Deuteronomy 32 | Escaping Divine Judgment | Alex Culpepper

Well, if. See if this. You hear me. Okay. Yeah.

Is it coming through okay? It'll. It'll come through a little bit stronger here in just a second. But if you are new or visiting with us and you don't know me, my name is Alex Culpepper. I'm the pastor here at Renovation Church.

And it is one of my joys that we are able to open up God's word together. And so it was. If you are not used to the Bible or you kind of used to what we do, we do actually put the passage up on the screen for you so that you can follow along with us. And I'm gonna adjust my mic here so that we make sure that we're all able to hear good there. Yeah.

So we'll put the passage up on the screen. You're able to. So that you can follow along with us. Because we want you to know that, number one, the words that I say up here don't just come out of nowhere. That they do come from God's word.

Right. And if I'm up here talking and I have something to say, like, it's just. Just not important if it's not connected to God's word. Go deeper into God's word and we'll see what happens with my mic and whether or not it sticks around for the morning, I may end up adjusting and having to switch mics again. That's okay.

So I want to talk to you about songs this morning. Songs are powerful teaching tools. In fact, you will be surprised at what you can remember because you sang it in a song. So many of you learned the Alphabet by singing a song. Right?

A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Right. And that's set to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle. Right. Which is another really popular kids song. That's how you learned all of the letters that are in the Alphabet.

And some of you still have to sing the song to yourself to figure out which letter comes. No, I'm just. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Or, you know, head, shoulders, knees and toes.

Knees and toes. Right, yeah, yeah. So that's. You learn all the eyes and ears and mouth and nose. Right.

So. So we learn all the different parts of the body for kids. Right. Schoolhouse Rock taught us conjunction junction. What's your function?

Right. Yeah. So here are some fun ones. The song London Bridge is Falling down is actually detailing history for us because the government in England had really hard time maintaining the London Bridge. It was dilapidated all the time.

And so this was a lesson to teach you hey, it's in your best interest to not spend a lot of time on the London Bridge because it's falling apart or Baa Baa Black Sheep, which is another fun song. Have you any wool? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Three bags full.

One for the master, one for the dame. And what this is actually teaching us is a song that was written in medieval England to teach us about the laws of taxation. And in medieval England, the master is the king, the dame is the church, and we've changed the lyrics to say, one for the little boy who lives down the lane. The little boy is the farmer who lives down the lane. But in fact, in the original lyrics, the people who wrote the song said, none for the little boy who lives down the lane.

So one for the master, one for the Damon, none for the little boy who lives. And so songs are really useful for us. They can teach us a lot. My kids have gone to a few local vacation schools. I'm just going to switch mics here.

It's going to go in and out. Yellow mic, yellow mic. You got it. There we go. My kids have gone to a few local vacation Bible schools.

Every Bible school song that they've learned, they remember, right? They know the words to the song. They remember the principles. And in fact, there's one Bible school curriculum that when. When they bring out that there's a song that they do, it's not.

It's a set to a different tune each year, but they have the same basic lyrics each year so that the kids will remember how to respond to the gospel, how to respond to the good news. So every year they have a song that has these lyrics. A, it's the ABCs of how to respond to Jesus. A, admit to God that you're a sinner and repent. B, believe that Jesus is the son of God.

And C, confess your faith in Jesus as savior and Lord, right? And so every. Every year, this curriculum repeats this song or these lyrics over and over again so kids know how to respond to the gospel. I say all of that because today's passage is about a song for us. Today's passage comes to us from Deuteronomy, chapter 32.

And we're in a series called the Death of Moses. This is focused on what happens as the people of Israel prepare to go into the land. And there's now a leadership transition, right? So. So Moses is.

Is transitioning out. Joshua is transitioning in to lead the people. Moses has been told by God, hey, Moses, you're not going to be able to go into the land that God has promised. And the reason for that is that you have disobeyed me, right? You have, you have not only disobeyed me, but Moses exact sin is that he failed to honor the Lord as holy right.

He treated God's name, he took God's power into his own hands and he used it as an object of his anger. And so as a result, God said to Moses, moses, you can't go into the land. Somebody else is going to go in in your place. And so this series is taking us through that process as Israel prepares to go in. And so if you remember back to last time, God told Moses and Joshua that the people are going to abandon the Lord.

Whenever in your Bible, in the Old Testament, when you see the word Lord in capital letters L O R D, what that is telling you is that's our English Bible's way of translating the name of God. But, but in the Hebrew language it is Yahweh. So every time you see capital L O R D, that's not just general Lord or a general God that's out there, that's specifically the God of Israel who has a name and he calls himself I am Yahweh. So, so the, the Lord was going to be abandoned by his people, right? Yahweh, who, who had loved them, who had saved them out of Egypt, that these people were going to take up allegiance with other gods and, and commit spiritual adultery against the one true God, right?

So this was really heavy news for, for Joshua and Moses to have to hear. And specifically the people that it would be, it would be the generation after Joshua that abandons Yahweh, Joshua's kids and that generation's kids. And so I just want to kind of get some context here because after giving this news, God says to Moses and Joshua, now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel, right? You're going to teach it to the people.

You're going to teach it to moms. And moms or moms are going to teach it to children and then their dads are going to sing it to their co workers and the whole nation's going to be singing this song. It is a song that is meant to be passed on to other people so that when the day comes, this song that they sang as kids would be a reminder to them that they had been warned that all of this was going to happen, that they knew what would happen if they were to rebel and to serve what this passage calls the Baals or the false gods. So now, before we get to this song, verse 20, it answers a really important question, because you may have in your mind, and many do, as you just talk about the history of Israel, you may have in your mind, like, why would they abandon God? If he had been so good and so kind to them, why would they leave him?

And verse 20 kind of explains or gives us an idea of what happens here. For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, right, this very abundant, rich land, which I swore to give to their fathers, and this is the key part, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them and despise me and break my covenant. So the parents of this rebellious generation, what this is saying is that they were going to get lazy. In fact, what would happen is that God gave Joshua's generation a command to go into the Lord and to utterly destroy every nation that worships a false God in the land, right? And the reason for that is as God gave the promised land to his people, he wants to remove all influence of false spiritual worship.

And Joshua's generation, as they went into the land, they won many great victories along the way. But what they did is that they stopped short of obeying Yahweh's commands to the full, because they went in and they won more and more victories. And as they won victories, they noticed the blessing and they gathered the blessing, and they became satisfied with the blessing, and they neglected full obedience to God. And God had told them, if you don't do this, your descendants will pay a price. If there's some other God to worship in the land, your descendants will turn to that God and then they will worship that God.

And so they're not just going to choose other gods. Their love for those other gods will cause them to despise the one true God. And so I just want us to catch this before we get too far into this. The idols that you don't destroy will tempt your children and your grandchildren. So if God says, obey me to you, and then your kids watch you disobey God and never take ownership of your disobedience and still receive blessings from God's hand, what will they learn?

They will learn that, oh, I guess we don't really need to take God seriously. And so God is telling them ahead of time what will take place. Like this is what's going to happen. And the reason he's telling them Number one, he's sovereign, right? So.

So what he says goes. But the second reason is that he knows the sinful propensity of the human heart, and he knows that when the next generation doesn't obey God to the full, that the generation after them will easily be led astray to other gods. And so we'll go back to the song then. And. And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness, for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring.

If you're happy and you know it.

Yeah, yeah, you see, you know, you get the idea, right? It sticks with you. And this is what it's going to do for the people. It's going to stick with them. And so verse 22.

So Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the people of Israel. So this is what we're going to do. We're not going to do every single line of this song, but this is a good opportunity to take what you learned this week and maybe go back to the passage and reflect on it as you read the whole thing. But there are five major sections of this song, and we're going to look at elements from each of those sections. The first section is a call to order.

Deuteronomy 32. One, give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. So this opening song is essentially calling on all of the cosmic realities, right? The heavens and the earth, all parts of creation to come. And these parts of creation are coming to kind of function like a jury in a courtroom.

The way this is set up is setting up kind of like a courtroom setting for us that there's going to be testimony and there's going to be witnesses, and there's going to be evidence presented. And so this is a calling together. And then after this, the main character of this courtroom comes in. Verse 3, says, For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh, ascribe greatness to our God the Rock. His work is perfect.

All his ways are justice. A God of faith, faithfulness, and without iniquity, just and upright is he. So in a courtroom, the bailiff says, all rise. The court of the honorable judge is now in session. Right?

That's what this is. This is the all rise. This is the proclamation of God's name. Everybody take note. God is entering to sit on his judgment seat right now.

He is the one who reigns over this cosmic courtroom, and it calls him the Rock. That this throughout this song this is the name that is also used for God to help us understand something about his character. That he is steady and unchanging. That there is no fickleness about Him. That he is reliable.

And so if you think about judges, how are people evaluated to become judges like to be able to sit on the seat where they have their own court and they have to rule well. They need to have a track record. They need to have qualifications. They need to be able. Like, you have to go through a pretty long process and you have to have a pretty clean record in order to be able to sit on a judgment seat.

And so God's qualifications to be the presiding judge over this courtroom are being listed here for us. That he's perfect. That he makes no error, right? That he is complete in himself. He needs nothing else to make him complete.

That he always knows and does what is most righteous. He has proven himself faithful to his word time and time again. And so all of this, this song, this beginning of the song, this opening, is teaching them the first lesson. And the first lesson is this, that we are standing in the courtroom of the highest and holiest judge. If they were to take something away from this, it's okay.

God is great and he is above me. And he is more powerful and more perfect than I could ever imagine anything being. And so I love it, particularly when we sing songs that are about God and not about us. Not that songs. I mean, we can associate and understand, like, our relationship to God.

And I love all that. But I love in particular, for worship songs that are explicitly about God, which is how this song starts. It's a song that starts about God because we get to understand who he is and his qualifications. That we get to understand what it means to proclaim and be in awe of who he is. That we understand what.

Who it is that we're interacting with as we enter into his courtroom. And so it's really helpful to have this at the beginning of the song because. Because if you are prone to be at odds with God, which if you're a human being in the room, then you are prone to be at odds with God. If you're prone to that, you hear at the outset that his qualifications are better than yours. And that should cause you to think twice about whether or not you're going to oppose Him.

So the next section, what it does is it lists the charges that God will have against the future generation. Verse 5. They have dealt corruptly with him. They are no longer his children because they are blemished. They are a Crooked and twisted generation.

Essentially, this is saying that they have abandoned their calling to be God's children. God said, you are my special people. You are my treasured possession. I'm going to save you. I'm going to love you.

And they said, no thanks, right? And so you may have heard something said like this, and even, like, me used the phrase, hey, well, you know, we're all God's children, right? And there is a sense in which this is true, right? We are all created by Him. He is the Creator of all things.

But the testimony of Scripture is that. That we're kind of born into this pattern of making every effort we can to remove ourself from association with him and from obedience to him and from. From anything that we can that would relate us to Him. And so when we align ourselves and proclaim our allegiance to other things as our priority or as first in our life instead of him, and this is what the next generation of Israel would do, they would align themselves, they would proclaim their allegiance to other gods. Then what we do is we remove ourselves from the rights to call him our Father.

And that's what this is saying. It's saying that they know they aren't his children anymore because of what they've done, because they've gone after other gods. And so the second lesson of this song is that God's beloved, right, those he has pursued and loved and saved and given abundance to God's beloved will betray him. That's what Israel did. They committed spiritual adultery.

They made covenants with demon gods. And from there, what's going to happen is that this song is going to prophetically detail all of the evidence that points to the betrayal, right? So the charges, they will betray me. But then there's going to be evidence that amounts to this. And so verse 15 gives us.

Starts giving us the evidence. But Jeshurin grew fat. Jeshurin is like a nickname. It's a nickname given to Israel, and it's a word that means righteous one. The Righteous one.

So the Righteous one grew fat and kicked you. Grew fat, stout and sleek. And then he forsook God who made him, and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. Could you just imagine, like, kids running around and singing this song like, you know, and playfully like, you know, having this committed to their memory. But then, of course, we do, like, learn Ring around the Rosie, right?

Which is just a terrifying song. So for what it's worth, this is not a new thing. There's a lot of irony going on because this, this title, the Righteous One Jeshurin. It means upright, means holy, right? And it's essentially saying, you know, Mr. Righteous, Mr. Righteous performed all of the acts of a rebellious child, right?

That the one who was supposed to be righteous became rebellious. Anybody ever seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Right? All of the kids and Willy Wonka at the Chocolate Factory besides Charlie, right? Like, you know, they're just entitled, right?

And they think they deserve something. They're not listening to anybody's instruction, right? And their parents, you know, are taking care of them and giving them everything and, you know, coddling that, right? Whatever is going on. And so they just go off and they, they get in trouble because they're not plugged into the instructions that's being given to them.

So verse 16. They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations. They provoked him to anger. Everything that is being sung here, everything that they sing is meant to tell them that God sees and God knows that their actions were not accidental, that they fully intended to turn their backs on him, that they publicly, willfully, boldly were opposing him. And so the issue here is not merely that they left Yahweh, the one true God, but that they left, left God for other gods that Yahweh so clearly despised, right?

That he had sent them into the land to push out the influence of those other gods because they were so evil, right? God had declared war on them. And what this is saying is that these people are going to go and love those enemies of God. And so I deeply appreciate the utter clarity of verse 17.

They sacrificed two demons that were not God. And so I speak when I talk about the Old Testament and I talk about other gods of the nations and that kind of stuff, and I speak pretty clearly about saying, yeah, these are, these are demonic entities that, that are being worshiped by, that are vowing for the worship of human beings that they can attach themselves. And right? And this is what is happening in Israel in Deuteronomy 32:17. This is the first place where it makes the case, where God is being utterly clear that he shepherded his people through the desert.

He's saying, hey, don't go after other gods. Hey, stay true to me, right? And then they get to this moment before they walk in and God is clarif for them. You need to know that these are evil spiritual entities that want to destroy you, right? They are not for your good.

They are not working together with you. God is making this clear for them. There are no other gods, right? You can't, like, you can't have a spiritual connection without either connecting to the one true God or demons at the end of the day. Like those are the two choices that Scripture gives.

And so before the Israelites ever go into the land, they're singing a song that tells them that the gods that they've been going to chase after in love, that they are rebellious spiritual beings who have set themselves in opposition against God, who at the end of the day have no power at all over God, and yet they would still willfully choose to go after these gods. And so the third lesson of this song that they sing and memorize is that God doesn't issue charges without good reason, right? He has good reason to say what he has to say, right? I've heard, you know, this phrase which has been, I think repeated in churches for a while now, but sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay. And when that later generation, when they would remember and sing this song, kind of the spiritual reality underneath their surface level worship of other gods would be told to them time and time again, which almost kind of makes it worse because God's telling them the clear and direct truth.

And they, they continue to perform their covenant breaking actions. They did so with echoes of this song, reminding them of what they were doing as they were doing it. And so the next section deals with the sentencing. So after, after the evidence has been brought, after the charges have been made, there is now a sentence that is issued against those who have rebelled against God. Says, I will heap disasters upon them.

I will spend my arrows on them. They shall be wasted with hunger, devoured by plague and poisonous pestilence. I will send the teeth of beasts against them with the venom of things that crawl in the dust. This judgment would ultimately culminate in God sending in other nations, right? As, as time went on and they would come back to God a little bit and then they would betray him again and come back to God a little bit and then betray him again and come back and then betray him.

And this would be the pattern in Israel. And as time went on, this would eventually and ultimately culminate in God sending in other nations to capture their land and to carry off the people into exile in a land that was not theirs. And so lesson four, betrayal will cost us greatly. So you may read like these judgments that God issues and kind of go like, gosh, that's harsh, right? That's heavy.

But you don't realize that this is what they chose when they broke the covenant, right? The world apart from God. God has been seeking to show them the world apart from me is chaos and disintegration and disease. Right? If I don't bring healing and order and peace, there will not be healing and order and peace.

It is intended to fall apart because it's disconnected from me. And there's something in the human condition that says, you know what? I don't like the limitations of order and healing and peace and hope. And so I think I want to take my chances in the chaos.

And God is just here for them, making clear what is going to happen when they choose to take their chances in the chaos. So just let me kind of take all of this and pull it to us, right? This is. We're talking about them, but I want to talk about us here. This would lead us to just deal with a stern and clear warning to us as Christians.

Right? And we wouldn't have any reason to do this, but we still need to sit with the warning and know its significance. The warning is, if you turn away from Jesus, you are inviting divine judgment on your life and on your soul. And if he truly has a hold on your soul, then at times when you walk away, you may find the grace of being able to see the judgment actually as his discipline in which he is helping you see that the chaos is not good for you and the chaos is not healthy for you so that you can find your way back to Him. And that leads us to the last section which provides a way out.

So before I do that, at first glance, this. This song appears to be a damning prophecy, right? That. But if you look closer, this is actually one of the greatest acts of mercy and kindness that God could give to his people. Because it's kind.

It's kind in that kind of way that it's bluntly honest about what they were doing in their sins. So that those who reck with the honesty of what God was saying would see that there's actually a way out. This song itself is actually. It's redemptive, right? It is hurtful and painful and very descriptive, but it is at the same time redemptive for God's people.

Because that generation who betrayed God would know, because they sang this song over and over and over again, that when they are stuck in the chaos and when every other God has failed them, there is a God who will not fail them. And so verse 36 says, for the Lord will have compassion on his servants.

This song is teaching that there is compassion in the judgment so that people can learn that the gods that they're chasing, the idols that hold their heart, have no real power to give life and joy and peace and hope that they'll only destroy. And so verse 39, God says, See, now that I, even I am he, that there's no God beside me, I kill. And you read the passage and you're like, yeah, we got that. But also I make alive. I wound.

Okay, yeah, sure. But also I heal. There's no other God that does that. There's no other God that makes alive. There's no other God that brings healing.

There's no other God that brings order and peace and hope. And so God is saying there is. There is a way out of the chaos and the disease and the disorder. And the way out is me. Would you repent?

Would you turn from your demon gods? Would you come back to me? Right? Your other gods cannot save or heal or rescue you. Your other gods want to destroy you.

Come to me because I am life and I am healing. And so the fifth lesson of this song that God's people would learn is that God is our only hope to escape the chaos of judgment. So I just want you to listen to these last verses of the chapter and just listen. I'm not going to put it on the screen. I just want you to listen.

Verse 46 says, Be careful to do all the words of this law, for it is no empty word for you, but your very life. And by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. God doesn't waste words. His word is life. He wants us to sing it.

He wants us to know it. He wants us to memorize it, right? We serve a God who has made a way for us to escape the chaos and the judgment that we participate in inviting on ourselves. And it's all the more proof of his steady and reliable nature to live love us truly, even though we would turn away from him. And so I have two.

So what's for us this morning? Number one, only God is worthy to sit on the judgment seat. We have a tendency to hear God's standards or hear God's ideas or hear what God wants and praise the Lord. There is forgiveness in Jesus when we fall short of those standards. But when we hear those standards, we.

We do this thing where we start to place God under our microscope as if somehow. Well, you know, we've matured, right? Like we've. Culturally. Those things were written a long time ago, and we know better than that, right?

We have A better idea about what is true and right and good. And so we evaluate. We begin evaluating God and say, well, that, that probably can't be true. That's a little, an outdated way to think. And, and we think, oh, well, that seems heartless of God.

That can't be who God really is. And we, and then we say, well, if that's who God is, then why didn't he or, or how could he or I wouldn't have done it this way. And at least part of what God was inviting his people to do was to realize that they are in no way qualified to sit on the judgment seat, right? If we have a concept of what is right and wrong, we did not get that concept apart from Him. But then what we do with that concept is we twist it and mold it to fit our own preferences.

And then we seek to hold him in contempt of our court. And here's the thing, we just, we will never succeed in trying to judge God. So that's the first so what? And then the second so what is this? It is in God's character to provide a pathway home for prodigals.

This is shown all the way from the very beginning when he was wooing and drawing Israel. So we need to come to God and we need to come acknowledging the full weight of our sin. And we need to come taking ownership of our action. And we need to come realizing that apart from him we have nothing. But God's posture has always been that we would come, that we would come home to Him, Right?

That we would. And it's the story that kind of. He has been writing on to history from the very beginning. Plan was that everyone who wanted to make their home in him would have a way to make their home in him through Jesus. Jesus would come, and this is what Jesus would do.

Jesus would pay the ultimate cost of judgment for our behalf. He lived the life that we should have lived in alignment with God's standards. And then he died the death that we deserve to die for not aligning with God's standards. And he wore our betrayal against God like a cloak on his body and carried it up to the cross and suffered for that betrayal, God's wrath on him so that all humanity would have a way to be forgiven and escape the judgment of hell that God is going to bring about against all of the chaos of this world, right? And so, so when God says come out of the chaos, he's doing it because he loves us, right?

Because he longs for to be aligned with him and to know him and to have our affections built towards him and to long to be with him. And so for everyone who has wandered and rebelled, he gives us a way to break allegiance from whatever other thing that our heart was worshiping and to turn to him in faith and say, God, I confess that I have betrayed you, but I receive you as my Lord and my Savior. And under such an expression of faith, we become recipients of the grace that he freely pours out his joy and his life and his love and his favor. And so, yes, God, like there is judgment with a holy God, but because he is who he is, there is also great mercy. So would you pray with me?

So Lord, we thank you for your word.

And we pray that you would direct our hearts to love and adore who you are, because you have poured out great kindness and great mercy towards us. That even now, for those of us who believe, even now, we still find ourselves stumbling and making decisions that are opposed to you, things that you've shown us we shouldn't do. And we argue with you and we debate with you and you still invite us back and you still say, hey, there's a way. Would you come? And would you turn away from what you were pursuing and would you just come to me and trust and lean on and receive what I have to give?

So God, we thank you just for your relentless pursuit of us, your love for us. And we thank you for everything that you accomplished for us in Jesus. That whoever trusts in Jesus because of his life and his death and his resurrection, can receive the gift of eternal life and freedom from the chaos. So thank you Jesus. And we ask that you would lift up our hearts and again our affections towards you as we continue in worship.

This morning we pray this in Jesus name, amen.