OCT 19

Genesis 46:1-7
Memorise Deuteronomy 4:5-10
“I have taught you statutes and judgements”

Israel is a great nation because it is so closely linked to God. Israel is a great nation not by her own prowess. It is not because the Jews are a smarter people, or a superior race. Israel is a great nation because that is what God had graciously promised Abraham concerning his descendants (Genesis 12:2). The same promise that Israel would be a great nation He confirmed with Jacob (Genesis 46:3), and with the Israelites under Moses (Deuteronomy 26:5). Israel’s greatness is solely from God. We may ask, “How has Israel become great?” Israel has become great by being God’s receptacle, God’s chosen vessel, to receive His Special Revelation.

Sin had polluted the whole world and blinded the eyes of the nations to the light of the truth. Instead of seeking the Creator God that had made them, they groped in the darkness of idolatry. This was specifically condemned by Paul in the first chapter of Romans. In the midst of such darkness, God came first to Abraham, and after several generations to Moses. God took Israel out of the land of their slavery and gave them the Law. This Law is summarised in the Ten Commandments God delivered to Moses on two tables of stone. By the light of these two tables Israel was delivered from the pollutions of the world, from sins against God and sins against her fellow men. It is through Israel that the moral Law, as given in the Ten Commandments, has become the pattern of all modern legal codes of the nations of the world. Thus declared Moses to Israel on the eve of their entry to the Promised Land to remind her of her holy obligations to greatness, “Behold, 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. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons” (Deuteronomy 4:5-9).

Thought: “The Law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul.”
Prayer: “Thy word is very pure, therefore Thy servant loveth it.”