Deuteronomy 32:6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
9 For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:
12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
The nation of Israel was close to entering the land of Canaan. That was to be their permanent residence. Yet, they had a problem with trusting God. Here God addressed them as foolish people. He had brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. He had provided for all their needs for forty years in the wilderness. He gave them laws to live by. He protected them from all external enemies. However, they had not addressed the spiritual enemy that was deceiving them. They did not identify that enemy.
God was their Father. Israel was to be His children. The apostle Paul wrote:
Romans 9:6 Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That was their loss. Most of the Jews rejected God as their God. That is why a generation died out in the wilderness. However, the next generation were born in sin just as their parents were. Many of them had not learned the important lessons that God was teaching them.
The same could be said of Gentiles. We are not chosen through some patriarch like Abraham. However, spiritually we are the seed of Abraham when we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as our own personal Saviour. Yet most people look at true Christianity as something to be rejected and fought against. They are happy to adopt some corrupted form of Christianity, but not the real thing. That indeed is a foolish thing to do.
God created man. We are accountable to Him. In our text, God reminded the nation of Israel that He had established them as a nation. There would not be a nation of Israel without God’s intervention. There were nations in the world at the time of Abraham. There were no Israelites until God separated Abram out of Ur and brought him into Canaan. God demonstrated His ownership over Abram by changing his name to Abraham. The name Israel was first given to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. Before that there was no such name.
In verse 7 Israel was challenged to remember the days of old. We see again how important it is to teach true history. True history is Bible history. God blessed Abraham with one son — Isaac. Ishmael was not God’s design. That was due to Abraham’s sin. Ishmael would be a big problem for Israel and the world and will be that until God destroys that seed.
God challenged the people to ask their father and he would show them. The elders were supposed to teach the truth. If they rejected the truth they could not teach it.
We have thousands of people today who have rejected God and biblical Christianity and yet they want to teach people the Bible. What they are teaching is their own philosophy cloaked in a false religion. The unlearned readily jump on that bandwagon. They think they are doing a great thing because they talk of a god and a jesus.
In verse 8 God spoke of when He divided the nations into their inheritance. God is in charge. Every nation had a particular territory for the time God gave it to them. There was a major division of the world at the tower of Babel. He did that because they were rebelling against them and wanted to make a name for themselves, rather than exalt His name. God separated the sons of Adam. He set the bounds for the people. Notice that Israel took precedence to all other nations. Israel was to be the teaching nation. They were to be the beacon that would show all other nations the way of blessing.
Sadly, Israel rejected that place and they chose to adopt the darkness of the nations around them.
Today, we see most churches have adopted the darkness of the world around them. The rock music and the CCM music and the immodesty and the perversions are all ploys of the world. They rob God of His holiness. There are consequences to this corruption.
In verse 9 we see that the LORD’s portion is His people. Jacob is the one through whom the twelve tribes came into being. That was God’s inheritance. Israel has suffered greatly over the centuries due to their rebellion against God. They are still suffering today. I do not know how many times the Jews in Israel have had to run to their bomb shelters in the past week and a half. In Canada, three times in the past week synagogues have been shot at. A Jewish girls school was also targeted not long ago. Antisemitism is a big problem across the world. This is due to Israel’s rejection of the true God.
God chose to bring about the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ through Israel. Jesus is a Jew in His humanity. He is the Saviour of all people, but He is from Israel and He will be the King of Israel. Anyone that gets saved, is saved through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, a Jew.
In verse 10 God declared that He found Israel in a desert land, in a waste howling wilderness. Ur of the Chaldees was nothing spectacular. Abram was not an important person and his homeland was nothing to write home about. God took him out of that land and began to build His nation from one man and one woman.
God led Abram out of Ur into Canaan. He changed his name to Abraham. He instructed him. He told him He would give him a land and make a great nation out of him. He promised to bless him and his seed and He would bless those that blessed Israel and curse those that would curse her. God kept Israel as the apple of His eye. Even though Israel has despised Him more than they have loved Him, yet He has kept them as the apple of His eye.
In verse 12 God reminded Israel that He led them. God did not have any strange god with Him. The strange gods did not come from God. He did not teach anyone to bow before strange gods. Rachel took strange gods with her when they left Laban’s house. Israel was exposed to strange gods in Egypt. God did not promote idolatry. He showed that He was the true God. Israel needed to know Him and follow Him.
Israel had no excuse for paganism. They had been blessed immensely by God. They had squandered much of that blessing. As they were preparing to enter Canaan, they needed to be reminded of the privileged place they had. They needed to remember that their hope was in God.
The need today is the same as it was in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy. Jews and Gentiles are called to be saved. Those who are saved need to appreciate the blessings of being a part of God’s family. We have so much to be thankful for. We also need to guard against the many temptations to adopt the ways of the world. That will never benefit anyone.
Pastor Bartel