The Divine Discipline
(No. 3335)
A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1913.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 9,
1867.
"As am eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad
her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings: so the Lord alone did
lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Deuteronomy 32:11,12.
MOSES in this Chapter is speaking concerning Israel in the wilderness.
When the great host came out of Egypt, they were, through the debasing
influences of slavery–which are not easily or quickly shaken off–not
much better than a mere mob. They were not at all fitted to march at
once to take possession of Canaan, nor to take part in the compacts of
organized social life. Therefore God, instead of taking them by the
short way along which they might have passed in a very few days,
ordained it so in His Providence that they should wander about for 40
years in the wilderness–partly, it is true, as a punishment for their
unbelief, but also in order that the nation might be trained and
educated for its future destiny–made as fit as it could be, to be the
custodian of the oracles of the Truths of God and to be the receiver of
the Revelation which God intended to give to men.
If you will read carefully over the history of the children of Israel
in the wilderness, I think you will see that the practical training
which God adopted was–if they had been right-minded men–splendidly
adapted to bring them to the very highest state of spiritual life. In
some respects it was weak through their flesh, but the method, itself,
was superlatively excellent. Here was a people taken away from the
multitude of gods which they had been known to see on every hand in
Egypt and they were taught to reverence an unseen God for whom they had
no symbol whatever for some time. And afterwards, when symbolical
worship in some form was ordained, yet there was still so little of
symbol that Moses could say, "They saw no similitude." They were
trained to worship a spiritualGod–in spirit and in truth. They never
saw Him, but every morning they had the best testimonies of His
existence, for round about the camp lay the manna like hoarfrost, or
dew, upon the ground! Their feet grew not weary, neither did their
garments become old all those years, and thus about their very clothes
on their bodies and before them on their tables, they had constant
proofs of the great God existing and caring for the sons of men. The
whole of their training, while it educated and developed their patience
and their faith, had also the high purpose of teaching them gratitude
and to bind them by the cords of love and the bands of a man to the
service of God. It was not because the training was not wise in the
highest degree, but because they were children that were corrupters
and, like ourselves, an evil and stiff-necked generation, that they did
not learn even when God, Himself, became their Teacher.
Now in drawing a parallel between the children of Israel and ourselves,
we shall invite you to notice, first, in the text–the Divine
Instructor,' 'the Lord alone did lead them." And then the method of
instruction illustrated–they were trained as an eagle trains the
eaglet for their flight. First, then, we have–
I. A DIVINE INSTRUCTOR.
The Israelites had for their Guide, Instructor and Tutor, in order to
prepare them for Canaan, none other than Jehovah, Himself! He might
employ Moses and Aaron and He did also make use of those marvelous
picture books, if I may so call them, of sacrifice, type and metaphor,
but still, God, Himself, was their Guide and their Instructor. And it
is so with us. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of the Christian Church.
Although He uses this Book, of which we can never speak too highly.
Although He still uses the ministry of the Word, for which we are
thankful as for a candlestick which we trust may never be taken out of
its place, still, our true Teacher is God the Holy Spirit. He instructs
us in the Truths of God and, meanwhile, it is also God, who, in the
rulings and guiding of Providence, is our Instructor if we will but
learn. He is
teaching us, sometimes by sweet mercies and at other times by bitter
afflictions, instructing us from our cradles to our graves if we will
but open our eyes to see and our ears to hear the lessons which He
writes and speaks. We, alas, are often as the horse and as the mule
which have no understanding–and will not be taught by the Providential
teachings, but still we have God to be our Teacher–and it is none
other than our heavenly Father who is daily training us for the skies.
If we are, indeed, His children and can say, "Our Father, which are in
Heaven," we may also go to Him as our Teacher, believing He will,
notwithstanding all our folly, make us "meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light."
The text speaks of "the Lord alone." Brothers and Sisters, it is well
for us that in Providence we are led by "the Lord alone." There is an
over-ruling hand after all, notwithstanding our follies and our
willfulness, so that God's purposes are ultimately fulfilled. But I
wish this were more true to our consciousness–that we are led by "the
Lord alone." I mean that we waited upon Him at every step of life. I am
persuaded that the holiest of characters take more matters to God than
you and I are accustomed to do. I mean they not only consult Him, as we
do, upon certain great and critical occasions, but those saints who
live nearest to Christ, go to Him about little matters, thinking
nothing to be too trifling to speak into the ear of Christ.
Some things about which they will not even consult their kindest and
wisest human friends will be matters of consultation between them and
their Savior. Oh, what mistakes we would escape, what disasters we
would avoid, if "the Lord alone" did guide us! And if we watched the
signs of His hands in guiding us, if our eyes were to Him as the eyes
of the handmaidens are to their mistress, anxious to know the Lord's
will and always saying to our own self-love, "Down, down, busy will!
Down proud spirit! What would You have me do, my Master, for Your will
shall be my will and my heart shall always give up its fondest wish
when once I understand what Your will is concerning me." Beloved, I am
afraid that some strange god is often with us, even with us who are the
people of God! We are united to God and He will gladly teach us–and
from Him, alone, should we learn! But oftentimes we harbor idolatrous
thoughts in our heart. All selfishness is idolatry! All repining
against the Providence of God has in it the element of rebellion
against the Most High! If I love my own will and if I desire my own way
in preference to God's way, I have made a god of my own wisdom, or my
own affection–and I have not been true in my loyalty to the only
living and true God, even Jehovah! Let us search, look and see if there
is not some strange god with us. It may be hidden away, perhaps, and we
may scarcely know it. It may be hidden, too, in that very part of us
where our dearest affections dwell. Some Rachel may be sitting in the
tent on the camel furniture under which the false gods are concealed!
Let us, therefore, make a thorough search and then invite the Great
King, Himself, to aid us. "Search me, O God, try me, and know my ways,
and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way
everlasting."
The great Truth of God which I want to bring forward, if I can, is
this–that God in His Providence and in Grace, as far as we have been
made willing to learn of Him, is educating us for something higher than
this world! This world is the nature in which we dwell. Sometimes we
who love the Lord mount up from it with wings as eagles, but we do not
stay on the wing. We drop again–we cleave to earth. 'Tis our mother
and it seems as though we can never rise permanently above our kinship
to it. Very powerful is it in its attraction over us. Down we go again.
We have not yet learned to keep up yonder where the atmosphere is clear
and where the smoke of the world's cares will not reach us. But God is
educating us for the skies! The meaning of these trials of ours, the
interpretation of our sorrows is this–God is preparing us for another
state, making us fit to dwell with angels and archangels and the
spirits of the just made perfect! If this earth were all, then, your
teachers at school, or your tutors when you passed through college,
might have sufficed. But this world is but the vestibule to the next
and if you know, as well as man can teach you, how to play your part
here with a view only to secular advancement, you are not yet educated
at all in the highest sense! God Himself must teach and train you, that
you may be fit to sit among the princes of the royal blood before His
Throne and to have communion with those celestial spirits who–
" With songs and choral symphonies Day without night circle His throne
rejoicing."
God is teaching you! God alone can do it and He will do it–but take
care that you put away all strange gods and give yourselves up wholly
to His guidance, submitting your will and your affections and all parts
of your spirit and nature to His teaching so that you may be found
fully ready when He shall say, "Come up here to dwell with Me forever."
Now, passing from that, we shall notice very briefly, indeed–
II. THE METHODS OF THE DIVINE INSTRUCTION.
These methods of Divine instruction are given to us under the very
poetical picture of the eagle training its young ones for flight. God,
to accommodate Himself to our poor understandings, sometimes compares
Himself to a father with children. At other times to a mother with her
little ones. Sometimes even to an animal. In this case, even to a bird
of prey, so that we may but learn no depths of condescension are too
great for the Great Teacher! He compares Himself here, then, to the
eagle. I suppose that Moses was well acquainted with the eagle's
natural habits. He describes it, first of all, as stirring up its nest,
as though the young birds were unwilling to stir from their pleasant
home. Having from the time of their birth been quiet and happy there,
they had no anxiety whatever to try the blue unfathomable oceans of the
air! They had no wish to leave the rocky refuge where they had been
reared. They feared, perhaps, lest they might fall over the precipices
and be dashed in pieces. Therefore is it said, "The eagle stirs up her
nest." She makes it uncomfortable for the little ones so that they may
be willing to leave it. And that which would have been obnoxious and
burdensome to them, they may come even to desire, namely, to be out of
the nest! Someone has quaintly said that the eagle puts thorns into the
nest which prick the fledglings so that they are anxious to get away!
Certain it is that God does thus with those He would train for the
skies. He stirs up their nest. Cannot some of you recollect times when
your nests were stirred by Providential dealings while you were in sin?
All things went well with you for a season, but you forgot God. And His
Son, Jesus, had no attractions for you. But suddenly the child sickened
or the wife was smitten with death, or trade separated from you, or
you, yourselves, were ill, or there was a famine in the land. Then it
was, when you were in need, your nest being thoroughly stirred up, that
you said, "I will arise and go unto my Father." The land of Goshen was
like a nest to the Israelites. They had no desire to come out of it,
but God stirred them up by means of Pharaoh, who kept them in heavy
bondage, put them to making bricks and then to making bricks without
straw. And then he slew their male children. In all sorts of ways they
were made to cry out under the bitter yoke. We know that they loved
that nest, for they often longed to be back in it. They talked of the
leeks, the garlic, the onions and the cucumbers which they did eat when
they were in Egypt, so that the nest seems to have been a tolerably
downy one to them at one time! But God so stirred it up that they
longed to be away–and even the howling wilderness seemed a paradise
compared with the house of bondage. So was it with you! You found that
the world was not what it seemed to be. Troubles increased,
Providential afflictions trod on each other's heels and then you turned
to your God and remembered your sins. And so He stirred up your nest by
inward trouble under conviction of sin. I know my soul's nest was once
very soft. I thought I had done no great evil, that I had kept God's
Commandments from my youth up. But when conviction of sin came, then I
discovered my heart to be deceitful above all things and desperately
wicked! Then my sins, like so many daggers, were at my heart, My soul
was torn in two–I could say with gracious George Herbert–
"My thoughts are all a case of knives, Wounding my heart"
There was no rest, no peace, no joy, no comfort to be found. Well, that
was God stirring up the nest! If there are any of you in that condition
now–uneasy and troubled about sin, I am glad of it! Your nest is being
stirred and God grant that you may fly from it and never come back to
that nest again!
If all had gone smoothly with you. If sin had always been a sweet
morsel to your tongue, we might despair of your ever being saved. But
now you feel the smart of it, I trust it is, in order that you may be
delivered from the guilt of it and led to find a Savior! Well, since
that, dear Friends, how many times we have had our nests stirred up! I
do not know your history, but you do, and I ask you now to look it
over. Oh, you planned, and planned, and planned, and said, "Now I shall
live in this house for the next 20 or 30 years, I shall live here,
certainly, as long as I live anywhere." And now you find yourselves,
perhaps, 50 or a 100 miles from it. You were in the service of a
certain kind man and you felt very happy in it, but the firm has broken
up and where are you now? There is that dear child you have set your
heart upon. You have said, "What a mercy it will be to see him growing
up! What a comfort he will be to me!" He is not a comfort to you, but
just the very reverse, for he is your greatest sorrow! It is God
stirring up your nest. Whereas a fear years ago you were in good, sound
health, now the eyes begin to fail, or the ears are giving way, or
there is some internal complaint, or some constant pain. Whereas years
ago you were a master, you are now a servant–whereas years ago
everybody looked up to you, now everybody looks down upon you! It is
all the stirring up of the nest because you have no abiding city here–
because you were too prone to say, "My mountain stands firm. I shall
never be moved!" Therefore God has stirred up your nest and He will do
it yet again and again! Between now and Heaven how many times will the
nest of ours be stirred? Oh, blessed be God for it! "Moab is settled
upon his lees: he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel"–and then
comes a curse upon him! Sometimes these long periods of prosperity,
rest and ease are very unhealthy for us poor unworthy and sinful
beings. If we were more like Jesus. If we were more pure and heavenly,
we could bear prosperity, but because we are so sinful, I question if
any of us can bear it long. If the Master shall give some of us outward
prosperity, He will have to whip us behind the door in private to keep
us right! We must have some thorn in the flesh, some secret
grief–there must be some skeleton in the cupboard, some specter in
some chamber of the house, or else we shall say, "Soul, take your ease,
you have much goods laid up for many years"–and when we do this, we
shall be modern fools like the great fool of old! But the gracious Lord
will not let His people get into that state. Again and again, and yet
again, against their wishes, and contrary to their expectations, He
will stir their nest and they shall cry out against it. But if they did
but only know the meaning of it, or could read the whole of it in the
light of eternity, they would bless the hand which tears away their
comforts, seeing Divine Wisdom and Infinite Affection in it all! That,
then, is the first thing– God instructs His people to mount aloft by
stirring up their nests.
The next picture is the eagle fluttering over her young. What is that
for? She wants them to mount, my Brothers and Sisters! Well, then, in
order to teach them to mount, she first mounts, herself–"she flutters
over her young." She moves her wings to teach them that thus they must
move their wings, that thus they must mount! There is no teaching like
teaching by example. We always learn a great deal more through our eyes
and ears than we do merely through our ears. Those of us who cannot
preach with our mouths would do well to preach with our lives–which is
the very best kind of preaching. So God preaches to us. If He would
have us holy, how holy He is Himself! "Be you holy for I am holy."
Would He have us generous? How generous is He! "He spared not His own
Son, but freely delivered Him up for us all." Would He have us forgive
our enemies? How He delights in mercy, Himself! If we need a picture of
perfection, where can we get it but in God? "Be you perfect even as
your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." God shows us His law in His
holy actions, He being, Himself, the very mirror and paragon of
everything that is absolutely pure and right. Above all, the Lord has
been pleased to set us an example of mounting above the world in the
Person and life of His own dear Son! Oh, how the eagle flutters when I
look upon the Savior!–
"Such was Your truth and such Your zeal, Such deference to Your
Father's will, Such love and meekness so Divine I would transcribe and
make them mine! Cold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the
fervor of Your prayer– The desert Your temptations knew, Your conflict
and Your victory, too. Be You my Pattern–make me bear-More of Your
gracious Image here! Then God the Judge shall own my name Among the
followers of the Lamb." Beloved, see how our Lord Jesus this day mounts
to Heaven! There He is–He has gone there that our hearts may follow
Him! He fluttered to the skies that we might also follow and might rise
above the world, setting our affections no longer upon the things of
earth, but upon things above where Christ sits at the right hand of
God! What way could there be of teaching us tenderness like the
tenderness of the Savior? What method of teaching us love like the
display of the love of God in Christ Jesus? Brothers and Sisters, I
commend you to the picture of the eagle fluttering and thus setting an
example to its little ones. You may also see before your eyes the great
Incarnate God teaching you how to mount above the trials and
temptations of this mortal life and living, even on earth, a celestial
life!
This, however, is not all the eagle does. We read in our text that she
then spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings. I
suppose this means just this, that spreading her wings she entices her
young ones to get between her wings upon her back and then she mounts
and flies towards the sun. It may be fable or not, I do not know, that
she flies towards the sun to teach her eaglets to bear its blaze. Then,
when she has mounted to a good height, she suddenly shifts her wings
and throws the young eaglets off–and there they are on their own
wings! They begin to descend to
earth, not able to keep themselves up, but compelled to fly–but before
they fall on the rocks, she makes a swoop and comes under them and
catches them on her wings again, gives them a little rest, bears them
up once more, and then throws them off again, so that they must fly.
But she takes care that these early trials, for which they are scarcely
able, shall not end in their destruction, for again she makes another
swoop and catches them between her wings once again.
This is the picture of what God does to us again. We must speak of Him
after the metaphor which He, Himself, uses–He takes us up between
those mighty wings and bears us as high as we dare go–and only pauses
because He knows we cannot now bear more. Then, when we have had full
fellowship and looked the sun in the face, and have had bright
enjoyment of Heaven, as far as we could bear, He suddenly throws us off
and makes us try our own wings, and alas, they are very feeble and
weak, indeed. We then discover our own impotence and we think we shall
fall like stars and be dashed in pieces! But lo, He comes and
underneath us are the everlasting wings–and just when we thought we
should surely come to destruction, we find ourselves safely sheltered
between the mighty pinions of the Eternal God! Up, again, we mount, and
before long we are thrown off again–cast away, as it were, for a time.
His face is hidden from us, or else by some outward trial of Providence
we are made to try our wings again to see whether our faith will keep
us up! And by degrees it comes to pass that we learn to fly till we
love flying and are not satisfied to come back to earth anymore! We are
loving to fly and often sighing and longing for the day when we shall
be permitted to–
"Stretch our wings and fly Straight to yonder worlds ofjoy! Do you not
sometimes feel as if your wing feathers were come, my Brothers and
Sisters? Surely you must sometimes feel as though your faith were
growing stronger and your communion with Christ getting clearer–as
though you anticipated and felt that the time must be drawing near when
you could mount to dwell where Jesus is! I am thankful if such is your
experience, but I should not wonder if you find that all the wing
feathers which you have got will be all too few for you, for you may
yet be made to have another descent from between the almighty wings and
be made once again to see how great your weakness is. One other
thought, however, occurs to us. There is no doubt that the idea of
security as well as of teaching is here because when the eagle bears
her young ones on her wings, if the archer, or in these modern days the
hunter with his rifle should seek to destroy the eaglets, it is plain
there is no reaching them without first killing the mother bird. So
there is no destroying possible to the true people of God. "Greater is
He that is for us, than all that can be against us." God puts Himself
between His people and the danger which threatens them–and unless the
foe should be mightier than God, Himself–which is inconceivable, there
is no soul that trusts in Him which shall know eternal hurt!
Oh, how glorious a thing it is to feel, when the light air is all
around me and I know that if I fall I would perish, that yet I cannot
fall, for God' s wings bear me up! And to feel that though there are
hosts of enemies able to destroy me if they can get at me, yet they
cannot, for they must first get through God, Himself, before they can
get to the weak soul who hangs upon Jesus and rests alone in Him! Well
did David say, "In the time of trouble He will hide me in His pavilion:
in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me: He shall set me up
upon a rock." You know the threefold figure. The "pavilion" stood in
the middle of the camp and all the armed men kept watch around the
royal tent. There was no slaying the man who was hidden in the royal
pavilion unless the king, himself, were destroyed! And unless Divine
Sovereignty is overthrown, not one of the elect can perish! Then,
again, there was "the secret of the tabernacle." That was the Most Holy
Place into which no one entered but the high priest once a year! And
there God said He would put His child, so that they must first break
through and dare the very Shekinah and come before the brightness, the
destroying brightness, of Jehovah' s face, before they can reach the
soul that trusts in the Mercy Seat on which the blood was sprinkled!
Then there is the third figure–"He shall set me up upon a rock"–so
that the rock, itself, must shake–the Immutability of God, itself,
must cease to be and God's everlastingness must die before it shall be
possible for a soul to perish that rests in Him! The eagle takes up the
eaglets on her wings and bears them–and so in this way does God lead,
train and guide us for the skies!
Dear Brothers and Sisters, I shall not detain you longer, except to say
that if God is training you for the skies–oh, let your hearts go up.
Grovel not below–
"Go up, go up, my Heart, Dwell with your God above! For here you cannot
rest,
Nor here give out your love Go up, go up, my Heart, Be not a trifler
here– Ascend above these clouds, Dwell in a higher sphere! Let not
your love flow out To things so soiled and dim– Go up to Heaven and
God, Take up your love to Him! Waste not your precious stores On
creature love below– To God that wealth belongs, On Him that wealth
bestow."
You are a stranger here. If you are God's child, then you are a citizen
of another country! Are there any bands to bind you here? I thought He
had broken them. Have you never said–
"The bands that bind my soul to earth
Are broken by His hand–
Before His Cross I find myself
A stranger in the land." Are there loved ones to bind you here?–
"Your Best-Beloved keeps His Throne
On hills of light in worlds unknown." All the love you dare to give to
all below, if you are true to Christ, can be as nothing compared with
the love which you give to Him! Do you not feel your soul now drawn
towards Him? At least if you cannot fly on the wings of confidence, fly
on the wings of desire! A sigh will mount to Him, or He will come down
to it! Only be not fond of this world. Do not let this thick clay
cleave to you. You are not earth-born now–you are born from above!
This corruptible world must not claim you, for you are born-again of
incorruptible seed! You are not this world's property. You are bought
with a price by Him who prays for you that you may be with Him where He
is and behold His Glory. I am ashamed of myself that I who talk thus
with you should so often grovel here. But this one thing I must say–I
am never happy except when my soul is up with my Lord. I know enough of
this to acknowledge that it is my misery to feed upon the ashes of this
world, to lie among the pots, to serve the brick-kilns of this Egypt!
There can be no peace between my soul and this world. Oh, I know this,
for this painted Jezebel has mocked me too often and she has become so
ugly in my esteem that I cannot endure her! But yet–what shall we say
of our nature?–We go back again to the Marah, which was bitter for us
to drink and try to drink from it again! And the broken cisterns which
held no water before, we fly to again and again! Oh, for more wisdom!
The Master has taught us and He has been so long a time with us, but we
have not known Him. Yet may He have patience with us until He has
taught us to mount above the world and dwell where He is!
Ah, dear Friends, there are some of you to whom I cannot talk in this
fashion because you cannot mount. You have nowhere to mount to! Oh, may
the Master stir up your nests! I pray that He may put the thorns of
conscience into your pillows tonight. May you recollect those sins
which God hates and which God will punish–and if you do remember them
and feel bowed down under their weight–then remember that there is one
who can help you and who willhelp you, even the Lord Jesus Christ! Look
to Him in the hour of trouble and He will be your Deliverer! May the
Lord bless these thoughts to all our souls for Jesus' sake.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: DEUTERONOMY 29:1-21.
Verse 1. These are the words of the Covenant, which the LORD commanded
Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides
the Covenant which He made with them in Horeb. That is the preamble,
just as in legal documents there is usually some statement of the
purport and intent of the indenture before the matter is proceeded
with. These Covenants with God are solemn things and, therefore, they
are given in a formal manner to strike attention and command our
serious thoughts.
2-4. And Moses called unto all Israel and said unto them, You have seen
all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto
Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great
trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
yet the LORD has not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see,
and ears to hear, unto this day.You saw all that and yet did not see
it–you saw the external work, but the internal lesson you did not
perceive. A very mournful statement to make, but God's servants are not
sent to flatter man but to speak the truth– however painful the
speaking of it may be.
5, 6. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes
have not worn out upon you, and your shoe did not wear out upon your
foot You have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong
drink: that you might know that I am the LORD your God. Either there
had been means of frequent renewal of their garments, or else by a
miracle these garments had never worn out! And the very shoes that they
put upon their feet on the Passover night were still on their feet–if
not the same, yet still they were shod, though they trod the weary
wilderness which well might have worn them till they were bare. "You
have not eaten bread, neither have you drunk wine or strong drink"–a
nation of total abstainers for forty years! There was no bread in the
wilderness for them and there was no wine. It may have been obtained as
a great luxury, as it probably was, for we have reason to believe that
Nadab and Abihu were slain by fire before the Lord because they were
drunk when they offered strange fire–but taking the whole people
around, anything like wine had not crossed their lips for forty years,
yet there they were, strong and healthy! "That you may know that I am
Jehovah your God."
7. And when you came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og
the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote
them.People not used to war, either, and feeble folk! Yet they smote
the great kings and slew mighty kings, for the Lord was with them!
8, 9. And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the
Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh. Keep
therefore the words of this Covenant, and do them, that you may prosper
in all that you do. This, then, was the Covenant made with the
nation–that God would be their God and He would prosper them. As He
had done, so would He do–He would be their protector, defender,
strength and crown and joy.
10, 11. You stand this day, all of you, before the LORD your God; your
captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the
men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is
in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your
water.This National Covenant embraced all the great men, the captains,
the wise men, all that were in authority, "your elders, and your
officers." It took in all their children, for it was a Covenant
according to the flesh–and their children according to the flesh are
included. "Your wives," too, for in this matter there was no sex. "The
stranger also." Here we poor Gentiles get a glimpse of comfort, even
though from that old Covenant we seem to be shut out. "Your stranger
that is in your camp" is included. And the poorest and those that
performed the most menial service were all to be made partakers of this
Covenant, "from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water."
12-15. That you should enter into Covenant with the LORD your God, and
into His oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day: that He
may establish you today for a people unto Himself, and that He may be
unto you a God, as He has said unto you, and as He has sworn unto your
fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. Neither with you only do I
make this Covenant and this oath; but with him that stands here with us
this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here
with us this day. With the sick that were at home, with the generations
that were not yet born, for this was intended to be a National Covenant
in perpetuity to their children and their children's children to the
end of time. Had they kept it so would it have stood!
16, 17. (For you know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt and how we
came through the nations which you passed by, and you have seen their
abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which
were among them). Now you have seen how they worshipped idols. You have
seen what you must avoid–you have beheld their folly that you may
escape from it.
18. Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe,
whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve
the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that
bears gall and wormwood. For the worship of false gods is the cause of
untold mischief and evil–wherever it is found it is a root that bears
gall and wormwood–and God would not have it in a single individual,
man nor woman, no, not in a single family or tribe!
19. And so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse,
that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace,
though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to
thirst. For there were some who so hardened themselves against God that
they said, "We shall have peace! Let us do what we like–let us worship
these idol gods more and more and more–let us add drunkenness and
idolatry to our thirst."
20. The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and His
jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are
written in this book shall lie upon him. Not light upon him, but lie
upon him–rest there and stay there!
20, 21. And the LORD shall blot out his name from under Heaven. And the
LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel. As a
huntsman separates a stag from the herd that he may hunt it all day, so
shall God with any idolater that should come among His people with whom
He made a Covenant that day. Oh, how God hates that anything should be
worshipped by us but Himself! How indignant is He if anywhere, anything
takes the supreme place in the human heart which ought to be occupied
by God alone!