About this sermon
After the golden calf, the Lord renewed his covenant: Moses cut new tablets, the Lord wrote the Ten Commandments again, and the tablets were kept in the ark. Israel resumed its journey and the Levites were set apart for service. A chastened people learned they lived only because of God’s mercy, not their deserving, and they were called to fear, love, and serve him with circumcised hearts. Stone tablets could not change hearts of stone; that waited for the new covenant in Christ’s blood.
Sermon transcript
Our scripture reading this morning is Deuteronomy chapter 9. We’ll begin at verse 25 and reading through the end of chapter 10. We’ll also have a short reading from Romans chapter 12. Let’s turn together to Deuteronomy 9 verse 25. Give your attention, for this is the word of God.
At that time the Lord said to me, cut out for yourself two tablets of stone like the former ones, and come up to me on the mountain and make an ark of wood for yourself. I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you shattered, and you shall put them in the ark. So I made an ark of acacia wood and cut out two tablets of stone like the former ones and went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hand. He wrote on the tablets, like the former writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly, and the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain and put the tablets in the ark which I’d made, and there they are, as the Lord commanded me.
Now the sons of Israel set out from Beoroth, Bene, Jachem, to Maseroth. There Aaron died, and there he was buried. And Eliezer, his son, ministered as priest in his place. From there they set out to Gadgadah, and from Gadgadah to Jathbatha, a land of brooks and water.
At that time, the Lord set apart the entire tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to serve him, and to bless in his name until this day. Therefore, Levi does not have a portion or inheritance with his brothers.
The Lord is his inheritance, just as the Lord your God spoke to him. I moreover stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights like the first time. And the Lord listened to me that time also. The Lord was not willing to destroy you. And the Lord said to me, arise, proceed on your journey ahead of the people that they may go in and possess the land, which I swore to their fathers to give them.
Now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways and love him and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and to keep the Lord’s commandments and his statutes which I am commanding you today for your good. Behold to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. that on your fathers did the Lord set his affection to love them, and he chose their descendants after them, even you, above all peoples, as it is this day. So circumcise your heart and stiffen your neck no longer, for the Lord your God is the God of God’s The Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome. God who does not show partiality nor take a bribe.
He executes justice for the orphan and the widow and shows his love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and cling to him. You shall swear by his name. He is your praise and he is your God. who has done these great and awesome things for you, which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt, 70 persons in all. Now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven. And then turning over to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, reading just verses one and two. Romans 12, one and two.
Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Thus far, the reading of God’s inspired and infallible word, may we hear it and receive it as it is God’s holy, holy word. Let’s pray together. Heavenly God, we lift up our prayers of praise and thanksgiving to you today, thanking you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thankful for the manner in which that gospel has been unfolded. pages of scripture unfolded in the course of redemptive history. Indeed, as you have made us participant in that history, O God, by grace, through faith in your Son. We ask now, dear God, that you will bless the preaching and the hearing of your word, and might we receive it, O God, with joy and thanksgiving, and may we bear that fruit that we might prove to be true followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
Oh, man. in Deuteronomy chapter nine, as we’ve been looking at it in recent sermons, we see that after a solemn rehearsal of Israel’s rebelliousness from their sin with the golden calf at Horeb, and the years in the wilderness that followed, we come to the end of chapter nine, verse 25 and following, where we read a moving account of Moses’ role as the community’s intercessor before God.
So here is this rebellious, stubborn, stiff-necked people demonstrating that from day one until this very day as Moses speaks to them at Moab across the Jordan from the promised land Moses is rehearsing for them the words that he spoke before God as he interceded for them on the Mount.
God had threatened to destroy the people and blot out their name from under heaven. He had said that he would make a totally fresh start by making Moses the father of a new race, mightier and greater than they, verse 14. In other words, eliminating that people descended from Abraham, except for Moses and starting over with one such as he. When Moses heard this, he went in to plead with God for the disobedient people.
In verses 26 to 29, Moses relates what he had prayed on that occasion before the Lord. The words are essentially the same as in Exodus chapter 32, verses 11 to 13. And these words summarize the 40 days and the 40 nights that Moses had spent before the Lord interceding on behalf of Israel. And so we see here in this text that Moses’ intercession focuses on three points on which he knew by faith he was speaking to the very heart of Yahweh, his God.
One, God had entered into a covenant relationship with this people that the Lord could not simply now repudiate, and Moses reminds the Lord of his covenant promise. In verse 26, the repeated second person in that statement, O Lord God, do not destroy thy people, even thine inheritance, whom thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
They’re your people, Lord. your covenant people. And this is even further reinforced by verse 29, yet they are thy people, even thine inheritance whom thou hast bought, brought out with thy great power and thine outstretched arm. They’re yours. You cannot deny them.
Human beings in general may prove false in their word, Israel in particular had spectacularly shown themselves to be liars. But Yahweh, the true God, the God who was one, and whose very being is defined by faithfulness, surely could not abandon his commitment to his people. This people were Yahweh’s people. because Yahweh had made them so.
And so Moses speaks boldly before the Lord. Point number two in Moses’ prayer of intercession. Two, the people’s status was founded even further back in God’s promise and oath to their ancestors. Not only had God claimed his people in bringing them out of Egypt and at Sinai, but God should also remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God could not abandon the covenant promise to Abraham without breaking God’s own covenant oath, which he had sworn on his own very being. Genesis chapter 15. The Lord, the book of Hebrews says in verse 18, the Lord cannot lie.
So one, you’ve promised, you’ve claimed them as your people. You pledged yourself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, number two. And three, again boldly, Moses appeals to the Lord by way of intercession to God’s jealousy for his own name’s sake. That is the honor of God’s own name. So much of what had happened thus far had been explicitly so that the nations would know the truth about Yahweh, about who Yahweh is and what he could do. What kind of God would they take Yahweh to be then, Moses asked.
If he destroyed the very people he had so miraculously delivered out of bondage. People would not want to know or would not know what to believe about a God if he carried out the threatened destruction of Israel. In other words, you claim you’re able to save this people but you bring them out just to destroy them. How can this be?
Moses then pleads, let the Lord then protect his own holy name as God. And wonder, wonders, beauty of beauties, the Lord listened to Moses. Though the Lord had threatened Israel’s destruction, Moses offered the intercession of faith, faith in Yahweh, faith in Yahweh’s covenant, faith in Yahweh’s own name and integrity and character and his mercy, Knowing Israel’s stiff-necked stubbornness and wickedness and sin, Moses interceded. Moses boldly offered the prayer of faith, believing God, and God listened and answered his prayer.
The outcome of Moses’ intercession is made clear by the report of the renewed covenant in chapter 10 of Deuteronomy, verses one through five. and of the resumed journey in the wilderness in verses six through 11. So having heard and answered and received the prayer of Moses, God grants to Moses a renewed covenant for the people’s sake and they continue their journey in the wilderness.
They’re not destroyed. The main focus of verses one through five is on the rewriting of the 10 commandments. and the storage of the two tablets of stone in the ark as the tangible sign of a renewed covenant. Verse five then reads like the calm after the storm of God’s anger having been averted by Moses’ intercession. Having the commandments in the ark in the midst of the people was symbolic of the nearness of God once again. Things can now move forward. away from the brink of God’s threatened destruction.
And so God’s answer to Moses’ prayer contains measures to replace the shattered stone tablets, which we can take to be sure to mean that God intends to restore the broken covenant relationship. Restoring the tablets of the covenant, the covenant is being restored.
And so the Lord commands Moses to chisel out new stone tablets, like the first ones, and to bring them up the mountain. He must also make a wooden chest or an ark. The Lord would write on the new tablets of stone the same words he had written on the first tablets of stone. And Moses must then place these new tablets in the ark that he had prepared.
Verses three to five of chapter 10 recount the implementation of that very thing. Moses doing what the Lord said, cutting the new stones, having the ark that had been made, carrying it up, and God then supplying him with the new, renewed Ten Commandments. So then, verse 5, Moses could point to the ark.
He could point to it 40 years later, that they still had carried with them all of those years since that day at Sinai, that God had granted a reprieve and a renewal of the covenant. There it is. So standing in the plane of Moab across from the promised land on the eve of their going into the land, Moses could stand before them and say to them, and there they are. The tablets of stone in the ark are still here with us, present tense. That is the stone tablets of the covenant containing the 10 commandments were still there in the ark having been transported with this people all those years. by way of reminder.
And there are the people standing on the brink of the promised land ready to go in and take possession of that land that God had sworn to give to their fathers and to the children of the fathers now coming to pass. The Lord had not destroyed them, obviously, but had remained with them and now was about to take them in according to the covenant promise. as we read on in chapter 10.
At first reading, verses six through nine seem to have little relation to the preceding narrative. Verses six to seven seem to be extracted from the records of Israel’s travel itinerary, where they went, what they did. And verses eight and nine sound almost like an incidental aside. which mentions the Lord setting apart the tribe of Levi for a unique role and a distinct inheritance.
Doubtless, this accounts for some Bible translations like the New American Standard, like the New King James, the ESV, the NIV, actually put verses six through nine in parentheses. You can look at your text and see that that’s the way it’s set apart. In other words, parenthetical statements sort of breaks the flow of thought but inserted for a little bit of information, so to speak. And if you’ll notice, the flow of the text could easily move from verse five to verse 10.
But still those verses six to nine are there. And they’re not just there. They’re there according to divine inspiration for a purpose, no doubt. They’re there for a reason. And so we might ask, in terms of interpretation, what is the importance of this apparent parenthesis? Well, it seems that at least three purposes are served by those verses.
First, there is the historical note. about the itinerary of Israel seeming to be the narrative’s way of saying that Moses’ intercession for Israel was manifestly successful. In other words, they did go on. The journey did continue, you see. It didn’t end at Sinai, as it nearly seemed it was going to happen. The Israelites not only survived, but they continued their journey toward the promised land. One thing those verses indicate. But secondly, by choosing to mention, as Moses does here in the text, the death of Aaron and Eliezer having succeeded Aaron to the high priesthood, the narrative makes clear that Moses’ intercession on Israel’s behalf, sure, but also specifically chapter nine, verse 20, on Aaron’s behalf, The high priest behalf, because God was about to destroy Aaron also, you remember, this text is telling us that not only did Aaron go on to minister, but later when he died, God gave his ministry to another after him. It continued. So not only didn’t Aaron not die at the time of the great apostasy at Horeb, but his family remained the heirs of his priesthood. It continued.
God graciously keeping his kindness toward Israel. And then thirdly, as God through Moses here does by briefly summarizing the duties of the Levites, the priestly tribe, these verses establish that all of the gifts of God mediated through that priesthood of the Levites are still intact. There’s the ark itself, which they carried. There is the proper service of God in the tabernacle, which was entrusted to the Levites. There is the blessing of the people in Yahweh’s name. In other words, the priests are still at work. God has not destroyed this people. He is still with them. He has renewed covenant.
He has maintained the priesthood and the blessings that that means by way of their mediation. the Levitical priesthood highlights the ongoing need for mediation, for atoning sacrifice and for propitiation of the wrath of God. And so here is a testimony, an ongoing testimony, that God is a God of mercy, but God is also a God of justice. And the sacrifices and the ceremonies and the mediation of the priesthood is an indication to Israel of that need of sacrifice and propitiation.
And of course, included here and also highlighted is the special portion of the Levites, namely, not a piece of real estate, but the Lord himself, Yahweh is their inheritance. Underscoring, again, not only the presence of Yahweh, but the better portion. that belongs to this tribe of people? After all, which is better, land or God himself?
You answer the question. So then Moses summarizes in verses 10 and 11, the manner in which the Lord accepted his intercession, having listened to Moses, and showing himself not willing to destroy this people. And thus the journey of the people proceeded forward with Moses going before them in accordance with the covenant promise.
In the light of all that has come before them, this most certainly should be Israel, a chastened people. Wow, the Lord was kind to us. as they are now about to move into the land, remembering God, not only not having destroyed them, but maintaining His promise and His covenant with them.
This ought to be a people who ought to have every confidence in their God, with absolutely no illusions about themselves. It’s not because of what we did, or how we’ve done, or what we’ve deserved. What would have become of them if God had dealt with them as they deserved.
Here’s the reminder. Here’s the preaching of Moses. And then in the text, verse 11 serves as a transition from the substance of this previous passage about Israel’s litany of failures and rebelliousness and stiff-neckedness. Moses’ intercession. God’s hearing and answering, renewing the covenant. Verse 11 thus serves as a transition from the substance of what we’ve just talked about to the new emphasis of Moses’ major discourse. The Horeb covenant was almost disrupted, but through the grace of God and the intercessory prayer of Moses, disaster was averted and the horrendous sins of the people were passed over.
That word’s intentional on my part. The emphasis of the address going forward now centers on God’s present requirement of his people. If God has done this for you, Israel, what does God require of you? In verse 11, Moses recalls briefly how the Lord had commanded them to begin their journeys once again.
His prayer had been answered, the people had been spared. There was not only mercy, but a full restoration of the covenant relationship. When God said, arise, proceed, the command indicated that God would be with his people, even as Moses was commanded to lead this people. The Lord had not forgotten or forsaken the covenant with the patriarchs and the land which he had sworn to give to their children after that.
And because it was through God’s grace that the people were present on the plains of Moab and the Lord was still with them, the responsibility of the people was to fulfill the requirements of God and that presses all the more heavily upon them in light of God’s goodness and grace toward them.
So then God’s requirement of his people are stated, first of all, in summary form in verses 12 and 13. And then those things that are mentioned in those two verses, actually five things, will be woven into the fabric of what Moses will continue to say hereafter. In other words, here’s like the five points of my sermon, folks, and here I’m gonna start on those things. This is what Moses is setting them to hear. Moses asked the people, and now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you? But to fear the Lord your God, one, to walk in his ways, two, and love him, three, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, four, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good.” Five things. And I hope you heard it and I hope you can see it. You will notice that at the center of the five, succinctly stated, briefly stated, at the center, and love Him. There’s the focus. There’s the great commandment, isn’t it?
In broad terms, the common theme is allegiance to the God of the covenant. The particular requirements indicate the dimensions of the common theme of allegiance, at the center of which is love, love for your God. And the meaning of the various requirements will be elaborated in the verses that follow And it is significant that the first theme taken up in verses 14 and 15, notice, is love. But notice also that it’s not the requirement of the love of the people, on the part of the people, but rather God’s love for his people. What does God require of you? Five things, and then he talks about God’s love.
Israel must feel impelled to obedience by the favor that has been bestowed upon them. He to whom belong heaven and earth, even the highest heavens, set his love on the fathers of Israel and upon their children their seed after them. Catch it. Catch the magnitude of what Moses is saying. This is the God who owns everything, who set his affection upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and you, and your seed after you.
This is Israel’s God, the almighty God, the Lord your God, Israel. Described here, notice the terms. He is the God of gods and the Lord of lords. There’s none higher than he. the great, the mighty, the awesome, the God who does not show partiality. It is that God who has set his affection to love this people, you Israel. This great, almighty, eternal God, the true and the living God who could have called any nation or all nations into his service.
He could have set his affection on any he chose and he chose only Israel’s forefather and their descendants after that. Why? You know, absolutely, unequivocally, unearned, undeserved, sovereign grace, right? And grace alone. It is this just God, this holy God, the only God and incorruptible judge who demonstrates and executes perfect justice, true justice. To the orphan, the widow, read on, the widow, the orphan, the alien, those who are apt to not get justice in the world, he shows justice to them, even to the least of them.
And he is one then who calls his people, Israel, to pattern themselves after him. You love the alien too because I love them and I care for them and I ensure their justice. And so here then is the proclamation of covenant mercy promised and fulfilled by this God, the true God, the mighty God, Israel’s God, our God, beloved. And here then from that God, that God of sovereign grace and mercy and love is the call to covenantal fidelity. What does God require of you in response? for what he has done for you.
He has rescued them. He has claimed them as his own. And here is Moses 40 years later with a renewed covenant in hand. Literally in hand. In the box, two tablets of stone. Signifying and demarking the covenant that continues. We might well say a new set of stone tablets. Well, 40 years old, I guess they’re at least newer than stone tablets. But stone tablets don’t save, do they? Tablets of stone don’t transform hearts of stone, no matter how fine the sculptor who carved them. No. Something better was needed.
A new covenant was needed. The pattern is true to form. You see, Moses moved from covenant to covenant. A new covenant was needed. But not a new set of stones. That won’t do it. Moses points us from the old to the new, but he points us beyond the stone tablets to a new covenant, a really new covenant, a better covenant, not like the old one, not a repetition of the old one, but a new one.
And so I too appeal to you, beloved brethren, by the mercies of God. according to that new and better covenant, and by means of a better priesthood than the Levitical. For with the Apostle Paul, I urge you in Romans 12, one and two, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and a holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. By which mercies are they that we make this appeal, Paul and I? What mercies is he talking about? Surely by the mercy shown us in the gospel of Jesus Christ, surely by the mercies that are spelled out in the book of Romans that precede the therefore.
The mercy that is defined as a mercy that shows no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. A declaration of justice that says there’s none righteous, not any deserving of these mercies. Doesn’t matter Jew or Gentile, circumcised or not. Makes no difference.
In these latter days, the covenant promises have been fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was offered as a propitiation for sin, satisfying God’s justice. The better mediator, the better priest. And so then, those all who confess Him as Lord and believe in their hearts that God raised Him from the dead, for our justification will be saved. Those sins that God formerly passed over have now been summarily paid for in the death of Jesus Christ, that Christ who now by His Spirit makes us alive and raises up with Him in newness of life and sanctification that we might now no longer walk, as children of darkness, but as children of God, no longer conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our mind in Christ Jesus, so that we might prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect, according to the working of divine, almighty, sovereign, sovereign grace and election. Do you hear the book of Romans at all in what I’m saying? I trust you do. In the new covenant of Christ’s blood shed once for all for the many that his people would be saved, we see the hearts of stone being transformed into hearts of flesh that live and beat for God, for Jesus Christ. This is the love that overcomes the world, the grace that transforms a people and all to the glory of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. who loved us and gave himself for us according to the power and purpose of the God of gods, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father, what do you require of us? What does your mercy require of us?
That we no longer be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of our minds, according to the new covenant graces bestowed upon us in Jesus Christ. That we should be your people, out of all the peoples of the world, by grace through faith, joined to your son, Jesus Christ, who is the propitiation for our sins. that in believing your word and believing in your son and confessing him as Lord and believing you raised him from the dead, we will be saved. Oh God, no longer bound to the flesh, but now made free in the spirit that we should walk as the children of God, adopted into the house and family of God, according to your mercies, knowing that all things work together for good. to them that love you and are the cold according to your purposes, you yourself sovereignly work those things together for that good end, that we should be conformed to the likeness of Jesus. Our Father, we thank you for the great intercessor, and we thank you for the promise that you made of old, that you would raise up a seed of the woman to bruise the serpent’s head, that you would provide a seed for Abraham through whom the nations would be blessed, and that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars of the sky. Our Father, we pray that you will continue to gather a people for yourself from all of the nations according to this new covenant, this renewed covenant blessing come to us in these latter days in the person and work of Jesus Christ, in whose name we give thanks.
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