Deuteronomy 32:4-84He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. 5They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. 6Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee? 7Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. 8When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. (Deuteronomy 32:4‑8)
IN THIS song of Moses God tells His people what they are, but first He tells them what He is.
“He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.”
He had just been saying His doctrine is as “the rain,” His speech as “the dew,” and “as showers upon the grass.” To learn what God is is as the dew to our souls. “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” Prov. 25:2525As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country. (Proverbs 25:25). Such is the gospel to the thirsty dried up soul of a poor sinner; the “far country” tells of that heavenly land where God is and where Jesus dwells. For a lost sinner to come to God and learn that He is love is as rain to his poor parched soul.
Perhaps I, His child, have failed, and we all fail at times, though there is no excuse for failure; still, if broken down and repentant I come to Him, He says, “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins...” That is as dew to my heart after the day’s trials and failures. It is necessary to learn what the flesh is in us and to be broken down before the Lord about it, but knowing this does not refresh us, though it does lead us to Him. But to learn something of what God is comforts the heart.
He now tells them what they are and what they will do. “They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of His children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.” But what God is is the safety of His people. He is “our refuge and strength” (Psa. 46:11<<To the chief Musician for the sons of Korah, A Song upon Alamoth.>> God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. (Psalm 46:1)), and He will be true to Himself. If His people are unstable, He is “the Rock"; if their works are evil and crooked, “His work is perfect,” and “His ways are judgment.” He is “a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.”
“Remember the days of old.” Had He not been a Father to them? Let them ask their fathers and their elders who would tell them of His goodness and of those wonderful works He had done on their behalf.
We now come to a most wonderful verse which helps us to understand the place that God had obtained for Israel in the earth and their relation to all the other nations. He is going to bless them in a coming day, after all their failure, their rebellion and their ruin, but this was no after-thought of His; He had purposed this long before. He makes His plans and then proceeds to work them out.
“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.” How wonderfully this describes the Lord’s care of His earthly people before they turned away from Him and dishonored Him.
Sovereign grace had chosen Israel for earthly blessing, but their election was in time. Still more precious is the grace that marked us out for heavenly blessing with Christ, in that past eternity — “bore the foundation of the world.”
Saviour, the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;
But sweeter far Thy face to see,
And in Thy presence rest.
ML-04/11/1976