Not Just Idle Words

TO READ: Deuteronomy 32:1-9

Let my teaching fall on you like rain; let my speech settle like dew. Let my words fall like rain on tender grass, like gentle showers on young plants.

Deuteronomy 32:2

Doesn’t that sound as though you are about to be so thoroughly soaked with satisfaction you’ll never be thirsty again? What beautiful words! Those of us who teach must want to fall on our knees before this verse! Moses had a message that would thoroughly refresh his hearers. Part of this fresh message was the concept of God as our Rock: “He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!” (Deuteronomy 32:4).

The picture of God as our Rock is firmly embedded in the ground of the Old Testament. Moses says that God is a perfect Rock, a faithful God who does no wrong. He is always right, and we must measure our little ideas of rightness against his eternal truth.

Moses mourned the times the children of Israel rejected the Rock, their Savior, and his ideas of rightness. Deserting the Rock who fathered them, Israel became like other nations whose dependence on lesser rocks had let them down —nations whose rock had sold them. “But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock, as even they recognize,” he reminded them (Deuteronomy 32:31).

Moses sang a fresh song, calling his people to a renewed commitment to the Rock of their salvation. When he had finished he warned, “These instructions are not empty words —they are your life!” (Deuteronomy 32:47). Have you deserted the Rock who fathered you? Return to him. You can depend upon his renewal.