Be perfectly fair in your decisions, and impartial in your judgments. Hear the cases of those who are poor as well as those who are rich. Don't be afraid of anyone's anger, for the decision you make is God's direction. Bring me any cases that are too difficult for you, and I will handle them. At that time, I gave you instructions about everything you were to do. So once again, what he is saying is as they were headed out from Mount Sinai on their way to the promised land, there's just too many people. There were too many people, not enough hours in the day. And so Moses said, I need y'all's help. I can't lead all of you at one time. And I want God to increase in your number. I don't want you to stop growing, but I'm going to need some help. And so if we're going to continue on this journey, I need you to pick some people. And so God, you know, uh raised up some different ones. They picked some different people, and he said, Hey, you be confident in your judgments, do the best you can, and only if it's too hard for you, you come to me. So now they were ready to continue moving. Verse 19. Then, just as the Lord our God commanded us, we left Mount Sinai and traveled through the great and terrifying wilderness, so um, as you yourselves remember, and headed down toward the hill country of the Amorites. When we arrived at Kadesh Barnea, I said to you, You have now reached the hill country of the Amorites that the Lord your God is giving us. Look, he has placed the land in front of you. Go and occupy it as the Lord your God of your ancestors has promised you. Don't be afraid, don't be discouraged. But all of you came to me and said, First, let's send out scouts to explore the land for us. They will advise us on the best route to take which towns we should enter. This seemed like a good idea to me. So I chose twelve scouts, one of each of your tribes. They headed for the hill country and came to the valley of Eskol and explored it. They picked some of its fruit and brought it back to us, and they reported, The land the Lord your God has given us is indeed a good land. But you rebelled against the command of the Lord and refused to go in. You complained in your tents and said, The Lord must hate us. That's why he has brought us here to the land from the land of Egypt to hand us over to the Amorites to be slaughtered. Where can we go? Our brothers have demoralized us with their report. They tell us the land, the people of the land are taller and more powerful than we are, and their towns are large, with walls rising high into the sky. They even saw giants there, the descendants of Enoch. But I said to you, Don't be shocked or afraid of them. The Lord your God is going ahead of you. He will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt, and you saw how the Lord your God cared for you all along the way as you traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child. Now he has brought you to this place. But even after all he did, you refused to trust the Lord your God, who goes before you, looking for the best places to camp, guiding you with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. When the Lord heard you complaining, he became very angry. So he solemnly swore, Not one of you from this wicked generation will live to see the good land I swore to give your ancestors, except Caleb, the son of Jeathunah, who uh he will see the land because he followed the Lord completely, and I will give him and his descendants some of the very land he explored during his scouting mission. And the Lord also is angry with me because of you. He said to me, Moses, not even you will enter the promised land. Instead your assistant Joshua, the son of Nun, will lead the people into this land. Encourage him, for he will lead Israel, and they will take possession of it. And I will give the land to your little ones, your innocent children. You were afraid that they would be captured, but they will be the ones to occupy it. As for you, turn around now and go back through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. Then you confessed, We have sinned against the Lord. We will go into the land and fight for it, as the Lord our God has commanded us. So your men strapped on their weapons, thinking they would be easy, or they would be easy to attack the hill country. But the Lord told me to tell you, Do not attack, for I am not with you. If you go ahead on your own, you will be crushed by your enemies. This is what I told you, but you would not listen. Instead you again rebelled against the Lord's command and arrogantly went into the hill country to fight. But the Amorites who live there came out against you like a swarm of bees. They chased and battered you all the way from Seer to Hormah. Then you returned and wept before the Lord, but he refused to listen. So you stayed there at Kadesh Barnia for a long time. Isn't that amazing? That Moses encapsulates how he felt as a leader. When you read this, and we read through the book of Numbers together and we read it, and we read it as a narrative of what's going on, historical account, but now you get to hear what it was like as the leader. The leader who says, Did you not see that God was with us this whole way? That it was God that took us out of Egypt, that was God who almost as though he was our scouting party, and he was the one as we were going through the wilderness, that he was looking ahead to see where we needed to go and where the water sources were, and he led us by the fire by night and the cloud by nay. And so then when we got ready to go into the promised land, you had trusted God till this point, but then you didn't trust him anymore. And even then, not only did did God not let you go in, but I'm not getting to go in either. And so when I read this, I read this as a mourning leader who not only was he not able to lead the nation in, but he wasn't able to go either. But at the same time, instead of giving up, he is saying, But God is not giving up on his plan. He is now going to do it for the next generation. And so our job at this point is to take what we have and to invest it into the next generation. And so that's what he's going to do. Over the course of the next several chapters, he is going to speak into the lives of the next generation. And I think that as we move through this, we can look through this or look at this through two different lenses. First of all, we can look at this as us that we are that young generation, that all the people in all of history that have come before are now cheering us on and saying, our time is done. We have now gone and we're in heaven with the Lord or wherever else. You know, if they didn't make a right decision, then they're not in heaven with the Lord. But we have run our course. We have finished our race. Now, just like Moses is cheering on the next generation, all those who have gone before are cheering us on and looking at us and saying, now you go and do even greater things than what we did. But then also we can look at this as there are people coming up after us. There are those who are going to be the ones that are going to be running that race one day. And so we receive this as our commissioning, but then we also look at this as who can we be commissioning as well? So I want to ask you this question. As we read these chapters, what is it that you need to do? If you were on your deathbed, if you were preaching your last sermon to somebody, what would you say? Well, I'm going to tell you what the one of the greatest men to ever live says. After he had seen the glory of God, after he had seen the miracles of the Lord, and as he is preaching his last sermons, he could have said anything. He could have talked about how to lead effectively, he could have talked about how to survive wilderness issues and how to how to win friends and influence people. But you know what he said? The two things you need to do? Trust God completely and obey him faithfully. If you do those things, you will continue in the freedom that God has given you, and you'll do more than you could ever imagine. The key verse of this entire one that we're going to read at the end of this is Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19. It says this He says, Today I have given you a choice between life and death. Choose life. You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying Him, and committing yourself firmly to Him. I want to encourage you to be a difference maker today. Let's pray as we enter into the Book of Deuteronomy together. Father, thank you so much that you love us and that you are for us. I'm so thankful, Lord, that there are generations that have gone before us that are cheering us on. And so I pray that as we read through these chapters, that we will see the lens in a dual way. Number one, as how are we going to embrace our turn in this generation? But then also simultaneously, how are we going to set it up so that those who come behind us will be ready to make a difference as well. I pray, Lord, you encourage us, motivate us, and challenge us throughout these chapters. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. And amen. I pray that today you'll experience life and be a difference maker. I'll see you tomorrow for Deuteronomy Chapter 2.