Deuteronomy 1 | Divareem

Listen to this week’s sermon, Deuteronomy: Divareem preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from Deuteronomy 1:1-6, 30-33.

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Welcome, Prayer, And Scripture

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 0:06

Hello everyone. This is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Connor Bonello 0:22

Pray with me our prayer of illumination, please. Holy Spirit, make us hungry for your word that it may satisfy us, lead us, and bring us life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray. Amen. Our scripture this morning comes from Deuteronomy 1. These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness. It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barneah. In the fortieth year on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them. 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. The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place. Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the Lord your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go. This is the God's word. You may be seated.

Why Deuteronomy And Why Now

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 1:48

Today we begin a 14-week series through the book of Deuteronomy. This will bring us all the way up to Advent. We will turn into an Advent series at that point. And if you've been with us for a little while, you'll know that from 2019 to 2021, we were in the book of Genesis. From 2022 to 2023, we were two years in the book of Exodus. In 24, we were in Leviticus, and last year we were in the book of Numbers. And so this morning, we begin our eighth year together through the five books of Moses. And we finally have reached the fifth book, which is the book of Deuteronomy. Now, over the course of these 14 weeks, uh you will be left wanting more, I can assure you of that. And so John Calvin preached 200 sermons over a year and a half on the book of Deuteronomy. You can find the PDF of those sermons for free online. It's 4,000 pages. Indulge yourself, all that you want to, especially because you'll want more. That's what I'm hoping. Now we call this book Deuteronomy. That's the English term. It comes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is called the Septuagint, which uses this word Deuteronomos in Deuteronomy 17, 18. That's where the word shows up in Greek. And Deuteronomos just means second law. But the Hebrew term for this book is divarim, which simply means the words. And this title is actually taken from the first verse of the book. Now, if you would get a Bible or device out, because the worship guide's not going to really help you. This is going to be, we're going to go through the whole chapter one, but it's hard to summarize 40-something verses in a few. And so get a Bible or device and look at with me at Deuteronomy 1, verse 1. And I want to see one journey, two stories, and three responses. One journey, two stories, three responses. Look with me at Deuteronomy 1.1. It says this. What are the words? Well, the retelling of Israel's story that is meant to determine how they are to live here and now. Now, origin stories matter because they shape the identity and the activity of a people. Some of you may know that the Romans lived with this mythology, this story about their founders, Romulus and Remus. They were these mythical twins who were raised by wolves, and then they ended up founding the city of Rome. And in many ways, Rome was shaped by this wolf-like military prowess. In America here, the American spirit is shaped by stories of tyrants and tea parties and don't tread on me. It's very core to what it means to be American. And Moses is about to renarrate Israel's story to Israel. Why? Because somewhere along the way, Israel began telling themselves the wrong story about their journey.

Eleven Days Versus Forty Years

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 4:46

Look with me at verse two. It says this it is an 11 days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barneah. Now, verse 2, there's something strange here. From Horeb or Mount Sinai, the place where Moses received the law from Yahweh, from Horeb to Kadesh Barnea is only an 11-day journey. But verse 3 starts off by telling us it's now the 40th year. So what happened between Kadesh and Moab, that where they are now? What happened in that gap? Look at verse 3. It says this in the 40th year, on the first day of the 11th month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them. Forty years ago was 1986. Ronald Reagan was president. Top Gun just came out. Imagine for a moment having left on a journey in 1986 only to have arrived today. What that experience would be like. Said differently, how is it that a people standing at the doorstep of God's promises end up spending a generation in the wilderness? How did that happen? Or you could ask the question, and I think this is the question Moses wants the generation he's speaking to to answer. I think it's the question we need to answer too. What went wrong? Because if they don't understand what happened to their parents, they're going to repeat it. Because whatever we refuse to remember, we are liable to repeat. Whatever's not transformed is going to be transferred to the next generation. That's just true about our story. So in this sermon, Deuteronomy is a series of sermons. In this sermon, Moses takes them back 40 years to renarrate their journey. Look with me, if you will, at verse 5. Beyond the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law. That's what a good sermon's gonna do. It's simply gonna undertake to explain what's going on in Scripture. That's what Moses is doing. And he says, verse 6 The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have stayed long enough at this mountain. You see, the Lord delivered his people from Egypt to bring them to this mountain in Horeb, Mount Sinai. You know, most of Exodus basically looks like this, or at least the first part. It's Moses saying, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, O baby, let my people go so they can come to this mountain, Sinai, in Horeb and worship the true and living God. That's that's what Moses is basically sent to tell Pharaoh. You see, what's the significance of this mountain? Well, it's where Israel became a nation. At Mount Sinai in Horeb, God gave them his covenant, his law, his presence, his tabernacle. But eventually God says to them, You've stayed here long enough, it's time to go. And when God says stay, you stay, when God says go, you go, and that's what Israel does. Look with me at verse 19. Then we set out from Horeb and went through all that great and terrifying wilderness that you saw. On the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us, and we came to Kadesh Barnea. Something tragic happens at Kadesh Barneah. Behind them is Egypt, before them is everything that God has promised to them through their fathers. Kadesh Barneah is the doorstep of the promised land. All they have to do, all that remains is for them to trust God and enter the land. Look with me at verse 20. And I said to you, You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up and take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed. I want you to notice here the grammar of grace in this text. God gives the land, but Israel must take the land. God's promise doesn't eliminate their participation. God's promise makes their participation possible. You see, God delivered them from Egypt, God led them through the wilderness, God will conquer Canaan. Christian, their story is your story. God has saved you from sin's penalty. God is saving you from sin's power, and God will save you from sin's presence. If you can trust God in the past, you can trust him for the present and for the future. That's where Israel failed. Look with me at verse 22. Then all of you came near me and said, Let us send men before us that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up and the cities into which we shall come. I want you to notice something strange here. And if the Bible does something strange, just assume there's intention behind it. Look at verse 22, it says, Then all of you came near me. That's factually false. They didn't come near near Moses. In fact, most of the people that Moses is preaching to were not there in Numbers 13 and 14 when this event happened. And if they were there, they were children, maybe infants. So what's going on? Even verse 35 says this not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers. So listen, the generation that was at Sinai, the generation that wandered in the wilderness, the generation who sent the spies into the land has all died. Every last one of them. Moses is here preaching to their children, and yet in verse 22 he says, All of you came near me. What is Moses doing here?

Remembering As Present Participation

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 10:35

Moses isn't merely reminding Israel of their past. Moses is re-narrating their story in such a way that the boundary between the past and the present becomes porous. You see, this is what the Bible means when it tells us regularly over and over again to remember. What it's getting us to do is it's helping us to, it's making you here and now a member of what happened there and then. Now I want to invent a term because I studied the commentaries and looked at theologians and nobody termed this anything. So here we are. A novel invented term. I want to call this covenantal contemporaneity. How's that for a good nerdy scholarly term? Covenantal contemporary contemporaneity, I can't even say it. What I mean by that is what God did there and then shapes God's people here and now. That's all I mean by that term. And I think that's what Moses is doing. I think the Apostle Paul learned it from Moses. In fact, in Galatians 3:1, he says this. Paul speaking to the Jews, or I'm sorry, the Gentiles at Galatia says this, oh foolish Galatians, it was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Nope. No, these Gentile Galatians were not there in Jerusalem on the day when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. It's not factually true. So how can Paul say that? How can Moses say what he said? Well, it's because all faithful preaching, whether Moses or Paul or any preaching that happens in this pulpit, is simply a representation of what God has said and done. That's what's happening. So it's happening in our text here. You could say it's a deuteronomo, it's a second giving, it's another giving of the law, of the instruction that God has for his people. Now I want to come back to this. For now, let's go back to Kadesh

Fear Stories And False Frames

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 12:28

Barnea. Look at verse 25 with me. And they took in their hands, this is the spies, some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us and brought us word again and said, It is a good land that the Lord our God is giving us. Now they're telling the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. So help them, God. They're telling what is really going on there. But look at verse 26. Yet you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of your of the Lord your God. Why did they rebel? Well, notice the story that they tell themselves. Look at verse 27. And you murmured in your tents and said, Because the Lord hated us. There it is. That's the story. Remember where we started? I said that a people, a community always lives inside of a story, a narrative that makes sense of who they are and how they live. And here's the story that Israel came to believe. Look at verse 27, they continue. Because the Lord hated us, he's brought us out of the land of Egypt to give us into the hand of the Amorites to destroy us. In an interesting way, in that's in verse chapter 1, verse 27, but in Deuteronomy 7, 8, Moses is actually going to tell the same story, but listen to what he says. Because the Lord loves you, the Lord brought you out. Now, Israel says, Because he hates us, he brought us out of Egypt, to give us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. But Moses is trying to out-narrate, to tell a better story than that. He says, Because he loves you, he brought you out of slavery. To give the hand the Amorites' land into your hands to multiply and bless you. You hear the two competing narratives claiming the same facts as their own. What story do you tell yourself about who God is? Or what God's up to in your life, in the world around you. You know, political pundits love this phrase: facts don't care about your feelings. You ever heard this before? It's true. Um, but what they fail to recognize is that your feelings will always interpret the facts. And that's what happens is that your state shapes your story. If you're in an anxious state, you will tell a fear-based story. If you're feeling self-pity, you'll see everything as an offense. If you are grateful, you'll count a thousand blessings. Your state shapes your story. And because of that, I want you to watch and see how fear, what fear does with the facts. Look at verse 28. Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, The people are greater and taller than we, the cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we've seen the sons of the Anakin there. You see, facts put fear puts facts into a false frame. Fear puts facts into a false frame. And so what happens then is that these fear stories result in an inferiority complex. Look, it says, they are great and tall, we are weak and small. Fear stories also result in exaggeration. The cities are great, fortified, up to heaven. Fear stories may even dabble in conspiracy theories. It says, We have seen the sons of the Anakim there, whoever they are. You see, fear functions like a microscope. What it does is it takes small things and it makes them much bigger than they really are. Faith functions like a telescope. It takes great things and makes them much nearer than they really are. And so, what is fear magnifying in your life right now? Or said differently, how is fear making God functionally small? Since state shapes story, Moses is trying to tell them a better story. Look what he says in verse 29. Then I said to you, do not be in dread or afraid of them. Moses knows that fear creates this amplifying feedback loop until someone steps in and renarrates your experience. Takes the same collection of facts but interprets it in a different light. That's what he's trying to do. Look at how Moses out-narrates their fear story in verse 30. It says this the Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes. You see, Moses knew God face to face. I actually believe Moses learned something that you and I have on offer to us, but it can only be learned through experience, and that is, I believe Moses learned to regulate his nervous system through communion with God. I believe he knew what it was, what it looked like. What the psalmist says is to calm and quiet my soul before the Lord. And so that's why from a from a place of calm and quiet before the Lord, he could believe, based on experience, if God is for us, who can be against us? And he he tells a better story from that place. You see, since Genesis 3.15, there are really only two fundamental stories that people tell about God and ourselves and the world. One is gonna be in light of the ancient lie of the serpent. The other one is gonna take up the words of God, the divarim, and tell the story in light of that. John Owen, a pastor, says it like this people are afraid to have good thoughts of God. They think it is bold to see God as good, gracious, tender, kind, loving. So they judge him to be hard, austere, severe, almost implacable, and fierce, the very worst affections of the very worst of men and most hated by God. Is not this soul deceit from Satan? Was it not his design from the beginning to inject such thoughts of God? End quote. You see, Moses appeals to who God is in order to out-narrate Israel's fear narrative. Look at verse 31. It says this. And in the wilderness where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you as a man carries his son all the way that you went until you came to this place. Just reflect for a moment on this. Why do fathers carry their sons? There's a few different reasons. One might be their son is tired, another might be that the terrain is dangerous, another one might be that their son is being disobedient. Yes, all of the above in this text. A good father will pick up his son to carry him when that son cannot carry on. A good father will carry his son when the way is treacherous. A good father will even carry his son when the son comes kicking and screaming. And that's exactly what the Lord has done for Israel. All of those things. Because the wilderness is real. And in fact, in verse 19, it says, All that great and terrifying wilderness. But here the father heart of God. He carried them, verse 31 says, all the way until you came to this place. I don't know what you are telling yourself about your wilderness right now. But there's two stories right now that are competing for your trust. There is one that comes from looking inside yourself and trusting in your thoughts and feelings. And there's another one that comes from looking up and outside yourself and receiving the divorce, the words of God, to narrate your story. Look at verse 32, where we see the heart of the matter. It says this, yet in spite of this word, you did not believe. You did not believe that the Lord your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go. You see what happened is they reached the doorstep of God's promises in in days. And yet it took decades to walk through the door. And the question I started with is what went wrong? What happened? The issue was not a problem of geographical distance, the issue was a problem of unbelief. So my question for you is what is the false story that you have in your head about God that results in disbelief? Oswald Chambers says this the root of all sin is the suspicion that God is not good.

Three Responses: We Can’t, We Can

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 20:54

So, in light of these two stories, God loves us or God hates us, there are also three responses. Look at verse 34 with me. And the Lord heard your words. In other words, the Lord heard the story that Israel was telling. The Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers. Look at verse 39. 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, and to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. Little excurses for a moment here, because there's there's actually a poetic justice that's happening in the text. You see, what happened is Israel refused to go into the land because they feared that their little ones would die, their children. Yet they themselves died, and their little ones are the ones who will inherit the land. Alana, my wife, and I will sit down and have date nights. And one of the questions that we ask with pretty frequency, a good bit of frequency, is this question What are you afraid of lately? And maybe the most common response from both of us is something related to our children. And when I, when we had our firstborn, uh, the woman who basically prayed Augie into existence said to me, Ben, when you have a child, what happens is a part of who you are gets externalized and is profoundly vulnerable and it never goes away. And the reason why that matters is because fathers and mothers, here is a place that the Lord is inviting you into trust. That the story that you tell about this really matters. Will you trust God with your kids? Said differently, many of us are willing to obey as long as obedience is safe for us and for our children. But for some of us, in that fear, we we run, we go numb, we collapse in on ourselves. That's what happened to Israel at first, right? It was like, no, we're not gonna go in because of all these fears that stirred up for them. But for others of us, like myself, fear presents almost like adrenaline, kind of dials you up, burns hot. That also happens. Look at verse 41. Then you answered me, we have sinned against the Lord, we ourselves will go up and fight. Notice the emphasis, we ourselves will fight. Just as the Lord our God commanded us. And every one of you fastened on his weapons of war and thought it easy to go up into the hill country. Listen, rather than flight or freeze or fawn, some of us in fear, we we bow up, we go to fight. And it may feel like faith, but it's actually a form of self-confidence. It's faith in yourself, not in God. That's what's happening here. Um, let me just make that plain. If you listen to a sermon or read a book, and and your first move is to kind of steal your attentions, I'm gonna do better, I'm gonna try harder. That's not faith. It's caffeinating your will in a presumptuous self-confidence. That's what that is in that moment. That's what they do. Look at verse 42. And the Lord said to them, say to them, Do not go up or fight, for I am not in your midst. I'm not with you, lest you be defeated before your enemies. So I, Moses, spoke to you, and you would not listen. But you rebelled against the command of the Lord, and here's the word, presumptuously went up into the hill country. You see, at first they refused because they looked at themselves and they said, We can't. But then they changed their mind and they charge ahead because they looked at themselves and said, We can. Neither of these responses actually trusts God. Both timidity and presumptuousness bypass the presence of God. Verse 42, for I am not in your midst. If you don't have me, you've got nothing, the Lord said. Verse 44. Then the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against you and chased you as bees do. Anybody been chased by a bee before? Not good. You're losing. Okay? Chased you like bees do and beat you down in Seir as far as Hormah. And you returned and wept before the Lord, but the Lord did not listen to your voice or give ear to you. So you remained at Kadesh many days, the days that you remained there. Here's the three responses. Number one, we can't. It's the fear and timidity that comes from self-trust. Number two, we can. It's the presumptuous and boastful confidence that comes from self-trust. Both of these are opposite forms of self-reliance, and both of them come from an over-indexing on the self, what you can accomplish. So if it's not we can't or we can, it must be God can. It's the response of faith. It's taking God at His word. It's receiving the promise and responding by obedience, saying, Yes, Lord. And so, New City, what will we do with this deuteronomous that's happening right now? This second giving, this another giving of the words of God and the works of God, his story and his statutes, how will we respond? What will we let our state drive our story, or will we receive these words looking up and outside of ourselves and let the diva reem shape who we are and what we do? That's the invitation right here, right now. What is the story that you're telling yourself about God today?

The Cross As The Better Story

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 26:21

Now, Moses incorporated the new generation into the old generation story, but Paul, the Apostle Paul, goes much further. Paul says, through Christ we actually participate in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. That's what baptism symbolizes. And so it's not just that you're to make their story your story, it's that now Jesus' story becomes your story. You see, Israel's fundamental problem wasn't giants in the land, it was unbelief. It was a false narrative. The Lord hates us. And do you know why that lie is so compelling for the people of God? It's because there is a part in each and every one of us that believes that not only is that true, but it's deserved. We know ourselves. We wouldn't be surprised if God rejected us and opposed us and was against us. We wouldn't be surprised by that. But listen, we have something Israel didn't have. Jesus Christ becomes the ultimate evidence against the lie, the Lord hates you. Because at the cross we see that God doesn't hate us. Instead, God so loved that he gave. So when the ancient lie rises up in us, the cross becomes this controlling memory that interprets everything else. We have this covenantal contemporaneity where we bring what God has done there and then into the here and now and let it shape who we are and how we live. And the cross allows us to do that. Listen to how Paul does this. He's mimicking Moses, I believe, in Galatians 2.20. He says, This I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life that I now live by faith, I live, the life that I now live in the flesh, I live it by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This is the ultimate master narrative. This is the better story that we have to tell. This is the gospel. The good news for anybody who receives Jesus is that his story becomes their story. In Jesus Christ, you've lived and you've died and you've been risen again. And we live this life out by faith in that story. God wants to incorporate you into the better narrative.

Aslan And The God Who Was There

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 28:39

C.S. Lewis has a book called The Horse and His Boy. And it really is an epic journey with two competing narratives. And one of the narratives is told by the main character, Shasta. He tells us about his life. And basically, near the end of the book, Shasta is traveling alone. He's walking through a thick fog. He's exhausted, he's lost, he's feeling terribly sorry for himself. And as he walks, he realizes that there's some mysterious creature walking beside him. And so Shasta begins to tell his story. And from Shasta's perspective, it's a story of one terrible thing after another. He was abandoned as a baby. He was raised by a man who wasn't his father. He was chased by lions, he was separated from his friends, and even now he's alone in this fog. You see, Shasta has taken the facts of his life and he's put them into a narrative, and the narrative sounds like this. Why do all these terrible things keep happening to me? And then the mysterious companion reveals himself. It's Aslan. And what happens in this moment is Aslan begins to renarrate Shasta's story. I was the lion. The lion who protected you when you were a helpless baby, I was the lion. Even the lion who was willing to wound Erevis, I was the lion. You see, Shasta misreads his entire life until Aslam Aslan comes up and says, I was there all along. That's Deuteronomy 1. That's what's happening in our text. Israel looks back at Egypt in the wilderness and says, The Lord hates us. Moses looks at the exact same wilderness and says, The Lord your God carried you all the way. You see, the same journey, two different stories, results in three different responses. And so, Christian, when you look at your life and you cannot understand what God is doing, you have something Israel did not have. You have the cross of Jesus Christ. What that means is if the Father has given us his son, then whatever else, whatever else you cannot understand about God's providence, you can interpret what you don't know by what you do know, and that is he loved me. He gave himself for me. You see, the Son of God is the one who came to be with us. And so when fear whispers, God is against you, remember the cross. When your circumstances whisper, God has abandoned you, you remember the cross. When when you are tempted to interpret the wilderness seasons of your life as evidence that obviously the Lord hates you, remembered He loved me. Jesus is saying to you, even here and now, He's looking at you, he's saying, I am the Lion.

Final Call To Trust And Prayer

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 31:26

Let's pray. Father, you've carried us as a people. Each of us individually, all of us corporately, we praise you for that. Lord Jesus, you are the Lion of the tribe of Judah. You're the one who lived and died and rose again that we might have a new and better story told over our lives. Holy Spirit, would you catch us up into that narrative? Deliver us from the fears that control our memories and free us up with faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. It's in his name we pray. Amen.