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From Eternity Past
he, and all the children of Israel with him, even all the congregation.”
Verse 21.
Moses stood before the people to repeat his last warnings and
admonitions. His face was illumined with a holy light, his hair white
with age. But his form was erect, and his eye was clear and undimmed.
With deep feeling he portrayed the love and mercy of their Almighty
Protector.
“Ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there
hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like
it? Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of
the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? or hath God assayed to go and
take Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations,
by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a
stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the Lord
your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?”
“Because the Lord loved you, and because He would keep the oath
which He had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out
with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen,
from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord
thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and
mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments to a
thousand generations.”
Deuteronomy 7:8, 9
.
The people of Israel had often felt impatient and rebellious because
of their long wandering in the wilderness; but the Lord had not been
chargeable with this delay in possessing Canaan. He was more grieved
than they because He could not bring them into immediate possession
of the Promised Land and display before all nations His mighty power.
With their distrust of God, they had not been prepared to enter Canaan.
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Had their fathers yielded in faith to the direction of God, walking in
His ordinances, they would long before have been settled in Canaan,
a prosperous, holy, happy people. Their delay dishonored God and
detracted from His glory in the sight of surrounding nations.
“Behold,” Moses said, “I have taught you statutes and judgments,
even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the
land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this
is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations,
which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is
a wise and understanding people.”