Sermon for Flinders Park Church August 2019
Chapter 1 was a reminder of the mistakes made by the previous generation of Israel. They did not believe that the LORD would enable them to conquer the promised land of Canaan. As a consequence, God caused them to wander around the wilderness for 38 years until they all died. Chapters 2 and 3 move the story forward now that the older unbelieving generation have died. These chapters are couched in the language of holy war. The LORD is the divine warrior who is on the side of Israel so that she can conquer the Promised Land. He commanded the people not to be afraid of the nations they must conquer. Just as they had already experienced the protection of the LORD in the wilderness, they could expect his protection and direction in the war against Canaan (Deut 1:29-31). Israel, however, must be obedient to the instructions of the LORD so that they will succeed. The LORD would direct them. There are some places that Israel would merely pass through the LORD had given those lands to other peoples. Other places were places of war because the LORD would deliver those places into the hand of Israel. As long as the Israelites listened and obeyed, the LORD would fight for them.
ESV Deuteronomy 2:1 “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the LORD told me. And for many days we travelled around Mount Seir. 2 Then the LORD said to me, 3 ‘You have been travelling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward 4 and command the people, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. So be very careful. 5 Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You shall purchase food from them with money, that you may eat, and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink. 7 For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”‘ 8 So we went on, away from our brothers, the people of Esau, who live in Seir, away from the Arabah road from Elath and Ezion-geber. “And we turned and went in the direction of the wilderness of Moab.
There were several places on the journey that Israel had to simply pass through peaceably. The first one was Edom. The reason that Israel was not to provoke a war with Edom is simple; Edom was the brother of Jacob, that is, Israel. God had given Esau his own piece of land that Israel should not touch. They had no need to take anything from Esau since they would get the land God had promised to them. Indeed, they were to pay for the food and water they used in their journey through that land. This would not be a problem because God had blessed them with plenty. They could attest to this because in the wilderness the LORD took care of them and they lacked nothing. Because of this there was no need to make war against their brothers and no need to take plunder. They left Edom alone.
9 And the LORD said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession.’ 10 (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. 11 Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. 12 The Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the people of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and settled in their place, as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the LORD gave to them.) 13 ‘Now rise up and go over the brook Zered.’ So we went over the brook Zered. 14 And the time from our leaving Kadesh-barnea until we crossed the brook Zered was thirty-eight years, until the entire generation, that is, the men of war, had perished from the camp, as the LORD had sworn to them. 15 For indeed the hand of the LORD was against them, to destroy them from the camp, until they had perished. 16 “So as soon as all the men of war had perished and were dead from among the people, 17 the LORD said to me, 18 ‘Today you are to cross the border of Moab at Ar. 19 And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession.’ 20 (It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there– but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim– 21 a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the LORD destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place, 22 as he did for the people of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them and they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day. 23 As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their place.)
The LORD commanded Israel not to go to war with Moab or Ammon either. They too had been given their land by the LORD. Moab and Ammon were the children of Lot that he fathered with his daughters. Genesis 19:30-38 records how the daughters got Lot drunk so they could sleep with him and get pregnant. One had a son named Moab and one a son named Ben-Ammi, and these became the peoples of Moab and Ammon. Thus in a sense these peoples were family to Israel, albeit rather distant.
More importantly, there are parallels between the LORD giving the lands of Moab and Ammon to the sons of Lot and the LORD giving the land of Canaan to Israel. Moses no doubt included these details in his sermon in order to encourage them. First of all, the people who used to live in the land of Moab before the Moabites were “a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim” (2:10). The Ammonites also dispossessed some giants from the land they live in. “The Ammonites call them Zamzummim—a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the LORD destroyed them before the Ammonites” (2:20c-21). The giants in the land were precisely the people Israel had been afraid of when the LORD told the previous generation to go into the land of Canaan (1:28). But here Moses is reminding them that the LORD gave a land full of giants to the sons of Lot. If he could do it for the sons of Lot, then he could do it for Israel. Since both Moab and Ammon dispossessed people and took their lands because they had the help of the LORD, and some of those were the giants that Israel feared, therefore Israel should trust the LORD to dispossess the giants who live in Canaan.
These three peoples—Edom, Moab and Ammon were given land by the LORD. The encouragement is not simply that God helped them and will help Israel, the encouragement that Israel was to take from this is that the LORD is sovereign over the nations and over history. His hand was at work in the displacement of one group of peoples and the victory of others. He is at work not simply in the nation of Israel, although Israel is most certainly special to God, his precious possession. God is the God of every people and the one who carves out the history of the world. This truth is also evidenced by the events which followed the peaceful journey through Edom, Moan and Ammon. From this point on Israel will go to war and defeat kings with the help of the LORD.
24 ‘Rise up, set out on your journey and go over the Valley of the Arnon. Behold, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession, and contend with him in battle. 25 This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’ 26 “So I sent messengers from the wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon the king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying, 27 ‘Let me pass through your land. I will go only by the road; I will turn aside neither to the right nor to the left. 28 You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink. Only let me pass through on foot, 29 as the sons of Esau who live in Seir and the Moabites who live in Ar did for me, until I go over the Jordan into the land that the LORD our God is giving to us.’ 30 But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day. 31 And the LORD said to me, ‘Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to take possession, that you may occupy his land.’ 32 Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Jahaz. 33 And the LORD our God gave him over to us, and we defeated him and his sons and all his people. 34 And we captured all his cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors. 35 Only the livestock we took as spoil for ourselves, with the plunder of the cities that we captured. 36 From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, and from the city that is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was not a city too high for us. The LORD our God gave all into our hands. 37 Only to the land of the sons of Ammon you did not draw near, that is, to all the banks of the river Jabbok and the cities of the hill country, whatever the LORD our God had forbidden us.
The LORD promised the people of Israel that he would give Sihon the king of the Amorites into the hand of Israel. This would be the fulfilment of a promise to Abraham. God told Abraham that Israel would be mistreated in Egypt. “And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Gen 15:16 ESV). God does nothing on the spur of the moment. He had planned the conquest of the Amorites hundreds of years earlier and yet in his mercy he waited until they had sinned so gravely that it was time to displace them from their land. But the previous generation of Israel was afraid that the LORD had brought them to this place to deliver them into the hand of the Amorites and destroy them (Deut 1:27). In their unbelief they had refused to go to war and rebelled against the LORD. Moses assured Israel in his Deuteronomy sermon that the LORD with give the Amorites into the hand of Israel and not the other way around. The thing Israel feared would not happen because the LORD is on their side and he is faithful to his promises.
God is sovereign over nations, sovereign over history, and as this story demonstrates, the LORD is sovereign over kings. Moses sent messengers to the king of Heshbon and asked for peaceful passage through his country. He offered to pay for food and water just as Israel had done when going through Edom, Moab and Ammon. There was good precedent for the king of Heshbon to let Israel go through in peace. The king knew that they had done this in other places. But the LORD had other plans for Heshbon and the towns around it.
Moses observed, “But Sihon the king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day” (2:30). The king of Heshbon was not forced into making war with Israel; he freely chose to do so. But the LORD is sovereign over the heart of the king. Proverbs 21:1 tells us as much. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov. 21:1 ESV). This situation is very similar to what happened in Exodus with the heart of Pharaoh. It is true that the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart because the scripture says this several times (Exod 7:3; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:4). This was done because the LORD had chosen to glorify himself through Pharaoh’s stubbornness (Exod 9:13-16). It is also true that Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exod 8:15, 32; 9:34). Both human responsibility and God’s sovereignty operate at the same time in the events of the world. It is a mystery how this works but the fact that we cannot understand this does not change the truth of it.
Moses makes clear that the LORD gave the land of the king of Heshbon into the hands of Israel. The LORD fought for them and they defeated the king and all his cities. “From Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, and from the city that is in the valley, as far as Gilead, there was not a city too high for us. The LORD our God gave all into our hands” (2:36). Again this statement should allay any fears that Israel had had in the past. The previous generation rebelled against the LORD and would not enter the land because they said, “The cities are great and fortified up to heaven” (1:28). Their fears were unfounded. The cities were defeated because the LORD was with them in the battle. The things that they were afraid of did not come to pass.
There is one more king to defeat.
ESV Deuteronomy 3:1 “Then we turned and went up the way to Bashan. And Og the king of Bashan came out against us, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. 2 But the LORD said to me, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hand. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.’ 3 So the LORD our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we struck him down until he had no survivor left. 4 And we took all his cities at that time– there was not a city that we did not take from them– sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5 All these were cities fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides very many unwalled villages. 6 And we devoted them to destruction, as we did to Sihon the king of Heshbon, devoting to destruction every city, men, women, and children. 7 But all the livestock and the spoil of the cities we took as our plunder. 8 So we took the land at that time out of the hand of the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan, from the Valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon 9 (the Sidonians call Hermon Sirion, while the Amorites call it Senir), 10 all the cities of the tableland and all Gilead and all Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 11 (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)
Og the king of Bashan was the final king to be defeated on the East side of the Jordan. He was also a giant with a bed, or some say sarcophagus, made of iron and nine cubits, that is, four metres long. This too happened because “the LORD our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we struck him down until he had no survivor left” (3:3). The entire war that Israel fought on the East side of the Jordan succeeded because the LORD fought for them. They could not have done this without the help of their God. The fears that kept the previous generation from obeying the LORD would have been legitimate if it were not for the fact that the LORD was on their side.
But although the LORD fought with them and gave them victory they still had to fight. “And we took all his cities at that time—there was not a city that we did not take from them—sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan” (3:4). There is no victory without human actions. People cannot be passive in the LORD’s battle. God is sovereign over the battlefield and yet humans must play their part.
Once the victory was complete the land was divided among certain tribes.
12 “When we took possession of this land at that time, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory beginning at Aroer, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon, and half the hill country of Gilead with its cities. 13 The rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, that is, all the region of Argob, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (All that portion of Bashan is called the land of Rephaim. 14 Jair the Manassite took all the region of Argob, that is, Bashan, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and called the villages after his own name, Havvoth-jair, as it is to this day.) 15 To Machir I gave Gilead, 16 and to the Reubenites and the Gadites I gave the territory from Gilead as far as the Valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a border, as far over as the river Jabbok, the border of the Ammonites; 17 the Arabah also, with the Jordan as the border, from Chinnereth as far as the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah on the east. 18 “And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘The LORD your God has given you this land to possess. All your men of valor shall cross over armed before your brothers, the people of Israel. 19 Only your wives, your little ones, and your livestock (I know that you have much livestock) shall remain in the cities that I have given you, 20 until the LORD gives rest to your brothers, as to you, and they also occupy the land that the LORD your God gives them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you may return to his possession which I have given you.’ 21 And I commanded Joshua at that time, ‘Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings. So will the LORD do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing. 22 You shall not fear them, for it is the (Deut. 3:1 ESV)
Although the tribes of Reuben, Manasseh and Gad had been given their inheritance in the form of the lands of the Amorites and of Og king of Bashan, they could not lay down their weapons yet. Since the rest of Israel had not yet received their inheritance in the land, the three eastern tribes were told to continue the fight until the whole land had been conquered. They need not worry about their wives and children. The wives, children and livestock could safely stay east of the Jordan because the enemy would not be a problem. In the previous unbelieving generation, the safety of their children had been the excuse for not obeying the LORD (1:39). However, there will be no such excuses for this generation. They must fight to take possession of the land with the other tribes until the job is complete.
To sum up:
The Israelites spent a lot of time worrying about what would happen when they went to battle to conquer the Promised Land. But God showed them that he is sovereign over the lands of other nations, not just theirs. The fact that other nations were given land or had land taken away from them is in the hands of God. If the LORD promised to give Israel the land of Canaan then he would deal with all the problems that stood in their way.
They were afraid of giants, fortified cities up to the sky, and the possibility that their children would be taken captive. The incidents recounted in this story show that God is above all these problems. He would help them defeat the giants and the fortified cities. He would give Israel victory so that their enemies should be the ones who fear, not them.
In addition, the LORD is also sovereign over the hearts of people in authority. He allowed Israel safe passage through some nations and favour with those kings. He also made some kings refuse to let Israel pass so that Israel could conquer the nations that cursed them.
As Christians we are not promised a piece of land in the Middle East. Ours is an eternal inheritance (Heb 9:15). The promises that we have been given are far greater than a plot of land. At the end of the long litany of faithful people in the Old Testament, Heb 11 ends with this encouragement: “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect” (Heb. 11:39-40 ESV).
Since we know that God is sovereign over the world, how much more should we trust that he is sovereign over each of our lives? He is not going to fail to give us the promised inheritance, which is heavenly, not earthly.
No doubt there will be battles before we receive our inheritance, that is, our entire lives this side of heaven. Our task is not to fight the battles in our own strength. If we do that we will surely lose. Israel was right to be afraid IF the LORD was not with them. But we know that because Jesus has already won the ultimate battle against sin, death and the devil, he will be with us in the battles we experience. So our task is to be obedient in our lives, whatever shape our lives take.
One thing which we need to remember is that God himself will choose the battles for us if we are obedient to him. Some people will leave us in peace and others will not. However, as we walk in obedience, those who oppose us will be used by God for his glory. This was true in the life of Jesus. Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost includes these words: “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:22-24 ESV). The point being that evil men were used by God to bring about the ultimate victory that Jesus won over human sin, death and hell. If our God can do that, then he can surely use whatever battles we face for his purposes and move us closer to receiving our eternal inheritance.
Like the tribes who were given an inheritance on the East side of the Jordan, we are to fight beside others until we all receive our heavenly inheritance. We are not in this alone. Not only has Jesus already won the battle for us, but he has given us each other. We help one another in the battles that come up. This is one reason for gathering together as a church and one reason why we pray for one another.
Our response to the word of God should then be obedience when we are given peace, obedience when we are put into a battle, obedience when we are told to move forward, and obedience when we are told to stay put. Let’s stop worrying about all the things which might go wrong along the way. The sovereign God already knows about those things and has them in hand. We can trust him because he has proved himself faithful.