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This week’s Parasha is Eikev, which means “on the heel of.” In this Parasha Moses continues his final speeches to the Israelis before they enter the Promised Land. These instructions are more about obeying their God and are a warning. I think a good theme for this is the following: “If you have real faith, you will trust Me; and I will forgive you; then you will indeed benefit from the inheritance I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Fail, and it will skip your generations.” We see that in Chapter 7:12: “Your God will honor His promises that He swore to your forefathers.” The Israelites are to be holy and set apart; they are to be set apart from the world exclusively separated to the three-in-one God, a treasured possession. In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is giving instructions to the Israelis because the Israelis that he is speaking to were young children when they left Egypt, and their forefathers failed to go into the Promised Land due to lack of faith. The faithfulness of God in the past should be an encouragement for them in the future. Brothers and sisters, is this any different for us today?
In Chapter 8 God instructs Moses to remind the Israelis of all the things that God has done for them. There’s a saying: if we don’t remember the past, we will repeat it in the future. Moses and God want the best for the Israelis as they move into the Promised Land, so it will do them good to remember the failings of their forefathers so as not to repeat them; but there is a lesson in this for us as well. God wants us to remember our past – to remember that we are worthy only because of what Messiah has done for us and not of our own accord. In Chapter 8:3, Moses reminds the Israelis how Adonai humbled them causing them to hunger and then feeding them the manna that no one had seen before. Moses tells the Israelis: “Man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” I’m sure most of you are familiar with these words as these are the words our Lord Messiah Yeshua uses when tempted by the devil in Matthew 4:4.
Chapter 9 is a continued reminder about humbleness and who is righteous and who is not. It starts out with the words “Hear, O Israel”; in other words, “pay attention to what I’m saying.” God reminds the Israelis about what they already know – that the people in the Promised Land are bigger, greater, and stronger than the Jewish nation. Adonai reminds the Israelis that the Lord your God is the one who goes ahead of you and that it is God who does the destroying. Now you might wonder why God feels just in removing these different peoples from their homes, but we must remember that the land belongs to God – always has and always will. We are merely stewards of the land. El Gabor, Mighty God, is reminding them that they belong to Him. This reminds me of a song an old Jewish sage wrote. You probably heard of him, and it goes something like this: “Yes, indeed, you’re going to have to serve somebody while it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody.”
Adonai is reminding them that they better be serving Him. The Lord continues to instruct Moses’s words and reminds them that they are receiving this land – not because of their righteousness, but because of the wickedness of the people who live there now. Moses spends a fair amount of time in this area to make sure they understand that it is not due to their righteousness or their integrity because they do not have much of it. The Israelis’ righteousness and our righteousness today are only due to Messiah Yeshua’s amazing grace and mercy and forgiveness from the work of the cross. The Lord is not one to mince words, and He calls them a stiff-necked people. I believe we are still a stiff-necked people, even today. The chosen people in the day of Moses and continuing today, along with the followers of Messiah Yeshua, are still prone to find fault in others and always seem to miss the error of their own ways. Therefore, Scripture tells us to pluck the log out of our own eye before we go after the sliver in our neighbor’s eye.
Moses spends a great deal of time speaking to their pride – a reminder to be humble. In the remainder of Chapter 9, Moses reminds the people of the golden-calf incident and how quickly they forgot what God had just done for them. After all, the Lord brought down Pharaoh and his army; and he divided the Red Sea. During Moses’s duration of 40 days on the mountain, the rebellious Israelis decide to make a golden calf and worship it. We should note that they had been slaves for 430 years, so one might say that the Israelis didn’t know how to act; but that is not an excuse in the eyes of the Lord. The three-in-one God tells Moses to go back down the mountain and straighten out Moses’s people. God does not claim them for Himself; He is pretty upset. Then, on top of that, Moses’s own brother Aaron is the one who makes the golden calf – really!
But there is a beautiful lesson right here to learn: we see the mercy of God. Moses trusts God; and God shows much mercy, grace, and forgiveness for Aaron because he appoints Aaron a priest after the golden-calf incident. We all like to think that other people’s sins are greater than our own; but, when we sin in idol worship to something other than God, brothers and sisters, you are at the top of the sin pool in the eyes of God. And, yet, He shows mercy and grace and forgiveness to Aaron. That should give you and me hope that we are never a lost cause in the eyes of the Lord – and you can take that to the bank!
Even in our more conservative churches, most of us are not faithful to God for even a single day. We boast that we are sound in our faith, but we are truly more sound asleep. Rather than following God’s will, instead we seek our own will and call it God’s will.
Some applications to remember: God requires our obedience; He expects us to do more than just give lip service to the call that He commands of us. We live in a time of grace and mercy; but our maturity in our walk with the Lord brings a desire to be His servants, to obey Him, and to follow His will.
God also demands our faith, and the level of our faith determines how much we trust God. Brothers and sisters, I beseech you to strengthen your faith, spend time in the Word, and see how much God’s forgiveness is worth; and then you will trust Him more. Faith, trust, and forgiveness exemplifies God’s great love for us. The wrongs we commit against Him are far greater than the wrongs our neighbors commit against us. How much more should we forgive our neighbor. Forgiveness is love and shows the expressed maturity in our walk with the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.
Brothers and sisters, choose wisely.
Amen