Alert: "Moses is going to die!" Now in order to understand this book we need to

remember the story so far so Israel has escaped from slavery in Egypt then

they spend one year at Mount Sinai this is where they made the covenant

with God to obey all of these laws and then they wander around the desert for 40 years

before they make it to the Jordan River which is right across from the land God

promised them. They are ready to go in this is where the book of Deuteronomy begins and

what this book is really is a speech Moses gives these final words like a pep

talk to the new generation of Israel that's about to go into the land and the

speech, it's broken up into three large sections. So Moses begins the first part of

the speech with somber tone because he's highlighting Israel's rebellion and

resistance which has been going on for the last forty years and that sets up

the rest of the opening section which is Moses challenge to this new generation

to be different from their parents and to respond to God's grace with love and

obedience

so he reminds them of the ten commandments like the basics of the covenant and then

he gives them this very famous line listen oh Israel the Lord is our God

the Lord alone love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul

and with all your strength. Now in Jewish tradition this is called the Shema

because the first Hebrew word in this line is Shema Israel and this became a

very important prayer in judaism said twice a day

and it emphasizes the Israelite's exclusive commitment to their God the

one true God who loved them who rescued them from slavery because they're about

to go into a land where people are worshipping many other gods and Moses

thinks that loyalty to the Lord their God is the only way to life now notice,

these keywords in the Shema: listen and love you are going to find these words all

over this opening section of the speech the word 'listen' in hebrew means more

than just let sound waves come into your ears it includes the idea of responding

to what you hear so for Israel this means responding to God's grace by

obeying the laws of the covenant and then listen as always followed by love

ya so love is the true motivation for obeying the laws. Israel won't obey

without love and they don't truly love if they don't obey. So there's this tight

connection between loving and listening their runs through the entire book so

Moses tells them that if they do listen and love they will fulfill their

original calling as the family at Abraham to show all of the nation's the wisdom

and justice of God and so become a blessing to them. The second big section

in Deuteronomy is a large block of laws and commands and this is where the

book gets its name

Deuteronomy means a second law and it's because many of these laws we've heard

before in fact in the first line of the book we're told that Moses is here

explaining clarifying the laws so he's repeating an expanding on the laws

making them relevant to this new generation there's laws about how

israel's to worship God, laws about their leadership structure, laws about social justice

and then some more laws about their worship

now after all of the laws of Moses warns Israel of the consequences of their

obedience or disobedience or in his words the blessing for the curse if they

listen and love they will experience blessing and abundance in the land and if

they don't there's going to be famine plagues and they'll be forced off their

land into exile and that brings us to the final section of his speech. Here

Moses says I set before you today

life or death blessing or curse so choose life but then things get really

interesting because after forty years with these people, Moses knows they're not

going to obey and so he predicts their failure and even their future exile from

the promised land and he focuses on what he thinks is the true source of the

problem that they have hired and selfish hearts it's as if israel is incapable of

truly loving God in a way that brings about obedience, but this problem isn't

unique to Israel. Yeah, in fact

Moses when he's using this language about blessing and curse he's tying

Israel's story all the way back to all humanity's story from Genesis 1 through 3 so Adam

and Eve they were blessed by God just like Israel and given a choice to trust

and obey God like Israel and then they rebelled and brought a curse on the land

like Moses knows israel is going to do. And so these stories there about Israel's hard

heart but they're actually a window into the universal human condition. But Moses

doesn't give up hope entirely that's right he says that somehow on the other

side israel's exile God promises to transform their heart so that one day

they truly can listen

and love. In the final chapters joshua has appointed as the new leader of

israel and then Moses takes the entire law code, the one he just predicted Israel

would break. Thats right and he put it into the ark of the covenant and then Moses

hikes up to the top of a mountain so we can see the promised land from afar

and then he dies and that's how the torah ends which is a strange place to

end a story and it's right there at the climax will they obey the laws and live

faithfully in the land or not. Well the story does continue right into Joshua the next

book of the Bible but this is the end of the Torah and it's been ended here for a

reason

the Torah is written for people who are either outside of the land or who are

still waiting for the fulfillment of God's promise to bless the whole world

and so now as each generation reads the torah they find themselves called to

hope in what Moses hoped for: a new and transformed heart that one day can truly

listen and love.

Guys with this video the Torah series is complete it was two years in the making

we're super happy with how they turned out and that because of you all they are

available to anybody. Here is why we're doing this: We believe the Bible is one unified

story it leads to Jesus and it has profound wisdom for the world we hope that the

videos have been helpful for you and making sense and reading the Torah maybe

by yourself or with the small group or class we've been thrilled to see how

people been using this in their homes with their kids in schools, at churches all

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