Here, God is reminding the Israelites all that he has done for them, who they are to him, and what he expects from them, not only in their present day, but to remember and pass along to future generations.
1:2 “Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and ordinances I am teaching you to follow, so that you may live, enter, and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You must not add anything to what I command you or take anything away from it, so that you may keep the commands of the Lord your God I am giving you.”
6: “Carefully follow them [the commandments], for this will show your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the peoples.” Wisdom is the conformity with the will of God.
7: “For what great nation is there that has a god near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him?” Israel was a great nation because of their nearness to God and the law and commandments as outlined in the Torah. Per Christopher Wright, “There is a vital link between the religious claims of the people of God (that God is near them) and their practical social ethic. The world will be interested in the former only when it sees the latter.” It’s one thing to go to church on Sundays and quote scripture, and another to have God’s words in your heart, flowing out from you in your words and actions towards others and how you live your life. Just going to church and quoting scripture will not draw people to God. It’s how you live your life when God is in your heart, that attracts others to want to invite them into their lives as well.
9 – 10: “Only be on your guard and diligently watch yourselves, so that you don’t forget the things your eyes have seen and so that they don’t slip from your mind as long as you live. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren. The day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Assemble the people before me, and I will let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth and may instruct their children.”
Today, we believe through faith. The Israelites were not able to see God, but they were able to hear him speak. They followed God as he led them through the wilderness performing miracles along the way so that they would know that he was with them, guiding them, feeding them and protecting them. Even with all this, they grumbled and wandered away. Although this upset God, he continued to offer grace, loving them, guiding, feeding and protecting them. What a task they had to continue to pass down all they witnessed to their children and grandchildren, who did not have the same experiences they did.
“The fear of God can be equated with wisdom, which should be the guiding principle of one’s life.”
Moses instructs the people not to make up false Gods to worship, but to only worship the one true God, the one that has been with them since they entered the wilderness. 15: “Diligently watch yourselves – because you did not see any form on the day the Lord spoke to you out of the fire at Horeb – so you don’t act corruptly and make an idol for yourselves in the shape of any figure . . . ” It is easy to look around us and create our own idols – the things of this world that fill an empty space within, rather than giving that space to God.
20: “But the Lord selected you and brought you out of Egypt’s iron furnace to be a people for his inheritance, as you are today.” God allowed Israel to suffer in Egypt so they would be better prepared to “be a people for his inheritance.” We go through really hard times in life, and can have our own iron furnaces, sometimes more than one. What work is God doing in us when we are in those furnaces’ of life, that as God leads us out of the furnace, we can relate to others and reach our hands down to pull them out as well and into the land that God has awaiting for us when we leave this earth?
29: “But from there, you will search for the Lord your God, and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, in the future you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. He will not leave you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them by oath, because the Lord your God is a compassionate God.”
35: “You were shown these things so that you would know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. He let you hear his voice from heaven to instruct you. He showed you his great fire on earth, and you heard his words from the fire. Because he loved your fathers, he chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt by his presence and great power, to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as is now taking place. Today, recognize and keep in mind that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below; there is no other. Keep his statutes and commands, which I am giving you today, so that you and your children after you may prosper and so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you for all time.”
There is quite a bit in this chapter! Verse 35 sums it up nicely. God cared about the people he brought out of a really bad environment in Egypt. The road they followed to the land God promised them filled with honey, could have been a much smoother road; however, their grumbling, disobedience and wandering off the path made it pretty bumpy with more life challenges than there needed to be. God is asking them to remember all that took place, to love him above all as their one and only God, to be aware of potential idols in their lives and to pass this all down to future generations.
Where am I on this path? Am I following, or am I wandering? What idols have I made in my life to comfort me when life gets tough, or I am bored, to fill my time? If I have strayed, how can I get back on the path God has laid out for me. What am I passing down to future generations?