Deuteronomy 9:1-10:11
Do You Learn From Your Mistakes?

I. I’ll Never Do That Again
1. Ever resolved not to do something and soon you’re back doing what you said you’d never do again?
2. Do you eat too much desert, text while driving, argue on-line, buy stuff you don’t need on-line?
3. Do you realize that unless you change something that you’re going to keep making this mistake?
4. Maybe the big lesson is about you, about what you’re made of, what your weaknesses are.
II. Where They Are (9:1-3)
1. They are supposed to cross over the Jordan soon. All the preparation is over.
2. They need to be careful that they don’t make the same mistake that their parents made.
3. Rather than talking down the Canaanites or talk up their own abilities, Moses does the opposite.
4. Moses reminds them that the Canaanites are too strong for them. Why? Will they be intimidated?
5. Their mistake before was not believing in the Lord, not not believing in themselves.
6. “Know” that “He who goes before you.” Our God is a consuming fire. “He will destroy” the enemy.
7. Now our real enemies are spiritual. “We wrestle not with flesh and blood,” “cosmic powers.”
8. It’s a mistake to think we can overcome the world, the flesh or the devil by our own willpower.
9. Don’t make the mistake that you can defeat sin and get heaven by what comes from you.
10. Instead of believing in yourself, believe in the Lord, that He has gone before you.

III. The Wrong Lessons (9:4-5)
1. Some people learn the wrong lessons from their mistakes. They are told to learn the right lesson.
2. In 8:17, when you’re comfortable, don’t learn the lesson from that that my power gave me all this.
3. Here, they’ll think that is was their morality, their religion gave them victory, the Promised Land.
4. The wrong lesson here is more pernicious than in chapter 8. But it’s still trust in oneself.
5. It assumes that God is like a blessing and cursing machine. If you put in the right religion, He blesses.
6. You can’t manipulate Him with right behavior or right doctrine or the right prayer or right sacraments.
7. Everyone who is condemned earns it. Everyone who is saved is given it as a gift.
8. The right lesson is that nothing in your hands you bring but only to the cross of Christ you should cling.
IV. The Right Lessons (9:6-7)
1. Learn the right lesson of how unright you are. You are stubborn. Learn about your own sinfulness.
2. If you’ve been congratulating yourself for your blessings, you’ve been making a mistake.
3. Learn the lesson that your Promised Land, salvation, glorification, is a gracious gift.
4. We’re saved not because of anything about us. It’s what the Old Testament calls “steadfast love.”
V. Let’s Review (9:8-10:11)
1. Repetition is the mother of learning. We need to learn from our mistakes and review until we do.
2. We’re going to be tempted to credit ourselves for God’s blessings. So, let’s review.
3. The Lord told Moses to go back down the mountain to the people because they have “acted corruptly.”
4. In Romans 7, “nothing good dwells in me … Wretched, who will deliver me from this body of death?”
5. Moses is away a little over a month and they revert to idolatry, just like the rest of the world.
6. The Lord didn’t destroy them for our sins because they have an intercessor.
7. Christ always lives “to make intercession” for us (Hebrews 7:25). Our law-giver is our intercessor.
8. Whoever says not to be afraid of the “anger and hot displeasure of the Lord,” hasn’t learned the lesson.
9. Moses knew that our God is a consuming fire, so he interceded, for Israel and for Aaron.
10. If you’re not learning from your mistakes, you need to destroy those things that make you fall.
11. Our law-giver is our intercessor and, greater than Moses, also our Savior.
12. Moses remade the tablets and had them make a container, the ark of the covenant.
13. We read the Bible so we would remember that it wasn’t our righteousness that earned God’s favor.
14. Israel had 40 years of wandering around, reviewing their mistakes, reminded with every foot step.
15. Moses reminds that he interceded for them for 40 days. “The Lord was unwilling to destroy you.”
16. Our law-giver and intercessor is our Savior who goes before us and takes us into the Promised Land.
VI. Invitation: Learn from your mistakes. Learn that just like these people that you’re stubborn, falling again and again into the same sins. Learn that you’re rebellious, resistant to the Kingdom, the rule, of God. Cry out, “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” Don’t believe in yourself. Believe in your law-giver and intercessor who is also your Savior. Who will deliver you — you wretched, stubborn, rebellious sinner — who will deliver you from death? There He is, coming down from the mountain. Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ our Lord!