The Song of Moses. It's a warning to the people of Israel. Moses himself declares that when he had finished speaking all the words of this song to Israel, he said to them, take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today. It's a warning. It's a prophetic indictment. The words that Moses sings in the presence of the people of Israel could well have been sung centuries later and they would have been an absolutely accurate account of Israel's failure to acknowledge God and his response in not acknowledging his paternity of them. But it is also a song of hope. Moses calls the people of Israel in the first couple of verses to give ear that he will speak that the earth hear the words of my mouth he says may my teaching drop as the rain my speech distill as the dew like gentle rain on the tender grass and like showers upon the herb. You know, those words don't exactly give us fair warning of what's to come in the song, do they? We're thinking that this is going to be a gentle song of hope, a calming tune that will will calm the nerves that are set on edge because of what is about to happen as the children of Israel are encamped in the plains of Moab, about to cross the Jordan, about to enter the promised land, about to take up arms against the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the others who currently possess the land. This is going to be a song that will build up their confidence and their comfort in God their maker. It is a song of hope, but not perhaps in the way that we might have anticipated, not perhaps in the way that those who first heard this song might have anticipated. The song first and foremost is a warning and yet it gives hope. Let's consider it together. God and his faithfulness are rehearsed by Moses in this song and that's what we first want to consider for a few moments. Moses is seeking to portray reality to the people of Israel as they go in to take possession of the land that centuries earlier had been promised to Abraham as an inheritance for his descendants. And so Moses tells them that their God is a faithful God. He's the rock. The idea being that he is dependable. He is strong. The storms may pound against this rock, but it is immovable. He is the rock. His work is perfect. He's not a god who is content with mediocrity in what he does. Everything that he sets his hand to do brings forth from his mouth the verdict. Very good. He's a god of justice. He's not a God who is easily swayed. He's not a God who is manipulated by a bribe. He is a God who is true. He is a God who is righteous. He is a God who is just. He is a God who is without iniquity. He's upright. He's a God of faithfulness to all who trust in him. This is Israel's God. And he's been kind to them, he's been good to them. Moses talks about their history, he calls them to remember, he calls them to ask their fathers, ask their elders, tell us the story of how God made us. For God had taken them and he had, as it were, lifted them out of the dust of the earth and formed them into a nation for his service. We have in this song echoes of Eden, echoes of the narrative of the creation of the world. God found Israel in a desert land and in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye, like an eagle that stirs up its nest that flutters over its young. You know the language that is used there is the language of Genesis 1, 1 and 2. But in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless, and boy, it was a howling wilderness, if you like. And the Spirit of God hovered, fluttered over the waters. And God said, let there be light, and the world was born out of the darkness. And what Moses is saying is that God, God has taken you, and God has formed you, he's made you, He's starting with you as He started with creation and He's set you here as a nation that He's moulded, that He's made, that He has formed, that He has given commandments to, just like in the beginning. But what happened in the beginning? In the beginning all was very good. The work of God's hand was perfect. but the man whom God made into whose nostrils he had breathed the breath of life that he might be a living being rebelled against him. Disbelieved his words, disobeyed his commands, and brought upon himself the curse of God in this world. And here God is forming this nation. He's starting again as it were. He's done it before, it must be admitted. This isn't the first time that he's started again. When the wickedness of man had become so great in the earth that every thought and intent of his heart was only evil continually, God determined to destroy the whole world by a flood. And he preserved the life on this earth in one family. righteous Noah and his wife and children and as the floodwaters receded and the ark came to rest it was a new beginning wasn't it a new world had been formed and God reiterated the commission that he had given to Adam and that they are to be fruitful and fill the earth and subdue it. And this was the commission that Noah then takes up in this new beginning. But it's a new beginning with the same kind of man as Adam, who was banished from Eden. A man with a sinful heart. A man who loved God, but not perfectly. A man who obeyed God, but not flawlessly. And a man who reproduced himself. And sadly with an ever increasing abundance of his own sins in their hearts. And so, God begins again with this nation of Israel, called out of slavery, brought together at Mount Sinai, given laws that would guide them, direct them, tell them exactly how to live. They wouldn't be groping in the dark, wondering what God wanted from them. God would show them. God would guide them. God would be with them. He would be in the midst of their camp. He would dwell with them and they would be his people. What people upon earth have ever been so privileged as these people since Adam was cast out of Eden? None had been. And there, in measure, Eden had been replanted in the midst of the camp, in the tabernacle of God. God has been good. He's been good to Israel. He's provided for them an abundant and blessed land. They're going to eat the produce of the field. They're going to be suckled with honey out of the rock, curds from the herd, with the fat of lambs, with the very finest. This is God's love for them. God's provision for them. And He, He's going to be there. He's going to be with them. The Lord alone will guide them. And this is how it has been, and this is how it would be, but this is not how it will continue. God is faithful, and Moses rehearses his faithfulness, but then Moses has to go on and describe God's indictment against them. Oh, what a tragedy. They have dealt corruptly with him, he says. They are no longer his children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father who created you, who made you and established you? God has poured out his blessings on him and he's grown fat on the blessings of God. But as he grew fat, he grew self-satisfied and he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the rock of his salvation. This hasn't happened yet, of course, as Moses is singing this song to this generation of Israel. Remember, first and foremost, it's a warning. But it's also a prophetic indictment. This isn't something that may happen. This is something that will happen. It was bound to happen. when Noah stepped off the ark. It was bound to happen that he, righteous in his generation, should nevertheless succumb to sin and temptation and his sons with him. It's but a few hours, isn't it, before Noah overindulges and is senseless, a brute beast. Why? Because sin dwells in his heart. A new world washed clean of the evil and iniquity that God had seen before he sent the flood, but not a new heart. in Noah's frame, the same heart. It's inherited Adam's rebellion. It's destined to be perverse and foolish. And so it's inevitable. It's inevitable that Israel will go this way. A new day dawns with the law of God forming Israel into a nation as his own dwelling place. But it's inevitable that something will happen to spoil it all. The Creator has been rejected. The father has been forgotten. You were unmindful of the rock, the rock, that steadfast one, immovable. You were unmindful of the rock and you forgot the God who gave you birth. It went after abominations, sacrificing to demons that were not God's. This is what happened to Israel. And it brought the anger and justice of a holy God upon them. So Moses tells the story, tells the story of God's judgment upon the people. How will it be seen? Well, he describes it as turning his face from them. He's turning his back on them. He's walking away from them. He'd been there. He'd been there in the midst of the camp. He'd been there a column of fire by night and cloud by day. He had stood between them and their enemies. He had protected them. He had guided them. He had provided for them water and food. All the necessities of life he had handed to them on a plate, as it were. And now he's walking away. He separates himself from them again. Yes, again, I say, he's done it before, hasn't he? He did it when he banished Adam and Eve. from the Garden of Eden, he hid his face from them. Oh, I know they were hiding from him. Yes, I know, God, I know the story. How they took of the forbidden fruit and how they suddenly became ashamed of the fact that they were naked. And they heard his voice calling to them in the garden and so they hid in the bushes, thinking that they could hide from the all-seeing, all-knowing God. I know they hid from him, but he cast them out from himself. He turned his back on them. He turned his face away from them. It's a picture, you see, of God's disfavor rather than his favor. To have his face towards someone, his countenance shining upon them is to bless them, to be with them, to be happy. But this God is not happy. He's angry. They're a perverse generation, he says, children in whom is no faithfulness. And so he says, they're no longer his children. They don't look like his children. They don't bear the characteristics of the family. And God hides from them. But more than that, it gets worse, doesn't it? Not only does he hide away from them, not only does he turn his back upon them, but he is actively working against them. I will heap disasters upon them. I will spend my arrows on them. They will be wasted with hunger and devoured by plague and poisonous pestilence. I will send the teeth of beasts against them and with the venom of things that crawl in the dust. Outdoors the sword shall bereave and indoors terror. Young man, woman alike, nursing child, man of grey hair, no one in Israel is exempt. from the judgment of God. Because of their unbelief and rebellion against him, the judgment of God comes upon all who forsake him, young or old. These are sobering realities. This is a warning, surely for Israel, why do they not take it to heart? How is it that in a relatively short space of time, these things are happening? Or they happen initially, just region by region, in the days of the judges, after Joshua passes off the scene and no longer is leading them. Those are warnings, those are hints, those are demonstrations that God means what he says, and his word is not to be taken lightly. And then later, in the days of the kings, the full outpouring of God's anger against Israel is seen. But that's not the end of the song, is it? There's more. Because we have to recognise that Israel are not the centre of the story. And that might be a little bit surprising. After all, we've been working our way through the Pentateuch, we're in the last book now, the book of Deuteronomy, and for the most part, we've been talking about Israel. But Israel isn't the centre of the story. God is. And God must always be the center of the story. It's really about God. And so we read, God saying, I would have said, I will cut them to pieces. I will wipe them from human memory. Had I not feared provocation by the enemy. lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, our hand is triumphant. It was not the Lord who did all this. You see, God doesn't share his glory with others. It is all his own. and he will not share glory with the nations round about whom he uses as a chastening rod against his people who have gone wayward and rebellious against him. He wields this rod of the nation's armies, but their guilt is their own. And so he turns around, as it were, and he comes against them now, lest they be puffed up and think that their hand is triumphant against the Israelites, that God was nowhere in the picture and had nothing to do with it. He calls them to think seriously and be sober-minded about such a claim. If they were wise, he says, they would understand this, they would discern. How could one have chased a thousand? Two put ten thousand to flight unless their God had sold them and the Lord had given them up. You see, if they were thinking soberly about their situation, about their victories, they would have realised that for some reason God was on their side rather than Israel's side. That God was working against his people. And they would have acknowledged God and honoured God as the one who had given them the victory. rather than taking that claim to themselves. And so God turns around and God judges the nations. And he does so in order to show mercy to his people. Not only to vindicate his name, but to vindicate them as the people of God. Vengeance is mine, he says, and recompense for the time when their foot shall slip, for the day of their calamity is at hand and their doom comes swiftly, for the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free. when he sees that his people are at their lowest and they're at their weakest and they've come to an end of themselves and the implication here is that they are crying out to him as they had cried out to him from Egypt and he had come to them then with a strong arm and a mighty hand and had redeemed them from their slavery and brought them into this land of their inheritance. Ah, when they come to an end of themselves, when they come to their senses and cry out to Him, He will have mercy. he will abundantly pardon. This is what he says right at the end of this song. Moses calls to the heavens rejoice bow down to him all gods for he avenges the blood of his children. I thought they weren't his children you say in verse 5. No longer his children because they are blemished but look what he does. He takes vengeance on his adversaries. He repays those who hate him. He cleanses his people's land, or he atones for them. Oh yes, they're blemished. They're crooked and twisted. They can't untwist themselves. They can't straighten themselves. They can't clean themselves up. But there is a God in heaven who can. There is a God in heaven who will, if they will cry out to him for mercy and call upon him for his favor. This is the song of Moses. It's a song of Israel's history, isn't it? It's a song that echoes human history. from the Garden of Eden and the fall of man and the judgment of God to salvation on a hill outside Jerusalem where the Son of God atones for his people. It's a song that that reveals to us the justice and the grace of God. And with this in mind, there's one more truth that needs to be teased out as we conclude. God is dealing with Israel here in this song, isn't he? He's spoken about his faithfulness to Israel. He's proclaimed an indictment against Israel. He has pronounced judgment upon Israel. And his glory is to be maintained in the redemption of Israel. Israel is there. It's the story, it's a song about Israel. But in the midst of of this song, in the midst of this warning, in the midst of this prophetic indictment, there is hope. And the hope is not just for Israel, who, if they will turn from their wicked ways and come back to God in repentance, He will pardon. It's a message of hope. to the nations? And just as Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden facing the wrath of God and the judgment of God as he has called them out of the bush that's covering them and stands them before his penetrating gaze and pronounces his judgment upon them, they hear a word of hope from the lips of God. hope of a deliverer, hope of one who would destroy sin in this world and redeem them from its effects. So, here in this song, in the midst of this song, this song of indictment and judgment, there is hope, hope for the nations. Oh, Israel have made me jealous with what is no God. They have provoked me to anger with their idols, God says. So I will make them jealous with those who are no people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. And this God has done. as Paul declares in his letter to the church in Rome. In the 11th verse of the 11th chapter he says, So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall? By no means, rather through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Israel's rebellion against God, their father, resulted in God offering salvation to the nations. Without the fulfillment of the song of Moses, we in this room this evening would not have experienced the mercy of God. It was through the means of Israel's rebellion and bringing them a sense of jealousy at his favor being poured out upon the Gentiles who were no people that he has now called my people. We have had the gospel proclaimed to us and we have been brought out of our hopeless condition and have been given hope. This is truly a song of hope. It's a song of hope if you will turn to God. It's a song of hope if you will confess your unworthiness to be blessed by God. It's a song of hope if you are ready to fall on your knees before him and plead for the forgiveness of God. This is a song of hope. But if you're not, it's a warning. The rock can be angry and destroy. Let's pray. Our Father, we ask that you would give us discernment, give us wisdom, help us, we pray, to examine our own hearts and our own lives. For some it may be the realisation that they have become self-satisfied. They have become fat. They've taken too much for granted and have stopped honouring you and stopped serving you and have filled the place that belongs to you in their lives with other things. May you drive this warning home to them and pluck them back from the brink of danger. and draw them back into the narrow way. For some it will be an eye-opening reality that they were never close to you, never had your face shining upon them, never knew your favour, that they had been blind, they had been in the dark, May you pronounce that light shine into their hearts this day, the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that they may see your glory and submit to your reign. Have mercy, we pray. Give them hope, hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone can atone for sin. Father, we pray that In your mercy and grace, the indictment against sinners will never fall upon any of us. Protect us from ourselves as well as from this world, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.