Crossing the Jordan: Walking by Faith Where You Are Unworthy

Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and more populous than you: great cities with walls sky-high; a people great and tall, the Anakites, of whom you have knowledge; for you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the children of Anak?” Know then this day that none other than the ETERNAL your God is crossing at your head, a devouring fire; it is [God] who will wipe them out—subduing them before you, that you may quickly dispossess and destroy them, as GOD promised you. And when the ETERNAL your God has thrust them from your path, say not to yourselves, “GOD has enabled us to possess this land because of our virtues”; it is rather because of the wickedness of those nations that GOD is dispossessing them before you. It is not because of your virtues and your rectitude that you will be able to possess their country; but it is because of their wickedness that the ETERNAL your God is dispossessing those nations before you, and in order to fulfill the oath that GOD made to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Know, then, that it is not for any virtue of yours that the ETERNAL your God is giving you this good land to possess; for you are a stiffnecked people. Remember, never forget, how you provoked the ETERNAL your God to anger in the wilderness: from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have continued defiant toward GOD. At Horeb you so provoked GOD that GOD was angry enough with you to have destroyed you. I had ascended the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the Tablets of the Covenant that GOD had made with you, and I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, eating no bread and drinking no water. And the ETERNAL gave me the two tablets of stone inscribed by the finger of God, with the exact words that the ETERNAL had addressed to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the Assembly. At the end of those forty days and forty nights, GOD gave me the two tablets of stone, the Tablets of the Covenant. And GOD said to me, “Hurry, go down from here at once, for the people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted wickedly; they have been quick to stray from the path that I enjoined upon them; they have made themselves a molten image.” GOD further said to me, “I see that this is a stiffnecked people. Let Me alone and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make you a nation far more numerous than they.” I started down the mountain, a mountain ablaze with fire, the two Tablets of the Covenant in my two hands. I saw how you had sinned against the ETERNAL your God: you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had been quick to stray from the path that GOD had enjoined upon you. Thereupon I gripped the two tablets and flung them away with both my hands, smashing them before your eyes. I threw myself down before GOD—eating no bread and drinking no water forty days and forty nights, as before—because of the great wrong you had committed, doing what displeased and vexed GOD. For I was in dread of the fierce anger against you that moved GOD to wipe you out. And that time, too, GOD gave heed to me.— Moreover, GOD was angry enough with Aaron to have destroyed him; so I also interceded for Aaron at that time.— As for that sinful thing you had made, the calf, I took it and put it to the fire; I broke it to bits and ground it thoroughly until it was fine as dust, and I threw its dust into the brook that comes down from the mountain. Again you provoked GOD at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. And when GOD sent you on from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and take possession of the land that I am giving you,” you flouted the command of the ETERNAL your God—whom you did not put your trust in nor obey. As long as I have known you, you have been defiant toward GOD. When I lay prostrate before GOD those forty days and forty nights, because GOD was determined to destroy you, I prayed to GOD and said, “O my Sovereign GOD, do not annihilate Your very own people, whom You redeemed in Your majesty and whom You freed from Egypt with a mighty hand. Give thought to Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and pay no heed to the stubbornness of this people, its wickedness, and its sinfulness. Else the country from which You freed us will say, ‘It was because GOD was powerless to bring them into the land promised to them, and because of having rejected them, that he brought them out to have them die in the wilderness.’ Yet they are Your very own people, whom You freed with Your great might and Your outstretched arm.”

Deuteronomy 9:1–20 (ESV) — Moses warns Israel that the victories ahead are not earned by their virtue; they are the work of a devouring God who keeps covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The same chapter immediately rebukes them as a 'stiff-necked people,' recalling the golden calf at Horeb. Faith here is not confidence in self, but trust in the God who fights for a people who have repeatedly provoked Him.