The First Great Commission

Deuteronomy 3:23-7:11, "And I Besought", Va’etchanan

This section of scripture again has a multitude of subjects that each deserve our time and attention.  Included in this section of scripture is:

• Moses re-telling his last plea to God to allow him entry into the promised land and God refusing,
• Moses again seeming to blame the people of Israel for God not allowing him to enter,
• Moses shares how God will use Israel to lead the nations to Himself and His ways,
• Moses makes a prophetic statement regarding the future of Israel (Deuteronomy 4:25-31),
• Moses recounts the Ten Commandments and the circumstance of how the people cut God off and asked Moses to intercede for the balance of what God had to share, and
• Moses shares three reasons behind God’s giving them the promised land. 

Of these, I am going to focus on:

• Moses shares how God will use Israel to lead the nations to Himself and His ways, and
• Moses shares three reasons behind God’s giving them the promised land.

In sharing these, we will come to understand the importance and relevance the others have to these foundational aspects of this section of scripture.

In Deuteronomy 4:1-8 we find Moses sharing what God has shown him about Israel taking possession of the promised land and how God will use them to lead the rest of the world to Him and His ways.  This is one of my favorite sections of scripture.  It is the “Great Commission” in the Torah.  In this, we find the heart of God relative to so many things.  This is one of my go to scriptures when people ask me about the application of God’s laws within the context of the New Covenant and how relevant they are to non-Jewish believers.  I believe this section of scripture really makes us look inside and consider some very hard questions relative to our heart attitude toward the laws, statutes, and ordinances given to Israel from God.  More importantly, it forces us to look at the commission God has on our lives.

As we look at the commission on our lives, we are led into even deeper thought regarding “the blessing and the curse” and what God’s purposes are in blessing us and bringing curses into our lives.  I know that even me just stating that God brings curses into our lives may have led some people to feeling a need to pull away from this.  If you are one of those people, I encourage you to stick with me a bit longer.  I’m not going to belabor this point but I will make this one point.  The challenge against God that the serpent put forth to Eve in the garden was “did God really say?”.  If we look at the context of the entire sermon called “Deuteronomy” I see one main point.  It is, Moses telling the people “God surely did say”.  I believe the greatest sin of the church is minimizing the importance of what God said and believing that what He says about how He will interact with us if we do not listen doesn’t apply to us.  In our flesh we wash away the importance of what we don’t understand and redefine God into our own image.  We must acknowledge that “Surely God did say”.  It really is that simple.

The question we are looking at today is why.  Why such harsh curses?  How can such a harsh response be love?  Why would God respond so harshly over what appears to be such trivial things? 

Have you ever stopped to consider the other side of the coin?  Why such amazing blessings?  How can such amazing blessings be connected to such trivial life choices?  Why would God bless us in such an exuberant way for making an effort to live in harmony with a way of life that is healthier and provides beautiful times of worship and celebration? 

I guess the first question would be, why do we believe anything God gives us is trivial?  This really is where we must start and this is a personal journey for each of us.  Maybe we aren’t that different form the children of Israel who stopped God after the first ten commandments and sent Moses up to talk to God about the rest.  Are we making the same mistake?  Are we telling God we don’t want to talk to Him about these things?

One of the resources I like to go to each week in my Torah study time is an online source called AlephBeta.  Each week they do a video teaching on the Torah Portion.  Their presentation is fantastic and the depths of their insight well worth considering.  In this week’s video “why God promised Israel the land” https://www.alephbeta.org/playlist/why-god-promised-israel-the-land they present a wonderful understanding to God blessing Israel with the promised land.  I am going to take that teaching and go one step further and use it to help us view all of God’s blessings from this stand point.

In their presentation, they pointed out that through Moses God gave the children of Israel three reasons for why they were being given the promised land:

• Because of their obedience to the Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances,
• Because of the covenant promises made to Abraham, and
• Because of the evil of the people (not because of their own righteousness).

They point out that on first glance these seem to be contradictory statements.  But, in fact they are not.  I believe the connection between these three “reasons” is found in Deuteronomy 4:1-8 and what I refer to as “The First Great Commission.”  Let’s look at verses 5-8: 5 "See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.  "So keep and do [them,] for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.'  "For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him?  "Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?

Here are the bullet points:

• Keeping the Laws, Statutes, and Judgements is our wisdom,
• The world will see this wisdom and acknowledge those who follow God’s ways as wise and understanding,
• This will lead the world to the Lord our God, and
• This will lead the world to seeing ALL of God’s ways as righteous.

This implies that they would allow this understanding to lead them to putting away their gods and accepting the Lord our God, and replacing their ways of life with the “whole Law” because in their view it is not trivial, stupid, pointless, outdated, or mere ritual, but “righteous”.

Taking this understanding back to the teaching on “why God promised Israel the land” and applying it to the blessing and the curse will lead us into an understanding that will help us trust that “God surely did say” and why such amazing blessings and such harsh curses are tied to what appears to be so trivial when compared to the greater commandments of love, mercy, and justice.

Here are the two main points:

• There are a lot of religions and anti-religions that believe that unity with god and spiritual enlightenment is all about love, mercy, and justice.  Living by His ways is what makes us different and leads them away from their gods and to the Lord our God.
• His ways are important to Him because He loves us.  When He gave us His ways, He gave us a gift.  He wants us to share this gift with the world because He loves them too.  He wants them to have the same wisdom and life that He offered us.

Putting it all together this is what it looks like.

• For the world to see “us” we must be a presence in the world.  This requires children and the blossoming of the family tree.  To become a nation, we must have land.
• To catch the attention of the nations around us, we must live in peace, be blessed with abundance, and remain in peace when things don’t go our way. 

Understanding how this relates to the three seemingly contradictory reasons as to why “God blesses us” leads us to the true revelation of this section of scripture.  This understanding puts, not only the blessing into perspective, but also gives us greater insight into “the curse”, why the progression of the curse is what it is, and the prophetic statements that Moses makes about the future of Israel and our journey with God.  Going one step further, this even helps us understand why Yeshua will return to earth, set up His earthly kingdom, and why He will institute all of God’s ways as the ways of the land.

The point is that God wants to use us to lead the world to Him and His Gift (His way of life) because the people of the world are evil and He wants to set them free from that evil.  The expanding family tree, the land, nor the blessings are rewards for living in harmony with His ways.  These things are provided because they are our testimony and the tools by which we are to lead the world to Him and His ways.  However, if we are not living by His ways, and He would continue to bless us, allow us to live in the land, and continue to make us a thriving nation, we would not lead the world to His ways but only to Him.  This is simply not acceptable to Him.  As such, He cannot perpetuate the blessings and must fall back on curses and remove us from the land to lead us back to His ways so that we can fulfill the fullness of the commission on our lives.  This is the foundation of the covenant that He established with Abraham and is the foundation of our relationship with Him.  It is as easy as 1, 2, 3.  The reasons work together and are not in conflict with each other.

As God allowed me to see the greater image of this understanding it really put me into a place of appreciation and humility for all of the blessings that He has bestowed upon me.  It really made me think about the interactions that I have had with some of the more “evil” people in this world, and how His blessings have not been on my merit, but for the purposes of putting me in a place where I have the ability to be an impact in the lives of those people.  It reminded me of how faithful He is, how He will more than replace what those hurt and lost people have taken, and how His doing so is based on the promises that He made to my ancestors and to me.  All of this is helping keep me grounded in knowing that the blessings are not for me, not because of how I strive to live by His ways, nor because of how I interact with the hurt and lost people of this world.  His blessings are given because of Him, because of the calling that He has on my life, and because of them.  He has blessed me because He loves them and He wants to use me to lead them to Him and His ways.  It really is that simple.  My working with Him does not cause the blessings as a reward for me, but perpetuates them so He can reach THEM.

I pray that this has been a blessing to you, that it will impact your life in a mighty and powerful way, and that what has been shared will deepen and enrich your relationship with Him and those around you.