FOURTH QUARTER 2021
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #11
DECEMBER 11, 2021
“DEUTERNOMY IN THE LATER WRITINGS”

 

Deuteronomy is the fifth book listed in the Old Testament. However, it is actually one of six written by Moses. During his forty years in the wilderness, he wrote his first two books: “he wrote the book of Job” and “the book of Genesis” at that time (ST, February 19, 1880). The word “Deuteronomy” comes from the Septuagint's Greek title for this book, meaning “second law” or “repeated law.”

 

Deuteronomy is one of the oldest books in the Bible. Subsequent Biblical authors read this book and knew its teachings. Many direct and indirect references to Deuteronomy and its messages are found in the Old Testament. Our lesson, this week, highlights five later writers – Josiah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Micah who either quoted or cited Deuteronomy.

 

Josiah

There were a few righteous kings in Jerusalem; but beginning with Jeroboam, “who sinned and who made Israel sin” (1 Kings 14:16) each successive king over the rest of Israel was worse than the one before him. This reign of sin was broken with Josiah. He, grandson of Manasseh and son of Amon, chose to not follow their example. Instead, he sought God with all his heart and restored the Temple and the worship of God (2 Kings 22:2-5).

 

“The book of the law” (Deuteronomy) was found in the Temple. For whatever reason, the book of Deuteronomy had been lost in the Temple (2 Kings 23:3). “Hilkiah the priest found [it] in the house of the Lord” (2 Kings 23:24). When Josiah, king of Judah (in his mid-twenties at the time) heard for the first time the book of Deuteronomy, especially chapter 28, he tore his clothes (2 Kings 22:11, 18-19). He was deeply convicted by the Spirit of God to lead his people to a higher level of spirituality.

 

Deuteronomy is full of assurances of salvation along with warnings to the multitudes of Israel who had turned from God and His holiness and practiced pagan abominations in Judah, even in the Temple itself. God’s people became like the heathen around them. Consequently, there were purging’s of sin and sinners in Judah who refused to repent and to believe the law and the gospel. The sins practiced by the people and the reforms enacted by Josiah are recorded in 2 Kings 23. This was written for our learning today and not only for Israel.

 

Sins practiced by priests and professors ranged from sodomy to spiritualism, including the sin of Manasseh who led Judah into the abominable sacrifice of their own children to Moloch the Ammonite amalgamated bull-headed idol with outstretched human arms and hands over fire (2 Kings 21:1-16). We will meet this pagan god again when we consider Jeremiah.

 

Notwithstanding these blatant sins in Judah, many Israelites again followed God because of Josiah’s work in revival and reformatory movements leading to obedience of God’s holy law. This reminds one of the passages penned by Mrs. White regarding the significance of the message of Jones and Waggoner. She wrote,

 

“This message was to bring more prominently before the world the uplifted Saviour, the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It presented justification through faith in the Surety; it invited the people to receive the righteousness of Christ, which is made manifest in obedience to all the commandments of God” (Testimonies to Ministers, 90-91).

 

The doctrine of justification by faith never lowers the law of God. Waggoner proclaimed,

 

“Justification carries the law on the face of it. The only danger is in not getting it. It establishes the law in the heart” (General Conference Daily Bulletin March 12, 1891). This is the work the Lord did in the heart of Josiah and in those who responded to God’s gracious call.

 

It is written concerning Josiah that “before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses; nor after him did any arise like him” (2 Kings 23:25). Revival from acceptance of the gospel and reformation through obedience to God’s law came about through Josiah’s spiritual leadership.

 

Jeremiah

Jeremiah was a contemporary of Josiah. E. J. Waggoner wrote of this connection:

 

“Bear in mind that this promised by Jeremiah [God’s promise regarding the restoration of Jerusalem, the temple and the people] was in the very last days of the kingdom of Judah, for Jeremiah did not begin to prophesy till ‘the days of Josiah the son of Amon’ (Jeremiah 1:2), in the thirteenth year of his reign, only twenty-one years before the beginning of the Babylonian captivity. Before Jeremiah began to prophesy, nearly all the prophets had finished their labours, and passed away. The prophecies of Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Micah, and others--all the principal prophets--were in the hands of the people before Jeremiah was born. This is a fact that should by no means be overlooked, for it is most important. In those prophecies are many promises of the restoration of Jerusalem, all of which might have been fulfilled if the people had given heed. But like all God's promises, they were in Christ; they pertained, like the one before us, to eternity, and not simply to time. But since the people of those days did not accept them, they remain equally fresh for us. They could be fulfilled only by the coming of the Lord, for Whom we are now looking. Those prophecies contain the Gospel for this time, just as surely as do the books of Matthew and John and the Epistles.” (The Everlasting Covenant (1900 edition) 460-461).

 

As did Josiah, Jeremiah described with horror the ancient pagan rites practiced in Judah, telling us what God said: “They built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin” (Jeremiah 32:35).

 

Jeremiah also brought the message of Christ and His righteousness to Judah. Ten years before the Babylonian captivity God sent to His people, through His despised prophet, the following message of hope in Christ: “In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely; now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 23:6).

 

Then about one year or less before the Captivity, the following message was sent: “In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell safely. and this is the name by which she will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jeremiah 33:16). Notice the change in pronouns – from “He” to “she.” God pulled out all the stops to save His people from captivity. However, the promises were rejected. And so, these same promises remain to this day. For us.

 

Again, God pulled out all the stops and brought to us in His message of Minneapolis – “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” This is the name by which “she” – the church, His bride, will graciously accept and will be called by this His name.

 

The Prayer of Nehemiah

In his prayer, Nehemiah referred to the book of Deuteronomy citing “the heaven of heavens” (Deuteronomy 10:14, KJV). “You alone are the Lord; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You” (Nehemiah 9:6). The entire chapter (Nehemiah 9) describes Christ as Creator, Lawgiver and Redeemer. Nehemiah speaks of Christ leading Israel by the “cloudy pillar by day and by night a pillar of fire” (v 12). It was Christ Who gave them the law and His Sabbath as stated in verse 13, “You made known to them Your holy Sabbath.” In Deuteronomy 5:15 Moses wrote that the Sabbath was directly connected to Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore, the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

 

The Prayer of Daniel

Like Josiah and Nehemiah, Daniel, who in the same manner of praying and mourning, read in “the Law of Moses” and prayed about the disasters that had come upon God’s people as the result of their unfaithfulness (Daniel 9:13, NKJV; compare Deuteronomy 28:15–68). Like with Josiah and Nehemiah the Lord heard and answered Daniel’s prayer as he placed himself equally a sinner, corporately, with his people. God next revealed to Daniel the great 70-week prophecy (Daniel 9:24-27) pointing to Christ, the Messiah, Who was to be “cut off, but not for Himself.” He was crucified for us as well as for Daniel, Micah, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Josiah and for the entire fallen human race.

 

We next turn to —

 

The Religion Recorded in Micah is Described as Dead Formalism

The passage in Micah 6:1-8, cited in Wednesday’s lesson, begins with a lawsuit brought by God against His people. He calls them to state their case against Him. God calls His witnesses—mountains, hills and earth personified, to testify on His behalf. He addresses the nation as “My people” (verses 3 and 5) and asks them to testify against Him before the witnesses He had summoned. After asking pointed questions, God called upon His people to bring charges against Him: “what have I done to you? And how have I wearied you? Testify against Me” (v. 3). Of course, their mouths were stopped.

 

After finishing His questions and leveling His just charges, God proclaimed that “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (v. 8). God began with charges in His court of law and ended with a description of the spirituality He required of His people. This great timeless spiritual truth reaches us in our day.

 

Micah’s closing testimony in the next chapter (7) reveals God as He related to Israel and relates to you and me: 18“Who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. 19He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:18-19).

 

We will close with a comment from Elder Jones on these verses from His sermon on “Righteousness” by faith presented at the Ottawa, Kansas, Institute and Camp meeting as recorded in the Topeka Daily Capital newspaper. This was six months after Minneapolis.

 

“The Lord has paid the ransom by the death of Christ, now He says return unto me, I have redeemed thee. All the thick, black clouds have gone—blotted out. Micah 7:18, 19 passed by the transgression of what? The remnant? Those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. That is a promise to us. He is fixing them up for Himself. He is taking their sins from them. He delights in treating them better than they deserve. He delights in us when we believe in Him. All our sins are to go into the depths of the sea, the deepest depth we can conceive of. Is not that a blessed promise?” (Kansas Camp meeting Sermon, May 13, 1889).

 

~Pastor Jerry Finneman