Israel's time in the wilderness is coming to an end. Moses' time with the people is coming to an end. He has been providing a refresher course on all the Lord's laws and commandments so the current generation of Israelites will be prepared to take over the promised land and prosper in it.
Today and tomorrow we will study Chapter 29 which has to do with the renewing of the covenant. We might compare this, in a way, to vow renewal ceremonies in which a husband and a wife repeat the vows they made to each other long ago. Moses has been repeating the terms of the Lord's covenant to Israel and the current generation of Israelites are repeating the vow that their fathers made forty years earlier: "We will do everything the Lord has said." It's important to renew these vows before entering the promised land. The people need this reminder of who the Lord is and who they are in Him. They need this reminder of what the Lord expects from them and what they can expect from Him if they keep their part of the covenant.
"These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant He had made with them at Horeb." (Deuteronomy 29:1) This is not a different covenant; it is a re-offering of the same covenant to a new generation.
"Moses summoned all the Israelites and said to them: 'Your eyes have seen all that the Lord did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials and to all his land. With your own eyes you saw those great trials, those signs and wonders." (Deuteronomy 29:2-3) The Israelites saw the judgment that fell on the nation that oppressed them. If they continue in covenant with the Lord, they can count on Him to always defend them against any enemy.
Yet, though they witnessed many great and wondrous things, not everyone took those things to heart. They witnessed the power and strength of God, and they believed in God, and in a sense they feared God, but at the same time some of them did not develop a personal relationship with Him. Some of them did not love and honor Him in their hearts. No matter how many great things they witnessed, a percentage of the congregation did not develop the spiritual maturity that they should have, so the Lord says, "But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear." (Deuteronomy 29:4) It's not that the Lord didn't give them the capability to understand. It's not that He didn't give them plenty of opportunities to understand, either. What Moses is saying is something like this, "The things the Lord did in your sight in Egypt did not give you a mind that understood Him or eyes and ears that are open to Him in the way they should be. Not all of you allowed these things to minister to you in the way you should have. Even after He brought you out of Egypt with a mighty hand, many of you still doubted He had your best interests at heart. Many of you doubted He was able to help you defeat the occupants of the promised land and so you rebelled against Him and refused to move forward. In spite of all you'd seen and heard in Egypt, and in spite of the way He parted the Red Sea for you, somehow you didn't take to heart how much He loves you and how much He wants to do awesome things for you."
Because the people's faith wasn't as strong as it should have been after emerging from Egypt, they made some grave mistakes not long after the Lord made a covenant with them. Due to weakness of faith they weren't ready to charge into the promised land and begin taking it over from the heathen tribes there. The Lord provided them with forty more years of religious training in the wilderness. For forty years He was their sole provider. For forty years He worked on teaching them to trust Him to supply their every need. "Yet the Lord says, 'During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet. You ate no bread and drank no wine or other fermented drink. I did this so that you might know that I am the Lord your God.'" (Deuteronomy 29:5-6)
Clothes and shoes naturally wear out with use, yet the Lord preserved these materials the whole time the Israelites were in the wilderness. He provided food and water for them in the wilderness although they weren't planting and harvesting or digging wells. How could two million or more people plus livestock survive forty years in the wilderness without planting, harvesting, digging wells, and growing vineyards? Only with the Lord's miraculous help! He gave them forty years of learning to trust Him to give them each day their daily bread because if they didn't trust the Lord with small things, how could they ever learn to trust Him with big things? If they could not learn to depend on Him to supply their everyday needs, how could they count on Him to make them victorious in battle against fierce trained soldiers and the giants of the land of Canaan?
As they learned to trust the Lord in all things, He began giving them victories in battle on their way to the promised land. "When you reached this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight against us, but we defeated them. We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh." (Deuteronomy 29:7-8) They needed these preliminary victories out in the open (these kings' armies marched out to oppose them) because they would have to attack fortified cities in the promised land. They would have to lay siege to heavily guarded settlements. The Lord gave them the training and the confidence they needed along the way.
He does these same things for you and me. He wants to help us learn to trust Him with the small things so that we'll trust Him with the big things. He wants to train us along the way to depend on Him for small victories so that, when a major battle comes, we'll charge confidently ahead knowing He is with us and He is for us. Having the confidence to face down a giant doesn't happen overnight; this confidence comes from daily leaning on the Lord. This confidence comes from walking with Him, talking with Him, and learning about Him each day of our lives. That's how David learned about Him during his younger years when he watched his father's sheep in the fields. David spent time communing with the Lord and composing songs of praise to Him. David trusted the Lord to help him the time a bear came to attack the sheep and the time a lion came to attack the sheep. Because David came to know and trust the Lord during the years he shepherded the sheep, and because the Lord gave him victory over the lion and the bear, David could stand confidently in the sight of the Philistine army and their champion Goliath the giant and declare, "The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine." (1 Samuel 17:37a) Because David had learned to trust God in the small things, he had learned to trust Him in the big things. Therefore he was able to say to the giant standing before him, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied." (1 Samuel 17:45)
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