Sabbath: Moses’ History Lesson

Image © Pacific Press

Sabbath Afternoon

Read for This Week’s Study: Deuteronomy 1:1-3:29, Exodus 32:29-32, Numbers 14:1-45, Ephesians 3:10, Genesis 15:1-16, John 14:9.

Memory Text: And they “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ” ( 1 Corinthians 10.3-4, NKJV).

“These are the words which Moses spoke” (Deuteronomy 1:1). Thus begins the book of Deuteronomy. And though, yes, Moses and the presence of Moses dominate the book, from these opening words to his death in the land of Moab (Deuteronomy 34:5), Deuteronomy (as the whole Bible) is really about the Lord Jesus. For He is the One who created us (Genesis 1:1-2:25; John 1:1-3), sustains us (Colossians 1:15-17, Hebrews 1:3), and redeems us (Isaiah 41:14, Titus 2:14). And, in a looser sense of those words, Deuteronomy reveals how the Lord continued to create, sustain, and redeem His people at this crucial time in salvation history.

Basically, just as the children of Israel are finally to enter Canaan, Moses gives them a history lesson, a theme that is repeated all through the Bible: remember what the Lord has done for you in the past.

This admonition should mean something to us, we who are on the borders of a better Promised Land: “In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, … I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.” — Ellen G. White, Life Sketches, p. 196.