Monday, October 16, 2017
Daily reading assignment – Deuteronomy 1-3
To those who faithfully follow this pastor’s daily meanderings through the scriptures, thank you for your patience. Ministry demands, sermon preparation and travels often interrupt my capacity to write daily commentary. I am sure many find the demands of life crowding out your readings of the same. If my count is accurate, we are beginning our forty-first week of devotions with eleven weeks to go before the end of this year. Let us persevere and complete this expedition through the scriptures!
Our journey through the Bible in one-year continues today with the book of Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch. Whereas Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers chronicled Israel’s journey in the wilderness giving us a record of God’s Law, the book of Deuteronomy begins at the journey’s end at the threshold of the Promise Land. With the exception of Moses, Joshua and Caleb, the generation that was twenty years old and older and followed Moses out of Egypt was dead.
Deuteronomy is a record of Moses’ final words and exhortations to the people he had shepherd for forty years. We read:
Deuteronomy 1:3 – And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the LORD had given him in commandment unto them;”
It was important for Moses to rehearse with that generation who they were, from whence they came, and God’s plan for the nation (Deuteronomy 1:8). Much like you might search your ancestral family tree to know your physical lineage, Moses recognized his days were numbered among the people and he wanted them to know not only their physical lineage, but more importantly, their spiritual lineage as God’s chosen people.
The people who were 19 years old and younger when Israel refused to cross into the Promise Land, were now in their late fifties and Moses feared their children and grandchildren would be tempted to turn back from the challenges of the new land. Knowing many were either too young to remember or not yet born when the people rebelled against God, Moses rehearsed the failure of their forefathers to trust God and cross the Jordan River into the Promise Land (Deuteronomy 1-2). Concerned they lacked an understanding of what faithlessness cost their parents and grandparents, Moses made certain the people appreciated the tragic consequences of disobedience and understood the challenges before them (Deuteronomy 2).
Twentieth century philosopher George Santayana observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I fear that truth has befallen many Gospel preaching churches, Bible colleges, and fundamental Christian institutions in recent years.
I am old enough to remember well the reminisces and exhortations of Dr. Gilbert Stenholm, Dr. Richard Rupp and Dr. Bob Jones Jr. in “Preacher Boys” during my Bible college years at Bob Jones University. Those men had fought spiritual ecumenical battles, sometimes open warfare, against the progressives of their day who compromised their ministries fellowshipping with men and institutions that denied the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.
Thirty, forty, even fifty years passed since those men waged war for the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith; however, their passion had not abated, nor their determination to pass on to the men of my generation not only knowledge of the past, but a warning and exhortation. I graduated Bob Jones University knowing compromise with those who trifle with the doctrine of sanctification and personal holiness or reject the fundamentals of the Christian faith would eventually be a cancer destroying ministries, churches, Bible colleges, and mission boards.
Sadly, I have lived to witness the failures of venerable Bible fundamental churches, Bible colleges, and Christian institutions led by men either ignorant of the lessons of the past or dismissive of the fundamental spiritual heritage of those institutions.
The result of ignorance or leadership contemptuous of the past is the same; those institutions either close their doors or become a shadow of what they were in their golden years.
Warning: When the leadership of a Bible fundamental church, Bible college, or ministry distances itself from its heritage, it will invariably sacrifice its identity and forget God’s providences.
Copyright 2017 – Travis D. Smith