The people stands at the brink of a new life, in a new land that God is giving them.
• Moses ends “his career” here with a series of sermons, before he makes his final climb up Mount Nebo and passes on from there.
• These are important, final words from a great leader, recalling all that God has done for the people, and reminding them to keep to all that God has said.
Moses talks about the WATERING of the land - 11:10-11, 11:14-15
The people have been dependent upon God, and must continue to depend on God’s PROVISION.
• Moses say, “The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt…”
• In Egypt, they can water the crops with the water from the River Nile. With little rain in Egypt, the Nile River is their main source of water.
• They dig trenches, canals, and transport water from the Nile to irrigate the land.
In that sense, the land can at least be watered by human effort.
• The expression, “with your foot” probably refers to some kind of pumping wheels, propelled by foot that draws in the water by buckets.
• The Israelites were slaves, so they would likely know what it means.
• Through hard work, toil and sweat, you can get water from the river. You don’t feel the need to depend on rain from the sky.
BUT not so with the land of Canaan. 11:11 “But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.”
• Filled with mountains and valleys, with a river Jordan miles away, and not much of a resource because the river flows from a lake (Sea of Galilee) to the Dead Sea.
• It doesn’t overflow, unlike the Nile River. The people dig wells to get water.
• Canaan needs to depend upon the water from the sky, the “rain from heaven”.
Moses says, God will send the rains. It is a land God cares for and He has promised - 11:14 “I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains…”
• God will provide, faithfully, the autumn and spring rains, in its season.
• At the right time, in the right season, you can expect God to send what you need. The land will “drinks rain from heaven”. (11:11)
And what will be the result of this? Moses says (11:14-15) “so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. 15I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied.”
Trust God to provide. You will be SATISFIED!
• In Egypt, you depended on human efforts. That’s your own way of life.
• Today, when you step into this Promised Land, you must depend solely on God.
Canaan is completely dependent on God. Rain is His gift.
• If God has provided you for the last 40 years in the wilderness, trust Him to provide you in the new land that has no natural resource.
When God puts us in a situation that seems to be beyond our ability to survive, it is never a comfortable place to be in. BUT it is in such a circumstance that we learn to depend on God fully. It is through such times we grow spiritually and our trust in God deepens.
Remember God is the source. Trust Him to provide, what you need, not what you want!
• In an affluent society, with almost everything accessible, we run the danger of living life without the sense of a real need for God.
• We need to constantly remind ourselves and check our hearts. Do we live each day with the recognition that we are completely dependent on God?
Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11). Every day we are called to depend on God. Jesus expected that.
• Don’t ever go back to Egypt and live by the old paradigm – getting water by human efforts.
• Our confidence, in life and in ministry, is in God and never in our ingenious ideas or plans or strategies. Apart from God, you can do nothing.
• You can dig our wells and trenches, but without rain from heaven, you have nothing.
• Without the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon our lives and ministries, we are just empty vessels.
When we are born, we are completely helpless. We depended on our parents to care for us, entirely.
As we grow up, we learn to do things for ourselves. By the time we get married, we can practically do everything ourselves.
Sometimes, we are misled into thinking that we are not dependent upon anything or anyone, which is actually not true. We are never completely independent.
The older we get, the more we begin to see how dependent we really are.
And then we reach our old age. The cycle comes around and we find ourselves completely dependent again.
We need someone to help us cross the road, carry our bags, and even to change our diapers, bathe us or feed us food.
It is wise for us to acknowledge this fact now, that we are never truly independent. More so, of God. I pray that we will never grow out of this sense of complete dependence upon God. In fact, we must grow into it. The more spiritually mature we are, the more we must be aware of this fact - we need God. ASK GOD FOR HELP EVERY DAY, FOR EVERYTHING.
Moses talks also about the WATCHING of the Land - 11:12 “It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.”
We depend on God’s PROTECTION or God’s PRESENCE.
God eyes are continually upon the land, from the beginning of the year to its end.
• See the EXTENT His care for the land? It is CONTINUALLY. There is no break, from the beginning of the year to its end. He is constantly watching.
• Psalm 121:3b-4 “He who watches over you will not slumber; 4indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
• There's a plaque that says: "Before you go to bed, give your troubles to God. He will be up all night anyway."
And the psalmist ends with, “… He will watch over your life; 8the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (Ps 121:7b-8)
We have to move from KNOWING to BELIEVING to APPROPRIATING it (behaving as if it is true).
• To KNOW this in theory is easy, especially when times are good. Yes, God is with me and everything is fine.
• To BELIEVE it takes more, especially when everything is not happening right. Why am I suffering like this? Why am I facing these problems?
Look at Moses. He KNOWS God’s promises, and he BELIEVES God.
• But he did something else. He behaves as if they were all true!
• He SPEAKS the promises of God, with confidence, treating them as true and expecting them to come true.
All the sermons he made in Deuteronomy were spoken prior to the people taking of the Land. They were still standing outside the land, but Moses spoke EXPECTING God to make good these blessings.
• That’s FAITH. Heb 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
• He repeated with faith what God has already said. There was no WHAT IF. He simply articulated what God has promised.
That is what we need to do – we KNOW it, we BELIEVE it, and we PROCLAIM it as if it is true.
• We don’t usually do that. We tend to say the negatives. “Oh no, what’s going on? Everything is not going right. How can this happen to me? What’s wrong?”
• We don’t say WHAT GOD SAYS. We don’t say WHAT IS RIGHT. We ask WHAT’S WRONG?
• Can we say WHAT’S RIGHT? Can we repeat the TRUTH of God’s Word? And get our mind to think of WHAT IS RIGHT AND GOOD AND TRUE?
Speak the promises of God. Recite the verse. Say it again and again.
• That’s the only thing that is true, everything else may not be. We PROCLAIM the Word of God.
• We say it IN FAITH to BUILD FAITH.
The only thing that can possibly prevent us from enjoying all that God has for us, is ourselves, actually. Not even the devil can.
• Moses warned the people not to TURN AWAY from God (11:16) and put their trust in something else (particularly the idols around them).
• Faith in anything else or anyone else, including ourselves, will rob us from God’s blessings!
• The choice is with us, actually. Don’t allow that FAITH to shift away from God.
Expect rain from heaven. And we will be satisfied.
Like to share with you this hymn in closing.
• Jesus says God cares even for the sparrows. Matt 10:29 “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.”
His Eye Is on the Sparrow
Written in 1905 by Civilla D. Martin and music composed by Charles H. Gabriel
Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heaven and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.
