Deuteronomy 9:1-11 - God’s Righteous Work Fights for Us

Deuteronomy 9:1-11

Israel’s Rebellions Reviewed (Exodus 32:1–35)

1 “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ 3 Therefore understand today that the LORD your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has said to you.

4 “Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.

7 “Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. 8 Also in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. 9 When I went up into the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10 Then the LORD delivered to me two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11 And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

This shows the promises of God are not based on our own righteousness as if to earn His favor to enter the promised land of heaven.  It was not for God’s people then and is not now either.  The LORD is the one who goes before us to vanquish the enemy by driving him out by His power and will; the battle belongs to the Lord alone and we participate by faithfully stepping into the fray with His Spirit and word to make and lead the way.  When Israel was to enter their physical promised land of Canaan given to them through Abraham by the promise of faith, they were reminded that it was not be they were so good or so much better that they deserved it, just as we would be equally foolish to imagine we deserve to be saved by Christ Jesus due to some imagined goodness we accomplish to earn our way (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:8-9) into heaven.  God drove out the ungodly before Israel because they refused to honor and worship Him.  He will likewise judge the world in His righteousness (Psalm 9:8, Acts 17:31) in the end which is the righteousness of faith that hears and receives the gospel of salvation by faith in His work and righteousness and not our own.  Those who reject the gospel in the disobedience of disbelief (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9) will be driven out of the entrance to heaven and kept like Adam and Eve were by the flaming swords by the angels at the entrance (Genesis 3:24) back to Eden’s Garden.  These will be punished forever for refusing to repent and trust God’s word and work in His Son.  Our entrance has been opened by the righteous work and sacrifice of God’s own Son who made a way for us to reenter the presence of God!  We therefore should remember the Lord’s goodness of grace in sustaining us in the circumstances and failures of life, knowing we deserve only the same eternal torment of those born alongside us but who do not turn to face Jesus Christ personally and sincerely in brokenness (Psalm 34:18) for our assured deliverance (Matthew 25:46, 1 John 4:18) from His justice for our sins which are serious crimes against the Divine, punishable by eternal death of torment as deserved.  May we then take up not the stones of the covenant which Moses did then, but the words of His commandments written on our hearts by the finger of His Spirit in us that we may be truly grateful in our hearts to live for Him as we rely on His deliverance from damnation and from our own reliance of reliance on our own religion instead of on His person and work on the cross of our adjudicated punishment.  God’s righteous work fights for us in the battle for our souls to bring us into the promised heavenly land deeded us by an unshakable (Hebrews 12:28) promise (Galatians 3:22, Ephesians 1:13-14) in His Son.  May we so enter in with confidence and complete reliance on the Lord by faith and not by fighting to earn or gain that right.