Pounding the Pentateuch

One of the things you learn from studying the writings of the Old Testament prophets is how often they refer back to the Pentateuch, the books of Moses.

Jordan recalls when this fact first “got anchored in my mind” in his early 20s after someone gave him a copy of E.W. Bullinger’s study Bible called “The Companion Bible.”

“My habit when I get a new Bible is just to read through it, and here I was staying in a motel in Philadelphia, Miss., called the Delphia, and I just started reading through it,” says Jordan. “I’m reading through the prophets and what Bullinger does, starting in Isaiah, is he marks what he calls a ‘reference to the Pentateuch,’ and puts them into his notes. I got to noticing that and I was stunned by how many times you’d see a reference back to the Pentateuch. A lot of times when you’re just reading through you don’t pay a lot of attention to them but he was marking them.

“From then until now it’s been something that’s fascinated me as you study how often, and especially in the prophets Isaiah to Malachi, the exhortation will be built on what God had already told Israel.

"And that’s why in Hosea 14 he says the problem he’s having is, ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge of God’s Word; for lack of knowledge of what God’s saying.’

“They abandoned the Scripture; they abandoned the Bible. They let go of what God had given them and consequently, all of the foundation of what God was doing was abandoned.

“So when he exhorts them, he goes back to the Scripture. None of these prophets are guys just standing there preaching. What they’re doing is taking the truth of God’s Word and bringing it back into application to the nation. And you’ll see that over and over.

“It’s a fundamental principle in all these prophets that what they’re doing is applying the truth God had given the nation Israel, beginning with Moses, in written form.

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“In Deuteronomy 29, Moses gives what’s generally called the Palestinian Covenant, but in chapters 28 and 29 he talks to Israel about those ‘five courses of judgment’ and then, because they’re obviously unqualified to receive the blessings God gave them and they’ve broken the covenant, in chapter 30 he tells them how God’s going to give them the land in spite of themselves.

“Deuteronomy 30:1 says, ‘And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee.’

“In other words, this chapter is going to look toward what Hosea’s talking about. The curses and the blessings: ‘You’ve been driven out among the nations; that fifth course of judgment has come upon you. Here’s what you need to remember.’

“Verse 2 says, ‘And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.’

“You see, when they’re out there and scattered among the nations, what are they to do? They’re to return to the Lord.

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“Notice it says ‘with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.’ You remember when Jesus says, ‘You’re to love the Lord thy God with all your heart and all your soul’?

“You see what that verse says? You’re to obey the Lord and everything He commanded you with all your heart and with all your soul. That’s how you love the Lord thy God with all your heart and soul.

“I don’t know if you ever thought about what that verse is talking about, but he’s not talking about just saying, ‘Oh Lord, I love you, how wonderful you are. You built the hills, you built the mountains and the stars.’ It’s not that kind of thing.

“Jesus said, ‘If you love me, keep my commandments.’ The way you love God is you take His Word and you take what His will is and what He’s doing and you agree with it; you value it and you cherish it the way He did.

“Why are they to return to the Lord? Verse 4 says, ‘If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee.’

“No matter where they’ve been scattered in the captivity, God’s going to bring them back into the land. ‘And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.’

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“Notice this is a literal, physical, visible, earthly return of a literal, physical, visible, earthly people.

“All the people who tell you God’s through with Israel, that they’ve already possessed the land as much as they’re going to possess it, that verse says, ‘I’m going to bring them back, I’m going to put them in the land I promised your fathers and it’s going to be the LAND!’

“That’s how you know the premillennial dispensational study of God’s Word is the way you want to go and forget all these people who spiritualize it and say, ‘You’re Israel and you’ve got the blessings, and God gave the curses to national Israel.’

“If that’s true then you’re at the mercy of the theologians to understand what the Bible says; you can’t understand it for yourself.

“Verse 6 says, ‘And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.’

“The next verse says, ‘And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.’ That what Hosea’s talking about when he says, ‘Return unto the Lord.’

“Verse 9: ‘And the LORD thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers.’

 “That’s what Hosea is referencing in Hosea 14:1: ‘O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.’

“Do exactly what Deuteronomy 30 tells you to do when you find yourself in the captivity--you return and obey the voice of the Lord thy God, doing all of His commandments, and the Lord will give you the things He promised He’ll give you; He’ll give you the blessings.”