1.  The final chapters in the book and the final chapter in the life of Moses. What are some of the major points of the book?

The importance of remembering: What are we to remember? Remember is not simply reminiscing about the past and how good it was. That is living in a world that probably never existed. Remembering is not melancholy or living in regrets. Remembering is not an anchor that keeps us from moving ahead but a keel that keeps us balanced and steady. It is something Moses calls the people together to do before they move ahead into the future. The right kind of remembering prepares us for the next step of our lives. We start the next adventure with remembering.

What are the things God wants us to remember and not forget?

First, to remember Him. Before we remember anything else, God wants us to remember Him. Everything else is built on that. But also remember that He is not a detached deity or a first principle of the universe. He is personal. “Underneath are the everlasting arms.”

Second, remember who you are and where you came from.   Don’t ever forget where you came from and what brought you to where you are. Don’t think you got here on your own. People who forget where they came from lose themselves. If you will be obedient and not forget I will make you a great nation and you will not have to think about fitting in. People will be drawn to who you are.

Third, remember the way the Lord leads. God’s way of leading is not always the easy road because His purpose is to humble and test us and know what is in our hearts. Andrew MacLaren: “So we have to look back on life from this point of view, that its joys and sorrows, its ups and downs, its work and repose, the vicissitudes and sometimes difficulty of its circumstances and conditions, are all for the purpose of making us, and of making plain to ourselves, what we are…Life is meant, not only to bring us to humble self-distrust, as a step towards devout dependence on God, but also to reveal us to ourselves; for we only know what we are by reflecting on what we have done, and the only path by which self-knowledge can be attained is the path of observant recollection of our conduct in daily life.”

2.  Next, we looked at greatness and what it means. There is a difference between wanting to know how to define true greatness and wanting only to know what it is to appear to be great. Jesus called it becoming Benefactors whose susceptibility to flattery eventually corrupted them.  “None are more taken in with flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.” What’s the antidote? In Luke 22:26 Jesus tell us.  First, we are to be neoteros or people who are always new at something, always learning, always novices.  Nothing keeps us humble like always being a beginner at something. All of the truly great people I know have been continuous learners all their lives and have inspired me and others. Second, we are to be those who serve – diakonos.  The phrase is one who serves with confidence and competence.  In a world that rewards self-importance and the artful cultivation of ego, the friends who have continued to serve, to volunteer, to inconvenience themselves when it would be so much easier to simply be a benefactor are priceless.

What does God desire for us? Deuteronomy 26:18: “And the LORD has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. 19 He has declared that he will set you in praise, fame and honor high above all the nations he has made and that you will be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he promised.”

We want these things without the obedience. We want them on our own terms. God will not circumvent the process. There is no promise without the process. How do we get praise, fame and honor in God’s way? We start with the fundamentals of morality. “Purge the evil from among you” is used nine times. All of these have something in common. They are about fidelity. Fidelity to relationships with each other and fidelity to God. In other words, the breakdown of basic fidelity and integrity is fatal – both to the individual and to a community. Why is God so harsh on these? Because they are the foundations of people living together. Infidelity leads to death one way or the other. It destroys both the person and the fabric of the community in which they live.

Second, we have to understand the right relationship between the strong and the weak. We have to live within the ethics of power. . There is nothing in Deuteronomy about the redistribution of wealth but there is a great deal about the responsibility of those with wealth. The poor are not a problem to be solved or to be cared for by strangers or institutions. Again, this is not a law but is an expectation. It is one of the fundamentals of living together and not isolated from one another. Chapter 24 is about choosing to live generously. A friend passed along a reminder of this yesterday from Ray Stedman: “When you see people in need, though you do not know how they are going to use your money – it may not be apparent that they will even use it wisely – nevertheless, be generous.”

When we understand the fundamentals of morality and the responsibilities of wealth we will become what God intends – people who can be trusted with praise, fame and honor and a holy people. People who will not use these things for their own purposes but are faithful to him and to each other.

3.  Last week we looked at blessings and curses. God has made a covenant with us – not a contract. We are bound to each other by His choice. We are His people. In other words, they are responsible for far more than good behavior. They are responsible for the honor of God. They carry his name. I know a little of what that means as I share the same name as my father. It was not always a good thing for me or for him. There were times I wanted my own name. I didn’t want his name because I was responsible for his reputation…but not by my choice. My sisters had it easier. They had their own name and reputation to worry about but I was carrying around mine and his. It was not until years later that I understood how the burden could turn into a badge and the load became a legacy. It would have been fine to be a part of the family but carrying his name was different. I suspect the Israelites felt the same. We are good with being part of the family of man but the responsibility of bearing God’s name was more than they wanted. At times, they wanted their own name and even their own gods and their own rules. But God had boxed them in at birth. He gave them His name and there was no changing it. They now have been given a promise but also a responsibility. They are stewards of the honor of God and people of all nations would judge God by these people. If they were faithful then God was faithful. If they were unfaithful then so was God. If they were just then God was just. If not, then God’s character was dishonored. It was not only their behavior that was at stake. It was God’s reputation. His honor. His name. If their identity was their own then it wouldn’t matter but Moses is telling them that whoever they had been they were no longer. They were now God’s identity and reputation in this world.

The curses are particular because they are predictable. The blessings are more general because we are oftentimes surprised by them. We cannot predict all the surprises of blessings but the consequences of a lifetime of bad behavior and unfaithfulness to God and people is no surprise. Blessings come in so many unexpected ways and the curses of life are slow in coming but they are sure. There is no real formula for blessings other than obedience. We don’t earn them in that sense. They come into our lives. We don’t make them happen.

I like the way Moses describes the blessings. It is just the same way Jesus describes the Holy Spirit in his farewell talk with the disciples at the last supper. “All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God.” How does Jesus put it? “But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” The word for guide is paraclete – one who comes alongside – and that is exactly what Moses is describing when he speaks of blessings. It is far more than rewards. It is the gift of a person who will walk with us and guide us and have a relationship with us. We should not think of blessings without thinking of the one who accompanies us and guides us. Otherwise, we begin to think of blessings as rewards instead of a relationship. It becomes something we get for good behavior and not someone we receive as a friend. Blessings are personal and like people they are full of surprises.

4.  This is what Moses was teaching them for 40 years – and at the end this is what he expects them to forget. Deuteronomy 31:27-29: “For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the LORD while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die! 28 Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials, so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to testify against them. 29 For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall on you because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD and arouse his anger by what your hands have made.”

…and they do forget. They do become corrupt. They are destroyed hundreds of years later just like he said.

It must have been a hard thing to face at the end of his life. The first 40 years were spent blissfully ignorant of who he was and where he came from. The second 40 years were a result of running away from the consequence of trying to protect a Hebrew slave. The final forty years were spent wrestling stubborn, rebellious, complaining and stiff-necked people through the desert.

What were his assumptions at the end? In a sense, his life’s work was something of a failure. He didn’t accomplish the one thing he had been commissioned to do – to get the people from Egypt to the Promised Land. He was at the end of his life and the people for whom he had been given responsibility were only going to rebel and become corrupt the moment he dies. Jesus left behind beloved disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Paul left Ephesus with tears and their begging him not to go to Jerusalem. Moses seems to be leaving with regrets, disappointment and failure.

However, two things stand out to me as we finish. First, all his anger is gone in the end. He genuinely blesses the people in the final chapter. The whole of Chapter 32 is gracious and kind. It is about a future filled with blessings and all the things God has desired for them.

Dt. 32:1-2:
1 Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;
hear, you earth, the words of my mouth.
2 Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.

Dt. 33:27-29:
27 The eternal God is your refuge,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.
He will drive out your enemies before you,
saying, ‘Destroy them!’
28 So Israel will live in safety;
Jacob will dwell[f] secure
in a land of grain and new wine,
where the heavens drop dew.
29 Blessed are you, Israel!
Who is like you,
a people saved by the LORD?

Finally, even Moses could not see the eventual influence of his life. He could see the Promised Land and he could see 800 years ahead to the destruction of Jerusalem but he could not see 1,500 or 2,500 years ahead. How could he have known that what he did would become the bedrock of whole civilizations and that the people he led from slavery would change the world. His unfinished work will last forever. Along with the hardship and the struggle God gave him in ways he could not predict what he had promised: fame, praise and honor.

Sometimes we are too quick to judge our own lives in the short term. We cannot see that far ahead to know. What we think of as unfinished or failed or flawed may well turn out to be remarkable if we live life in faithfulness and if we practice fidelity. What we accomplish in our lives is often, like blessings, a complete surprise.

Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, 11 who did all those signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.