Deuteronomy 7:12-15 -

Temporal prosperity a result of obedience to Divine Law.

The aged lawgiver in this paragraph shows the people how largely their well-being depends on obedience to God, and also to what an extent that welt-being would be manifest even in temporal matters; in the healthfulness of body which would be enjoyed by them, and in the success with which they should tend their flocks and herds. They should be free from the sicknesses and diseases with which Egypt abounded ; and should , in the enjoyment of such immunity, have the sign and token of the blessing of Heaven on an obedient people. Now, it has long been regarded as one mark of the old covenant, that, in condescension to the people, God spake so much of temporal blessings as the reward of obedience in the early messages which were delivered to our fathers. It is also looked on as one specific mark of New Testament teaching, that the promises of God now lie mainly in the direction of spiritual good; and so much has this aspect of things come in our days to be looked at, that it is by no means unlikely that we may be in danger of carrying our views thereon to such an extreme as to regard temporal comforts as no mark at all of Divine approval. It is well worth our while, therefore, to look into this matter, to see if we can so formulate the teaching of God's Word thereon as to show the harmony between it and the actual facts of life on this question: How far may abundance of temporal good and freedom from sickness be looked at as a proof of Divine favor? We shall regard the actual history before our eye as at once a basis for, and an illustration of, our remarks.

I. GOD HAD IN GREAT MERCY REMOVED ISRAEL FROM EGYPT , WHICH WAS NOT ONLY THE SEAT OF POLITICAL OPPRESSION , AND A REGION OF FOUL IDOLATRY , BUT ALSO A LOCUS AND FOCUS OF MANY PESTILENTIAL DISEASES . (See Mr. Lane's 'Modern Egyptians;' the art. 'Egypt ' in 'Encyc. Brit.;' and in Smith and Kitto's Dictionaries of the Bible.) Probably the land of Goshen might be a healthier district than the region of the city itself; still it is extremely questionable whether such a race as Israel was designed to be, could, even physically, have been with any certainty developed in Egypt itself. It is no mean mercy to have our earthly lot cast in a healthy locality. It is not possible, indeed, to escape temptations from without or from within, go where we may, but it is certain that ( coet . par .) it is much easier to resist evil and to cultivate virtue where climate and atmosphere tend to promote bodily vigor. The history of the world affords proof enough that climatic influences will not do everything for man; but that is no reason for underrating their value, nor for losing sight of the mercy where "the lines are fallen to us in" healthful and health-giving places.

II. THOUGH FREE FROM LIABILITY TO EGYPTIAN DISEASE , ISRAEL 'S HEALTHFULNESS AND WEALTH WOULD DEPEND ON OBEDIENCE TO GOD 'S LAW . No land can give us any immunity from the consequences of breaking law, however life-giving its breezes. God's physical and moral laws are interlaced and intertwined. Obedience or disobedience to either may have its full effect in its own direction. Obedience or disobedience to both will have its complicated effects in both directions. Many speak of law as if it acted without God; and, maybe, some think of God as if he acted without law. We need not commit either mistake. Let us carefully avoid both. Let us reverence every law of God, physical or moral, because it is his; and let it be our study to understand them in every department in which they are presented to us. Mr. Binney once made the startling statement, that, "barring accidents, a man can live pretty much as long as he pleases!" By which he meant, of course, that there are certain Divine laws and rules, obedience to which tends to the preservation of health, and consequently to the prolongation of life. And, if these laws are neglected, we may create disease, affliction, and trouble for ourselves, and breed even death, however healthful the locality in which we dwell. Hence it is not surprising to find in this paragraph another principle indicated.

III. SUPPOSING THE PEOPLE TO BE OBEDIENT TO GOD 'S LAW , HEALTH AND WEALTH WOULD FOLLOW BY WAY OF NATURAL CONSEQUENCE . The original ( Deuteronomy 7:12 ), by a peculiar Hebrew idiom, shows this. "And (it) shall be (the) heel ," i . e . the end, and so the consequence. Whatever may be the kind of weal desired, the laws of God in that direction should be studied, understood, and followed. Whether in the regulation of the production or sustentation of life; in agricultural pursuits; in the spheres of capital and labor, and their mutual relations; in the creation, distribution, increase, and expenditure of wealth; in the higher region of the cultivation of the national and social virtues of truth and goodness; in the still higher region of family piety; or in the highest region of all, even that of personal love and devotion to God, the old words will be proved true, "Them that honor me, I will honor." No doubt we are often meeting with cases which seem anomalous; they accord with no known rule whatever. But we shall find that we do not know the whole of such cases, nor even enough of them to enable us to judge concerning them. Till we know more we must suspend judgment. No perplexities of this sort give any warrant for disturbing first principles. In any region in which God has laws we may have duties; and it is a very partial and unhealthy piety which would underrate intelligent action in any department. In whatever department there is neglect, in such we may expect failure. And where there is obedience, there will be the reward.

IV. THOUGH THE REWARD MAY COME IN THE WAY OF NATURAL CONSEQUENCE , YET NONE THE LESS IS IT GOD 'S BLESSING . The result is from him, because the Law is from him. Nor is it one whit the less from God, if we are able to trace every step of the coming of a blessing. A man's work is not less his because he does it somehow. Nor is it attributed the less to him because it is known how he did it. Why should men be less reasonable in recognizing God's work, when the laws of the working are manifest to us? "The hand of the diligent maketh rich," is one truth; "the blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich," is another. We may ignore neither, but should reverently admit and act on both.

V. ON WHAT A FRAIL CONDITION , HOWEVER , WAS ISRAEL 'S NATIONAL WEALTH SUSPENDED ! "If ye hearken to these judgments," etc. The laws were right, kind, benevolent. The land was beautiful, fertile, healthful All that was wanted was obedient people. Israel needed as much to be delivered from themselves as to be rescued from the Egyptians. And, in fact, there was among them a redeeming anti sanctifying work, carried on through God's Spirit, though it is not named in this paragraph; nor was it as fully revealed as now, how, in his infinite grace, our God created in his people the obedience which, in his Law, he commands. "The righteousness of the Law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The Law given to Israel was a child-guide with a view to Christ. The first covenant proved brittle in their hands, and so they learned the need of another, which should be forever safe in God's hands. The first says, "Do this, and live." The second, "Live, and you will do this." And even now, putting the matter generally, we may say God governs nations, as nations, by the first covenant. He governs his own believing people by the second. Hence, in dealing with men and nations, the Christian preacher has ever to expound and enforce the everlasting laws of righteousness, and by revealing men's failure therein to convict of sin; while in building up the Church he has to show the glory of the Holy Ghost as the Creator and Sustainer of spiritual power.

Verbs. 17-25

An anxious question, or dreading difficulties.

In this paragraph there are some verses which are in the main a repetition of the enforcement of the policy of separation and extrusion which Israel was to adopt towards the Canaanites. But there is one distinctive feature in it which presents several points altogether new, the historical side of which we may first look at, that we may there see how peculiarly full this passage is of bright and gladsome teaching for us.

Here is a question ( Deuteronomy 7:18 ), which Israel would not be unlikely to ask, at least occasionally. Doubtless, just at the time when they were in the flush of joy at the destruction of Pharaoh and his hosts, or when they had experienced some great deliverance from pressing want, their hearts would be brave and strong. But, like some others since have been, they were largely the creatures of circumstance. Now up, now down. Now so elated that they think they can get through anything, now so depressed that they dread everything: The time would come when in view of the possible struggles which the possession of Canaan might involve, many an Israelite would say, "These nations are mightier than I how can I dispossess them?" and they must have been more than human if the heart did not now and then give way. For there were seven nations to supplant; and over and above the numerical force against which Israel would have to contend, there would be the fact that they were strangers to the land; they had been kept in serfdom; they were unskilled in the art and practice of war; so that, on the human side, the advantage was very greatly with the Canaanites, while Israel incurred a very serious risk. Now, though Jehovah was very wroth with the people when in their guilty unbelief they proposed to turn back at the evil report of the spies, he sees a great difference between a deeply rooted distrust, and an occasional cloud that may shade the spirit; and while in his holy wrath he condemns the first, in his tender compassion he anticipates and guards against the second. Hence, from Deuteronomy 7:18 to 24, we have the cheering voice of the great lawgiver, grandly uttering, in his hundred and twentieth year, words to empower the heart, and showing Israel, in the Name of the Lord of hosts, how much more there is to animate them than there can possibly be to discourage and depress. He

I. THE DIFFICULTIES OF LIFE AS ANXIOUSLY DREADED BY US . "These nations are more than I how can I dispossess them?" These Israelites were not the only people who have cast glances ahead, and who, foreseeing, as they thought, difficulties in the distance, have exclaimed, "How shall we get through them?" We do not refer now to such as have no living faith in God, and who are perpetually giving way to dark and sinful unbelief; nor have we mainly in view those who have never yet been led out of "the house of bondage." But, keeping as closely as we can to the cases suggested by the paragraph, we refer to those who, through mercy, know what a great deliverance has been wrought for man in Christ; to whom that redemption has become a living power through the energy of the Holy Ghost; and who yet, notwithstanding all, have their moments of despondency, when looking or trying to look far ahead,—they see innumerable obstructions confronting them, and ask in anxious sadness, "How can we meet them all?' This main inquiry may take one or more of the following forms:

1. The special ends and aims even of my earthly life; how can I accomplish them?

2. The difficulties in the way of my much-loved work for Christ; how can I overcome them?

3. The hardships to be met in running the Christian race; how can I encounter them?

4. The many hindrances which oppose themselves to the advance of the cause of God; how can the Church overcome them?

5. All the foes, without and within, which threaten the possession of Canaan; how can we vanquish them? Say, is there to be found any believer in whose spirit such questions as these do not now and then arise, and who does not occasionally shiver from the chili of a doubting forecast? Therefore let us see in this passage—

II. THE DIFFICULTIES OF LIFE GRACIOUSLY ANTICIPATED AND PROVIDED FOR BY GOD . The following points will be found, explicitly or implicitly, in the paragraph:

1. " The Lord thy God." That Name is a guarantee of all you want by the way. " Greater is he that is for you than all they which can be against you." There is more meaning in that one Name than in all other names besides. " If God be for us, who can be against us?"

2. God will go before you to clear the way ( Deuteronomy 7:20 ). All nature waits on him. Fire, thunder, lightning, hail; flies, worms, locusts, hornets; ay, men, devils, angels, must do his work when he calls.

3. God will be with you, to empower you in the way ( Deuteronomy 7:21 ). If God is not on our side, there is but weakness, whatever the seeming power. If God is on our side, there is power, whatever the seeming weakness.

4. God will choose his own best methods of helping you in the way ( Deuteronomy 7:22 ). " Little by little." A more rapid clearance would have brought other dangers. God "gently clears our way."

5. God's past deliverances are pledges that he will not forsake you by the way ( Deuteronomy 7:18 , Deuteronomy 7:19 ; see Psalms 63:7 ; Romans 8:32 ; Romans 5:10 ).

6. It is one of "the secrets of the Lord," to cause us to meet and grapple with things and beings mightier than we are, that we may cease to rely on ourselves, and be flung upon him, the Almighty One, for strength. The tendency to self-trust and self-laudation is very strong (see Deuteronomy 8:17 , Deuteronomy 8:18 ). Study the history of Gideon, and his band of three hundred men. This education in trust is also an education in holiness. We have, by meeting difficulties which are beyond us, to learn how much we want God. And yet God will not be with us except as we are loyal to him (see Joshua 7:1-26 .). Ah! it is by these difficulties in life, by our manner of meeting them, and by God's dealing with us under them, that we are to be educated for eternity! Oh! if all were smooth, if we had no complications to meet, no trials to bear, how might we go on drifting down the stream, slumberously calm, dangerously secure, till we awoke, perhaps, too late, to find ourselves a wreck and a ruin! It is by these breaks in our peace, by these cares and hard struggles, which fling us on our God, that we are taught how much we want him, and how ill we could do without him! On the journey of life we have all entered, and the supreme question for us is not, "Will it be smooth or rough?" but "How will it end?"

HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES