When God Ordains Discipline
Deuteronomy 2:1-25
You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward... (Deut. 2:2-3).
Chapter one of Deuteronomy ends with Moses recounting how the generation that came out of Egypt disobeyed God about going into the Promised Land. First, he said go into the Land and they refused. Then he said do not go into the land and they went, with disastrous results. It was necessary for that generation to be disciplined and that their discipline last a long time. “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea, as the LORD told me. And for many days we traveled around Mount Seir.” (2:1-2). In chapter two Moses recalls how after four decades under this discipline God said, “It’s enough. Turn north.” That is, turn toward the Promised Land.
When God ordains discipline for us, the best and safest course of action is to submit. Embrace the discipline, even if it is hard. Because God remains faithful, even when we are unfaithful, we can trust that his discipline is good for us. Embrace it. Cooperate with it. The result will be good.
They were 40 years in the wilderness (2:7). It was a long time. But their wilderness time did not last forever. God ended their discipline. He showed himself merciful. George Robertson wrote, “God’s discipline is discipline, not punishment. When his purposes are complete, he does not continue to rub our noses in our mistakes. The Psalmist tells us that God ‘does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities’ (Psalm 103:10). God’s mercy encourages us not to grovel in our sins, but to move on in the encouragement of his forgiveness.”
God did not leave them in the wilderness forever. Their time in the wilderness was not a day longer than necessary. In verses 16 - 17 Moses said, “So as soon as all the men of war had perished and were dead from among the people, the LORD said to me, “Today, you are to cross the border of Moab at Ar” (emphasis mine). As soon as the last man of the rebellious generation died, on that day, the discipline ended. He told them to turn northward. What was northward? Northward was the Promised Land. Northward is where they would go to begin receiving the fulfillment of the promise made long before to Abraham, a land for his descendants.
There are many who think that the promises of God are for an easy life filled with material prosperity, the so-called Prosperity Gospel. But that is not what God promises. God cares much more for holiness than he does for our physical prosperity. He will ordain hard things for us so that we will learn to turn to him and to trust him. But there will come a time when the lesson is complete. Because he is merciful, he will not leave us in it forever. He will say, “Turn northward.”
Much love, Barry