ESSENTIAL DOCUMENT

ESSENTIAL DOCUMENT
From the sermon “Go Up, Take Possession”
Deuteronomy 1:1-25

In recent months, my wife and I have been travelling. In our travels, one document accompanied us in all our trips: the Singapore passport.

It comes with its distinctive red covers, and is considered the most powerful passport in the world. It opens the door to more countries than any other passport.

Yes, the passport is an essential document. In some places, we also have the relevant visas with the passport. One other piece of paper was also essential: our air tickets. All these are vital documents when we travel. If any of them is missing or not in order, we would be in serious trouble. We would be subject to questions, interrogations and delays. We could be detained, denied entry, and even deported.

Documents are important. But there is one document more important than any you may have. You need it when you have to travel, not geographically, but spiritually. Not a journey from place to place but a journey throughout life. The document I'm referring to is what we have in our hands this morning, whether hard copy or soft: the book of Deuteronomy. You may not think of Deuteronomy as a document but in ancient times it was probably understood as one. It was a document sealing the relationship between God and the people of Israel. This relationship is called a covenant relationship.

In fact, the word covenant is the recurring theme of Deuteronomy. It is mentioned 26 times throughout the book. It is the key to understanding God and his relationship with God's people.

God’s Law, including the Ten Commandments, was first given at Mount Sinai. Now it is rehearsed to the people at the plains of Moab. Hence Deuteronomy is often understood as the second giving of the Law--it's the meaning in Greek: deutero and nomos, means literally, the second law. But Deuteronomy is more than the second time the Law was given. The title actually came from Deuteronomy 17:

“And when he [the future king] sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them….” (Deut 17.18-19)

Here we are told of a second copy of the Law. It is true that in Deuteronomy the Law is given a second time to the people. But the passage here refers not so much to the second reading of the Law as to the second copy of the Law.

Let's go back to what I said earlier about documents. All of us know that important documents are always made and kept in duplicates -- two or more copies? Why?

Yes, because they are so important we cannot afford to lose them. We always keep a back-up copy. That's one way of understanding the book of Deuteronomy. It is the second copy, the back-up copy of the original. God wants the people to treasure and to preserve what he had said, never to lose it or forget it.

How much do we value and treasure the Book of Deuteronomy? Let us keep it close at hand as we travel through life.