Deuteronomy 32:44

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 32:44-47, “And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun.[45] And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:[46] And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.[47] For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.” Joshua is with Moses at this time. One reason is Moses knows his time on the earth is short and he also knows that Joshua is to be his successor. It might be important to note that Moses did not choose one of his sons to succeed him as the leader of the work that God gave to him. One of the big mistakes that Christian leaders make in these last days is that they leave a son or other relative in charge of the work that God created through them. You need to find God’s choice, not your choice.

Once again we see how much the Word of God is emphasized. Moses said in verse 46, “Set your hearts unto all the words.” When you set your heart on something, it refers to what you love and what you want. Notice it refers to “all” the words. We need every Word of God. God gave every word for a reason. That is why reading, and studying, and living by the Word of God is a life-long pursuit and beyond.

After you have learned the Word of God, then you have a responsibility to teach what you have learned. It says in verse 46, “ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.” Your first responsibility is to teach your children. It is not an easy job. It takes twenty or thirty years to teach a child what he or she needs to know. Notice carefully that the parents are to teach the children the word of God: “all the words.” Of course, there is also the responsibility to teach whoever you can the Word of God. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He gave some “pastors teachers.” A pastor does the work of a teacher because the pastor feeds the sheep, and the food is the Word of God. Jesus told Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep.”

In Deuteronomy 32:47 God says, “For it is not a vain thing for you.” The word “vain” means empty and of no value. In other words it is vain to live a life where the Word of God is not the most important thing in your life: where you read it, learn it, and teach it to your children and to everyone else that you can. That is why verse 47 also says, “it is your life.” Of course, should you have the grace of God to make the Word of God a priority in your life, or rather to make it “your life,” there will be good consequences. And so it says at the end of verse 7, “through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land.”

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 32:48-52, “And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying,[49] Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:[50] And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:[51] Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.[52] Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.” God told Moses that Moses was going to die, and one important detail was that Moses would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. Of course, Moses lived under the law. More than that, he was the law-giver. The law is very unforgiving. God is very forgiving, but the law is unforgiving. Shakespeare wrote about this truth. That is why Shakespeare wrote about the quality of mercy and its importance. God gave the reason that Moses would not be allowed to enter the Promised Land. God said in verse 51, “Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.” What was the trespass that Moses committed? Let’s read carefully Numbers 11:7-12, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,[8] Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink.[9] And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him.[10] And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?[11] And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.[12] And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.” Moses was angry at the people. In verse 10 Moses called the children of Israel “rebels.” And then instead of just speaking to the rock as God had told him, Moses “smote the rock twice.” That was an act of anger and frustration. Many times people say that striking the rock in anger is the reason that God did not allow Moses to enter into the Promised Land, but a closer look at what God said to Moses reveals something else. Two important spiritual principles were violated. The first is the principle pf faith. By striking the rock two times, Moses was taking things into his own hands instead of trusting that the Lord would do exactly as the Lord said He would do. It is not only what you do, but why you do it. The just shall live by faith. The second spiritual principle that Moses violated was the fact that he was a bad example to the rest of the children of Israel. That seems to be what bothered God the most. Leaders set the example for everyone else, and thus the leaders have a greater responsibility. God said in verse 12, “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.” It was both the lack of faith and the poor example that motivated God to not allow Moses to enter the Promised Land.

Moses died before he went into the Promised Land. Opportunities are limited by their very nature, because life itself is limited. Do not put off until tomorrow what you can do today because you might not have the opportunity to do it tomorrow. Life and the opportunities of life are a gift from the Lord Jesus. Abuse them, and you might lose them. Some believers die before their time because God as Judge decides to take away their opportunity to serve Him. That is why it says in First John 5:16-17, “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.[17] All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.” There are many reasons to fear sin. One reason is the fact that the next sin that you commit may be the one where God decides enough is enough. God might decide that the opportunity of life shall be taken away due to such a failure.

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 33:1-2, “And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death.[2] And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them.” Moses is called “the man of God.” What a tremendous complement. If you come to the end of your life like Moses was here, and you are described as a person “of God,” you cannot be given a higher complement. The primary purpose of life is to serve the Lord, after you believe in Jesus. You were born to serve the Lord. That is why Jesus said to His parents at age 12, “Know you not that I must be about my Master’s business?” What does the phrase “of God” mean? It means that you are “from God.” He sent you. It means that you live a godly life: you are characterized by the qualities that are only possessed by someone who serves God. It means that you have your priorities right: Jesus is first in your life. If you are a man of God or a woman of God, it means that your life reminds people of God: your life helps to draw people to God and to think about Him. That is what Jesus meant when He said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.”

It is interesting that it says that Moses “blessed” the children of Israel, and then Moses simply told them what God had done for them. In order to tell the children of Israel what God did for them, Moses mentions Mount Sinai. Moses said, “The LORD came from Sinai.” What happened at Mount Sinai? That is where the law was given. God gave the people His truth and His words. That was the blessing. If the law of Moses was considered a blessing, then just think of how great is our circumstance. We are not under the Old Covenant which brought a curse, but we are under the New Covenant through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Moses called the law in Deuteronomy 33:2, “a fiery law.” The law is “fiery” because of all the curses that were pronounced on whoever did not obey every commandment and statute and precept in the law. The law brought death, and the law brought judgment. The law was fiery, no doubt about that. And yet even such a fiery law was called a blessing. It was a blessing because it gave them a foundation. It told them how to live and how to organize their lives and their nation. It told them what was important and what was not important. The law still gives a blessing in a certain sense: the law is our schoolmaster that leads us to Christ. When someone tries to obey the law, if they are honest, they realize that they fail and that they sin, and then maybe, just maybe, they will turn to Jesus and receive Him as their personal Savior. The law is a blessing because the law of Moses came directly from God, and thus the law expresses the holy nature and the divine attributes of God. Jesus read the law, and knew the law, and obeyed the law. And of course, we know that Jesus is the One who actually gave the law to Moses, and of all the commandments in the law, notice what Jesus said was the greatest of all. Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy 6:4-5, and Jesus said in Mark 12:29-30, “And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:[30] And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.”

The Bible says in Deuteronomy 33:3, “Yea, he loved the people; all his saints are in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words.” There are four statements in this verse. The first two statements tell us what God has done for us without us doing anything. The third statement tells us something that we do if we are smart. The fourth statement tells us both something that God has done for us, and how we should respond to that. Moses said that God “loved the people.” God is love. Jesus gave us John 3:16 that tells us that God loves the whole world so much that everyone can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. But God also has a special type of love reserved for His believers. If you believe in Jesus, I hope you know that you are under the constant care of His love. Jesus loves you. And He loves you for nothing. You do not earn His love or deserve His love, but He loves you anyway. All day long you can sing the song, “Jesus loves me, this I know.”

The second statement that Moses made in verse 3 is that “all his saints are in thy hand.” This means that we belong to Him and He protects us. God is all powerful, and therefore no one and no thing can take us out of His hand. Jesus gave the same teaching in telling us how eternally secure we are in the hands of the Father and in Jesus’ hands. Jesus said in John 10:28-29, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, nether shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”

Knowing how much He loves us, and knowing how secure we are in His hands, one would think that the natural response would be to sit down at Jesus feet. We are drawn to Christ because of His love for us. Of all the things that you can do in your life, there may be none more important than learning to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him. There were two sisters named Mary and Martha who knew Jesus and Jesus was in their home one day. Martha was very busy doing housework, and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus. Jesus said in Luke 10:41-42, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” You can learn to be busy with the practical things of life, and also sit at the feet of Jesus in your mind and your heart.

Finally, we are told in Deuteronomy 33:3 that that God has given us His Word. The written Word, the Bible, is the truth. The Word is our spiritual food. The Word enlightens us. The Word teaches us. The Word gives us a foundation in an unstable world. The Word reveals Jesus to us for Who He really is: God. The Word gives us advice. The Word warns us. The Word tells us the truth about the past and the future. The Word is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, and for instruction in righteousness.

Moses was right. How much God blessed the children of Israel, and how much God has blessed us. Jesus has given us His love, He has given us eternal security, and He has given us His Word. Now go sit at the feet of Jesus and enjoy His presence.

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