45 MOSES' SONG

There is much to learn from Moses’ leadership by merely examining the subjects he felt were important to address in the song he wrote for and taught to the Israelites as he neared the time of his departure. In the previous chapter God had told Moses that it was about time for him to die and, furthermore, that after he would die Israel would rebel against God. So Moses knew that Israel would rebel against God after he died. What does one say in such a situation when he is about to die and knows Israel will rebel when he is gone? As a result of examining Moses’ last song we will not only appreciate the subjects he felt were import for him to address as he prepared to die, but also what he taught through this song. The words of Moses’ last song fall under five headings and we will look at each of them. As you know, I have tried in this series of lessons for leaders from the life of Moses to carefully stay specifically focused on issues that will benefit Christian leaders. Here is what the great leader, Moses, wanted future generation of Israelites to know. It might become a model for us when we seek to pass on to future generation what we feel is important for them to know.

You will notice that of the five things Moses says to the people, three of them were positive and good statements about God: (1) Israel’s good God, (2) God’s care for Israel and (3) God’s dependability. You will also see that two of the statements candidly, truthfully and accurately placed Israel in a bad light; (1) Israel’s sin and (2) a warning of punishment.

Number one. Moses boasts about Israel’s good God. 1-4   “Listen, you heavens, and I will speak; hear, you earth, the words of my mouth. 2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants. 3 I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! 4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”

You might think that Moses would resent the fact that he would not go into the promised land after he had made such a great effort to get Israel free from slavery, out of Egypt, through the wilderness and near the land of Canaan and that, therefore, he might have some reserve in boasting about the God who would not let him enter Canaan. But Moses held no grudges and did not resent God’s control over him. He boasted about God. We do not find any complaint about God in this song. It is all positive. All good. Moses leaves his people with a positive, God-glorifying impression of Who God is. This is a good thing to leave to the people and future generations. That is the mark of a good leader. Moses seeks to preserve the honor of God, that no false accusation might be made against Him because of the wickedness of His people Israel. Howsoever wicked and corrupt those are who are called by His name, He is just, and right, and all that is good, and is not to be thought the worse of because of their badness. Mankind can and should ascribe greatness to our God. We cannot add to His greatness, for it is infinite; but we must acknowledge it and give Him glory for it.

Number two. Moses is truthful about Israel’s sin. 5, 6 ; 15b-18  “They are corrupt and not his children; to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation. 6 Is this the way you repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?; 15b-18 They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. 16  They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. 17 They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear. 18 You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.”

One might be tempted to try to say something that would be popular, sound good and leave the crowd with a good taste in their mouths; a good impression of the leader who has just passed on. But no! Moses is true to his very end. He tells the people what they need to hear. I would rather have someone tell me what I need to hear any day rather than to have someone tell me what they think I want to hear. Complements make me feel good, but accurate and kindly stated criticisms help be good. The Israelites had a leader who gave them something that could help them; not so much something that would flatter them. We need to know, kindly stated, what we have done wrong if we want to improve. Israel had not been easy to work with. They had been stubborn complainers and perhaps Moses’ comments could help create an atmosphere in which Israel, even in future generations, might more readily recognize her sins, repent and allow God to correct them. Moses gave them a true and helpful assessment of themselves. We need a good mirror in order to see ourselves correctly and change what needs to be changed. The Scripture is like a mirror and that is one good reason we ought always to read, study and think about what it says to us. People may abandon their God, their Rock, their Savior, they may serve false, foreign and detestable gods, but still their true God will not abandon them. Moses wanted future generations to know this. The time would come when it was good they knew it. Perhaps this is why God told Moses that the people would rebel so that Moses could leave them with this valuable and corrective song; a truly precious piece of literature. In Josiah’s day the idolatrous people followed the godly Josiah’s example all because they found a book written by Moses that told them the truth about God and themselves in the temple.

Number three. Moses emphasizes God’s care for Israel in her past. 7-15a  “Remember the days of old; consider the generations long past. Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you. 8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9 For the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. 10 In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them aloft.12  The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him. 13 He made him ride on the heights of the land and, fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock, and with oil from the flinty crag,14 with curds and milk from herd and flock and with fattened lambs and goats, with choice rams of Bashan and the finest kernels of wheat. You drank the foaming blood of the grape. 15 Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.”

God had treated Israel better than Israel deserved. He had patiently tried to correct them and help them recognize how blessed they were to have Him as their God. Just as an eagle forces the eaglets out of the nest and teaches them to fly, so God develops His people. He carries them on His back like a mother eagle and then drops away from them forcing them to flap and strengthen their wings. When the eaglet grows weary and is falling, the mother eagle swoops down under the eaglet, catches it and carries it to the safety of the nest to rest there until the next lesson. God does that for His people. He forces us to develop. Moses accurately portrayed God to be a caring God. When future generations of Israelites sang this song they would know of God’s care and turn to Him. The reason given for the particular care God took for this people, so long before they were either born or thought of in our world, further magnifies the kindness, and makes it an obligation beyond expression ‘for the Lord’s portion is his people.’ All the world is His. He is owner and possessor of heaven and earth, but His congregation is His in a peculiar manner. It is His special possession, His vineyard, His garden enclosed. He has a particular delight in it. It is the beloved of His soul, in it He walks, and dwells, it is His rest for ever. He has a particular concern for it, keeps it as the apple of His eye. He has particular expectations from it, as mankind may have from God. God has a much greater expectation of honor, glory, and worship, from that distinguished group of people, than from all the world besides. That God would be His people’s portion is easy to understand, for He is their joy and happiness; but how they should be His portion, who neither needs them nor can be benefited by them, must be understood only as a wondrous condescension of His free grace.

Number four.  Moses warns of punishment. 19-29   The Lord saw this and rejected them because he was angered by his sons and daughters. 20 “I will hide my face from them,” he said, “and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. 21 They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. 22 For a fire will be kindled by my wrath, one that burns down to the realm of the dead below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains. 23 “I will heap calamities on them and spend my arrows against them. 24 I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust. 25 In the street the sword will make them childless; in their homes terror will reign. The young men and young women will perish, the infants and those with gray hair. 26 I said I would scatter them and erase their name from human memory, 27 but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed; the Lord has not done all this.’” 28 They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them. 29 If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end will be!

A parent who truly loves his or her children will correct them. Punishment is a corrective and God is willing to do this for His people because He truly loves them. He does not abandon them when they sin: rather He corrects them. This way they may live to experience His blessings. If Israel will be wise and receive the correction, it can be a path to protection and blessings. However, they were self-willed and a people that could not be pleased, or obstinate in sin, and that could not be convinced and reclaimed. They were faithless, and a people that could not be trusted. According to Isaiah 63:8, “He said, ‘Surely they are my people, children who will be true to me”; and so he became their Savior.” But they proved otherwise; they were children in whom is no faith, they deserved to be abandoned, and that the God of truth should have no more to do with them. He had done every thing to make them comfortable, safe, to please them, but now He would do against them what would be most troubling to them. The punishment would correspond equally to their sins as implied in verse 21, “They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.” They had provoked God with despicable deities which were not gods at all, but vanities, creatures of their own imagination, that could not pretend either to merit or to repay the respects of their worshippers. The more vain and vile the gods after which they sought favor were, the greater was the offense to that one true great and good God whom they abandoned in order to serve those false gods! Can Christian leaders today be just as accurate, candid and truthful?

Number five. Moses boasts about God’s dependability 30-43 “How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up? 31 For their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede. 32 Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison, and their clusters with bitterness. 33 Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras. 34 “Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vaults? 35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.” 36 The Lord will vindicate his people and relent concerning his servants when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free. 37 He will say: “Now where are their gods, the rock they took refuge in, 38 the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up to help you! Let them give you shelter! 39 “See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. 40 I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear: As surely as I live forever, 41 when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. 42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders. 43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and make atonement for his land and people.

This seems to be the best understanding of the rhetorical question God asks Israel: “How should one Israelite have been too hard for a thousand Canaanites, as they have been many a time, unless it was because God, who is greater than all gods, fought for them?!” If God had not been with them how could they have accomplished what they did? The evil, wicked, destructive and hateful enemies of Israel may unkindly and viciously attack, but God will be the defense of His people. Through Moses, God communicated to future generations of Israelites that He would be their Deliverer. God’s time to appear for the deliverance of His people is when things are at the worst for them. God tries His people’s faith, and stirs them up to seek Him and pray, by letting things go to the worst, and then He magnifies His own power for His people to see. He fills the faces of His enemies with shame and the hearts of His people with so much the greater joy, by rescuing them in their time of extreme need. God would do against His enemies those great things from which the idols they had served could not save them. When Sennacherib and Nebuchadnezzar boldly challenged the God of Israel to deliver His worshippers, God did deliver them to the confusion of their enemies. But when the God of Israel challenges Bel and Nebo to deliver their worshippers, to rise up and help them, and to be their protection, they were so far from helping them that they themselves, that is their images, which was all that was of them, went into captivity. False gods are helpless, but our God is helpful. The conclusion of the song speaks three things: (1) Glory to God in verse 39, “See now that I myself am he! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” ‘Hey Israel!  Learn this from the destruction of idolaters, and the inability of their idols to help them.’ False gods do not help you. I do! (2) Terror to His enemies as described in verses 40-42, “I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear: As surely as I live forever, 41when I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me. 42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.” God declares through Moses’ song, terror to those that hate Him, as everyone who serves other gods do. (3) Verse 43 says, “Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants.” God would get vengeance and Israel could rest in that assurance. Even in today’s contemporary history we see God protecting Israel. Look at the Middle East today and you will see God at work for His people and against those that persist in willful disobedience to the God’s law, and that speak ill of and persecute His faithful servants. These are the ones to whom God will render vengeance; His enemies that will not have Him to reign over them.

Moses’ song tells it like it is. Moses was brave and courageous to write and thereby record the words of this song describing the five issues we have just examined:(1) Israel’s good God, (2) Israel’s sin, (3) God’s care, (4) warning of punishment and (5) God’s dependability. In Israel’s history from Moses time until even today, we can observe that Moses’ song was an accurate description of important issues.

The things today’s Christian leaders might write or pass on to their congregations would deal with different specific contemporary issues, but I would hope that there would be some resemblance to these five subjects Moses addresses. People need to know that we too boast about our good God, are truthful about people’s sin, God’s care for them in their past; that we warned them of possible punishment and that we boast about God’s dependability.