Let's open our Bibles again to
Deuteronomy chapter 31. I'd like to read verses 1 and 2 in
the very first part of verse 14. Deuteronomy 31, and Moses
went and spake these words unto all Israel, and he said unto
them, I am 120 years old this day. I can no more go out and
come in. Also the Lord has said unto me,
thou shalt not go over this Jordan. And then in verse 14, and the
Lord said unto Moses, behold, thy days approach that thou must
die. We have been looking at these
verses which tell of the approaching end of Moses' ministry and his
life in this world. And from this point, when Moses
spoke these words, I counted five things that God still had
for Moses to do before his ministry was ended. Well, I believe on
further consideration, I must amend that, amend that rather
to six things rather than five, six things that the Lord still
had for Moses to do before his ministry had ended. We've looked
at the first two. We have seen, first of all, how
that he must assure the nation of Israel of God's presence and
help in going into the land of promise. Notice in verses three
through six. The Lord thy God, he will go
over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before
thee, And thou shall possess them, and Joshua, he shall go
over before thee, as the Lord has said. And the Lord shall
do unto them as he did to Sion and to Og, king of the Amorites,
and unto the land of them whom he destroyed. And the Lord shall
give them up before your face, that you may do unto them according
to all the commandments which I have commanded you. Be strong. and of a good courage, fear not,
nor be afraid of them. For the Lord thy God, He it is
that doth go with thee. He will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee." And we see that He spoke these words as verse 1 tells
us. unto all Israel. So he still had that to do before
his ministry was ended. He must assure the nation of
Israel of God's presence and help in going into the land of
promise. And then second, last time we
looked at this, he must charge Joshua with his work of leading
the nation into the land of promise. Verses seven and eight. Then
Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of
all Israel, Be strong, and of a good courage, for thou must
go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn
unto their fathers to give them, and thou shalt cause them to
inherit it. It is that doth go before thee,
he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake
thee. Fear not, neither be dismayed. Now tonight, I want us to look
at the third thing that he had to do. And that is he must finish
his work with the law. Moses must finish his work with
the law. Verses 9 through 13. And Moses
wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests, the sons
of Levi, which bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and
unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying,
At the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year
of release in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel has come to appear
before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose,
thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Gather the people together, men and women and children, and thy
stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear and that they
may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe to do all the
words of this law. and that their children, which
have not known anything, may hear and learn to fear the Lord
your God, as long as you live in the land, whether you go over
Jordan to possess it." Moses still had this work to do with
the law. And I'm going to divide those
verses into three divisions. First, he must write the law. You notice in verse 9 it says,
and Moses wrote this law. It must mean that he finished
writing this book of Deuteronomy. The term, you know this, but
the term, the law, sometimes it refers only to the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments which were
placed in the Ark of the Covenant, the covenant that God made with
Israel. The law refers only to the Ten
Commandments, but many times it refers to all the five books,
the first five books of the Bible, which Moses wrote. It was all given by inspiration
of God, by God the Holy Spirit, as we read in 2 Peter, at the
beginning of the service, holy men of God wrote as they were
moved by the Holy Spirit, and that word moved, the picture
is of a small sailing ship as the wind gently moves that ship
along. So these holy men, sanctified
men, that's what the word holy means, sanctified men, and Moses
was certainly one of them that God set apart and ordained for
the work of writing the human instrument and writing what we
call the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Now,
when we read here, and Moses wrote the law, we know that that
doesn't mean that he now begins to write the five books of the
law, but he's finishing. He must finish this last book,
this book of Deuteronomy. Most believe that the last chapter
of this book which records his death, that is the death of Moses. Well, he didn't write that, that
either Joshua or Ezra was the man that God used to write the
last chapter, which records the death of Moses and his burial. Think with me for just a moment
tonight where we would be Where we would be if we didn't have
the law? If we didn't have the first five
books of our Bible, where would we be? Well, we would be in a
world that would obviously testify to us that something is wrong. Something is wrong. The hatred,
the strife, the wars, the murdering, All of the things that are so
commonplace in our world would testify to us that something
is bad wrong. But we would not have a clue
as to what the original cause of all this chaos and all this
hatred is, the original cause. But we do know that it is sin. And we have an account. If we
did not have the law, we would have a very limited, very limited
account of creation. How God created the heavens and
the earth, and in six days, He created all things in this, His
creation, and that He created man, and He created us from the
dust. Created our bodies, I should
say. Man's body from the dust. of the ground. And so when a
person dies, their body goes back, turns back to dust, from
dust to dust, ashes to ashes, as we often say. Did you know
there's some precious dust in this world? Did you know that? You say, well, dust is dust,
dirt is dirt. No, I beg your pardon. There
is some precious dust scattered all over God's world. You say, what is that? That is
the dust of the bodies of His saints. His saints, He has redeemed
both soul and body. And yes, the bodies have turned
back to dust in many cases, but that's precious dust. Because
there's coming a day When God's going to resurrect, He's going
to call back into being. But if we didn't have the law,
we would be in this world knowing that something's wrong, but we
would not understand. What is it? And how is it that
man comes into this world? The scripture says we go astray
from the womb, speaking lies. Now, simply means that when a
baby is born, he doesn't sin to become a sinner. He is born
with a fallen nature. We all are. We would have no
idea as to how sin entered into this world, how the temptation
that Satan brought to Adam, our father, how that all came about. It's in the law. It's in the
law that the basis is laid for the wonderful truth of representation. It's in the law that this truth,
the basis of this truth is laid for us, the truth of representation. That as Adam represented all,
A-L-L, all of his physical posterity, And we all fell in him, even
so Christ, the second Adam, represented all of his spiritual posterity,
his spiritual seed. Even as the apostle Paul writes
in Romans 5, for by one man's disobedience. Now who was that
one man? Adam. For by one man's disobedience
the many became sinners, even so by the obedience of one who's
at Christ shall the many be made righteous. But the basis for
this wonderful truth of representation is given to us right in the very
first part of the law. And then we read, and we could
just go on, the covenant that God made with Abraham. the pictures and types that God
gave of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman
who was promised there. We see those types, beautiful
pictures, don't we? The Passover lamb, the ark in
which Noah was saved. What a picture of Christ. We
are accepted in the beloved, just as Noah was saved in that
ark. every child of God who is in
Christ. But of Him are we in Christ,
who has made unto us righteousness, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. So that's the first thing. Moses
must finish his work of writing the law. Moses wrote the law. He still had that to do. He must
deliver this law which he had written unto the priest. Notice
that also in verse nine. And Moses wrote this law and
delivered it unto the priest, the sons of Levi, which bear
the ark of the covenant of the Lord and unto all the elders
of Israel. Remember this, that not every
Levite was a priest. but every priest was a Levite. The tribe of Levi was separated
from Jacob's children, Jacob's sons. Remember Joseph, his two
sons were both counted in the twelve tribes, but the one tribe
of Levi was set apart. It was not numbered with the
nation of Israel. God took it. When God passed
over Egypt that night, He claimed all the firstborn as His. But
when they came out of Egypt, rather than taking the firstborn
of every family and every tribe, He took the tribe of Levi for
the firstborn. And they had to count them, didn't
they? They had to count the The firstborn in those tribes and
then those over 20 in the tribe of Levi and there was a difference
in the number and so there had to be a special redemption paid
for the difference between the males in the tribe of Levi who
were above 20 and the firstborn in all the other tribes. So,
Every priest was a Levite. God chose the tribe of Levi to
be the priestly tribe. But not every Levite was a priest. There were several families of
Levi. Only the family of Aaron was
chosen to be the priest. And then his sons and their descendants,
they filled the priesthood. Now this scripture here tells
us Moses wrote this law and delivered
it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which bear the ark of
the covenant of the Lord. Now, the priests ordinarily did
not bear the ark of the covenant, but they did on occasions. And let me show you one of those
in Joshua chapter three. Joshua chapter 3, when they were
going to cross into the land of Canaan, verse 14, it says,
And it came to pass, when the people removed from their tents
to pass over Jordan, and the priest bearing the ark of the
covenant. See, the priest here bearing
the ark of the covenant of the Lord. before the people, and as they
that bear the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests
that bear the ark were dipped in the brim." Can you imagine that? Here these
priests are, they're carrying this ark, it was made with those
handles, those what do you call those things,
stays that were in the ark so it could be carried, could be
born. And these priests are carrying this Ark of the Covenant, the
most holy thing in all of the worship that God gave to the
nation of Israel. And just as their feet touched
down into that water, God worked a miracle, didn't he? God opened
up the Jordan. What does it say? And as they
that bear the ark were come unto Jardin, and the feet of the priests
that bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, for
Jardin overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest, that
the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon
an heap very far from the city of Adam that is beside Zareton. And those that came down toward
the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed and were cut
off And the people passed over right against Jericho. And the
priests that bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stood
firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan. And all the Israelites
passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean
over Jordan. But what I'm saying is the priest
did not ordinarily carry the Ark. They were the only ones
who could touch the ark. When they disassembled the tabernacle
and moved during that time when they were in the wilderness,
the priests, they had to cover up the ark as well as all those
pieces of furniture in the tabernacle. They had to wrap them up in covers
that God had provided. And then another family, there
was other families of Levi, and it was their job. to bear the
Ark of the Covenant. No one could touch the Ark of
the Covenant except a priest. Remember when David attempted
to bring the Ark of the Covenant to him, and the oxen stumbled,
and that man put forth his hand to steady the Ark, and what happened? God killed him. God killed him. Moses was to write the law, to
deliver it unto the priest, the sons of Levi that bore the ark,
that bear the ark. Now, the reason I point this
out is because most often, you and I, myself especially, when
we talk about the priest, we're talking about sacrifice. We're
talking about the priest sacrificing. That's true, isn't it? They sacrifice
those animals which were brought. And the man who brought the animal,
he put his hands upon the head of the animal, picturing a transference
of his sins to the innocent victim. The innocent victim is slain,
the priest prepares the animal, and it's sacrificed upon the
altar. That was Their main work, no
doubt. But let's not forget this. The priests were also charged
with teaching the law. They were charged with teaching
the law to the Israelites, the law which Moses had written. In Malachi chapter two and verse
seven, we read, for the priest's lips, the priest's lips should
keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth." That
is the nation of Israel. They should seek the law at the
mouth of the priest. That was his job. Part of his
job was to teach the law. Now I want you to turn with me
to 2 Chronicles. Keep your place here. But in
2 Chronicles, There's two places here I want
us to look at, but in 2 Chronicles chapter 15, and beginning with verse 1 of this
chapter, and the Spirit of God, 2 Chronicles chapter 15, and
the Spirit of God came upon Azariah, the son of Oded, And he went
out to meet Asa. Now Asa is the king of Judah.
And said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah, and Benjamin. The Lord is with you, while you
be with him. And if you seek him, he will
be found of you. But if you forsake him, he will
forsake you. Now notice this, now for a long
season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching
priest, and without law. But when they in their trouble
did turn unto the Lord God of Israel, and sought him, he was
found of them. In those times there was no peace
to him that went out, nor to him that came in. But great vexations
were upon all the inhabitants of the countries, and nation
was destroyed of nation and city of city, for God did vex them
with all adversity. Be you strong, therefore, Asa,
and let not your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.
And when Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded, the
prophet, he took courage and put away the abominable idols
out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the
cities which he had taken from Mount Ephraim, and renewed the
altar of the Lord that was before the porch of the Lord." Now most
of the commentators or writers believe that in verse 3 when
it says, now for a long For a long season, Israel had
been without a teaching priest, a teaching priest, and therefore
they were without the law. That that is referring to the
time in our Bibles of the judges. From Phinehas to Eli, that time
period that this verse is talking about that. A time when every
man did that which was right in his own eyes. Why? Because
they had no teaching priest. Now that was their work. Now
why they didn't fulfill their work, I don't know. But that
was the work of the priest. He was to not only offer the
sacrifices, but also to teach the nation of Israel, the law.
Now look in chapter 17, 2 Chronicles chapter 17, and verse 7. And this is King Jehoshaphat
we're reading about now. Also, in the third year of his
reign, he sent to his princes, even to Ben-Hel, and Obadiah,
and to Zechariah, and to Nethaniel, and to Micaiah, to teach in the
cities of Judah. And with them, notice it is,
to teach in the cities of Judah, and with them he sent Levites. Levites. even, and then their
name there. And they taught, verse nine,
and they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the
Lord with them, and went about throughout all the cities of
Judah, and taught the people. So Moses must finish writing
the law, he must deliver it to the priests, to the Levites,
and their work was not only to sacrifice, but to teach the law
to the nation of Israel. Now here's the third point. Moses
must command the reading of the law. Back in our text, in verses
10 through 13, he must command that this law be read. Verse
10, and Moses commanded them, saying, at the end of every seven
years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the Feast
of Tabernacles. When all Israel has come to appear
before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose,
thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Now the Feast of Tabernacles
was one of the three yearly feasts when every Israelite had to go
to the place where God put his name. Now that, when Moses wrote,
that had not been decided, but we know eventually that was Jerusalem. That's where God put his name,
and all the Israelites, all the males, had to go there three
times a year to celebrate one of the feasts, to celebrate the
feast, and one of those feasts was the Feast of Tabernacles. They were to leave their homes
and go to the place that God chose. The Feast of Tabernacles
served in these two ways. And this is a lesson in itself,
these two things. Number one, the Feast of Tabernacles,
when they went up to that place and they lived for seven days
in booths, little huts or tents made out of palm branches and
things like that, you know, limbs off the trees. Camping out, we
might say. When they did that for seven
days, It was an opportunity for them to give thanks unto the
Lord and to acknowledge that the harvest, and this feast was
at the time when the harvest was ended, that the harvest,
that God gave them that fruit, that God blessed them. Yes, they had to plow their fields,
I'm sure. They had to plant their seeds.
They had to do that, but without God, without the rain, the water,
and the sunshine, and everything else that God uses to cause a
harvest to come to pass, they would have had nothing. And remember,
God told them the land of Canaan was a different land from the
land of Egypt, because God watered the land of Canaan two times
every year. with the early rain and the latter
rain, different from Egypt. Egypt was watered by the Nile
River, not so the land of Canaan. They had the time to give thanks. And isn't that a lesson for all
of us? Everything we have, everything
we possess, you say, well, I worked hard for it. I know you did.
But without God's blessing, you wouldn't have two pennies to
rub together. That's true of all of us. God
gave you the intelligence. God gave you the strength. However
it is you have earned your living, God gave you those gifts. That's the first thing the Feast
of Tabernacles would allow them to do is to give thanks unto
the Lord, to recognize that God had blessed them and given them
their harvest. And number two, it would testify
to the new generations of the fact that while they live 40
years in that wilderness that God provided for them. They never planted a seed for
40 years. And yet God fed them. And when
they complained about the food, the manna, the angels' food,
God even gave them flesh to eat. And even Moses himself didn't
see how that would be possible, but he saw it happen. God fed
them, caused a quail to fly into the camp, didn't he? And this
would serve as an opportunity to teach the children that was
coming along, the new generations, how that God is able to supply
their needs. Look to Him. There's not a sparrow,
there's not a bird that falls to the ground without your Heavenly
Father. There's not a hair turns loose
from your head without God's permission. God knows all, and
yes, God will take care of His children. He will. And Moses command concerning
the reading of the law was to be done at the end of every seven
years. Now, every year they would go
up and observe the Feast of Tabernacles, but it was only in the seventh
year at the Feast of Tabernacles when they were to read the law. And this year was called the
year of release. And in that year, If you had
borrowed some money from your uncle or your brother or your
next door neighbor and you're an Israelite and he's an Israelite,
he's going to forgive you that debt in that seventh year. It's
a year of release. Every debt's going to be wiped
off the book. And who doesn't know that this
speaks to us of the debt of sin that you and I owe that we couldn't
pay? God canceled that debt. He blotted
it out. The blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanseth us from all sin. And I read again this past week
this story about Spurgeon. And let me tell it to us, if
I can. He went to preach for another pastor, preached there
for several days, and he said that the first night the pastor
told this story, and Charles Spurgeon said, I like that story
so much, I had him tell it every night of the meeting. What was
the story? The story was of a man who had
lived a very wasted, profligate life, ended up as an old man
in a workhouse, a workhouse. And because he was dying, they
allowed his granddaughter to come in and read the scripture
to him. And so she would come every day and sit by his bed
and read the scripture to him. And one day she was reading from
1 John 1, and she read that verse, the blood of Jesus Christ, his
son, cleanseth us from all sin. And she was going to keep on
reading, and he said, stop. Read that again. The blood of
Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. Read that again. And she read it again. Does it
really say that? Does it? Does it really say that? Yes, Grandpa, that's what it
says. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all
sin. He said, put my finger on that
verse and read it to me again. And then he said, with this truth,
I'm going to die. I'm going to go into eternity,
believing this truth, that the blood of Jesus Christ, his son,
cleanseth us from all sin, all iniquity. You know, the debts
were forgiven. What a picture, my friends, of
sin forgiven. Freely, freely forgiven. Sometimes I wonder. in preparing
messages, if I have really ever come to understand what grace
really means. What grace really means. God's free, unmerited favor. For by grace are you saved. Where
sin abounded, Grace did much more abound. At this time, the priests were
to read the law to all Israel. The men, the women, the children,
everybody assembled, and they read the law. Now, I only know
of one place in the scripture where this took place. I don't
know if it was at this Feast of Tabernacles or not, but in
Nehemiah chapter eight, when the Israelites came back out
of Babylon, out of captivity, they did do this. They read the
law. It took several hours, of course,
to read through the law. In that place there in Nehemiah,
we have probably the best definition of what preaching should be.
It says, they read the law distinctly, gave the sense, and caused men
to understand." That's about the best definition of preaching
you'll ever find, isn't it? They read the law distinctly,
gave the sense, and caused men to understand. Now back here
in our text, notice the purpose of the reading of the law in
verse 12, that they may hear, that they may learn, that they
may fear the Lord, and that they may practice what is written.
Now, down to the end of the chapter, verses 24, Deuteronomy 31, verse
24. And it came to pass when Moses
had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book,
until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites,
which bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying, take this
book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against
thee. They didn't put the law in the
ark of the covenant, but they were to lay it by the side of
the ark, and it was to remain there. The only thing inside
the ark was the broken law, or the law rather, not the broken
law, but the law. and the pot of manna, later they
put it inside the Ark of the Covenant. Well, I pray the Lord
bless this word to all of us here tonight. We're going to
sing a hymn and then we'll be dismissed.