Victory? Not of your righteousness! (Deut 9)

Deut 9:1-10:11

Key Verse 5  It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

How can they understand the life in so much God’s blessing now? This would be the question that Israel will face as their victory over the kings of the Land is so certain. They have defeated the worst and the most powerful enemies, such as Anakites and come to have the land of abundant blessing for their own. In addition, they will be blessed far more than any other nations surrounding them. They suddenly find themselves to be far superior to all other nations of the world.

Moses was looking ahead of the time when Israel finally occupies the land after defeating the most formidable enemies. How should they handle the victory or success or hardly won superiority over all other nations?  Or how should they understand the victory and enormous success in life?

A success or a victory brings a most memorable and exuberant time. It nurtures one with pride, confidence, and a great sense of power.  At the same time, it is also a most vulnerable time, vulnerable to all kinds of temptations. A right understanding will help them to continue the life of blessing. But a wrong understanding will lead them to lose God’s blessing. Through Moses, God warns them to be humble. As we go through today’s passage, I pray that we may understand what it means to be humble in time of such victory.

1.       Not because of my righteousness (1-7)

God promised Israel a land of God’s blessing. In this promise God made Israel as his people and trained them as his children. Though they were quite as good as he wished them to be, God is ready to give them the land of His blessing and Israel is ready to enter the land in which they would live forever with their LORD. But there is one last huddle, the people of the land occupying it as theirs. They were so strong and formidable enemies to Israel. The best or the formidable one among them is Anakites. According a record found in Egypt, these Anakites were 6-9 feet tall and strong, impressive warriors. According to the report of the ten people who spied out the land, they were well fortified and looked impregnable.  But God said that these people will be destroyed because God would go ahead of Israel with ‘devouring fire’ and Israel would surely destroy them and occupy the land. How it will happened is well described in 7:2

“² and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.

God would prepare them to win and Israel would go and defeat them and they must kill them all with their own hand. Israel fighters put their hands on these enemies, whom they thought to be formidable enemies. This would give them a clear sense of victory, power, and authority over them.  Undoubtedly God favored them by giving such preferential treatment for they became the only vassal of the Lord of heaven and the earth. The, how should they handle the blessing or the superiority above all of the nations?

There is a saying “if you want to know a person well, then give him an authority and power and then you will know what kind person he truly is”.  What he believes, what he likes and loves, what he hates and what he fears, all will all be fully revealed in his life. As for Israel, God assured them of the victory and they would occupy the best land, the land of God’s blessing, far more blessed than any other nations of the world, their spirit and their pride would go up high above all others. GOD concerned about that spirit of victory, which would overwhelm their hearts.  While all other nations suffer from draught, and all kinds of sicknesses and hardships, Israel would enjoy prosperity, and power that would stands out far above all other nations. The victory over the most powerful people of the land would mark the beginning of this joy. 

In this situation, how would Israel behave? Or what would be in their hearts? God concerned about this and said;

⁴ After the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness."

One’s success always brings a sense of good and righteousness. “I did a right thing that I am able to come to this far.” Look at him and also look at my life. I am far better off and far better achieved and far better honored and respected.” When people looked at the life of Job in his riches and godliness, all praised him and looked upon him as a man of great respect and honor. But when he lost everything, including his children and all of his possession, his friends urged him to repent of what he did wrong. So, he did something wrong that he suffer such loss and had to go through so many hardships.

We all share such mind and such way of thinking is engrained in our mind as the commanding rule of life. A deep sense of righteousness is what all need for sense of wellbeing and for peace and sense of meaning and purpose. My life is worthy and well lived! Simply the victory in life inevitably nurtures one’s heart with the sense of sense of wellbeing and meaning and purpose.   If this is the only way or the way for the sense of meaning and purpose of life, then, all should shoot for the victory in life. Actually all strive for victory for they see the meaning, purpose or wellbeing of life in victory over enemies or all other competitors. But God says to Israel that they should not:  

4b No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is going to drive them out before you. ⁵ It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land;

Here the word ‘righteousness’ (v4, 5) is the same word that is used to denote ‘what God credited to Abraham in response to his belief (Gen 15:6). So it is about righteousness acceptable in the eyes of God. Also Moses defined in the beginning of his address what the righteous for Israel shall be: Deuteronomy 6:25 “And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness." (Deu 6:25 NIV) Integrity is man’s honesty and sincerity in his heart to others.  By saying this, Moses denies that Israel was neither good enough to be accepted to the Lord nor were they sincere or honest in their dealing with themselves and others to be rewarded by the Lord. Simply they did not have anything in their behavior that was worthy of God’s blessing. Like this, they cannot take any credit for the victory that they shall have. Then, why would God lead Israel to the victory? But it has to do with something else;

5b. but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

God gave the two reasons why God would do this; first he would do this because the peoples’ wickedness in the eyes of God. Second, he wants to accomplish His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Simply they had nothing to merit such blessing at all.

⁶ Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

They were neither righteous nor honest. Then what kind of people were they? They were stiff-necked people. The basic meaning is ‘stubborn’ or ‘hardened heart’.  The exact meaning is found  in Jeremiah: The word, ‘stiff-necked’ is found three time in Jeremiah (7:26; 17:23; 19:15).  All these uses, Jeremiah rebuked Israel of hardened heart that is unable ‘hear’ or listen to the word of God. The Shema ‘hear O Israel’ makes the beginnings of God’s teaching to Israel. God is calling in each time for their attention to His WORD. But Israel is hard of listening to the WORD of the LORD. How serious is this problem? Moses reminded them of what they had done till this time.

⁷ Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the LORD.

Their stiff-necked character led them to their rebellion against the Lord and to rouse God’s anger.  Such character was there within them from the beginning of their encounter with the Lord in Egypt and continued until this time, where they were ready to cross over to the land of God’s blessing. In between these two, what happened to them or what did God do for them? Moses reminds them of what they did at Mountain Horeb, and lists four more places where they showed similar rebellion against the Lord all because of their stiff-necked mind or hardness of heart in listening to the word of God. Hard of listening to the Word of God is directly linked to rebellion. Offense against the word of God is direct rebellion against the Lord.

2.       History of their rebellion in unbelief (8-29)

First, at the mountain Horeb. ( 8-22)

Moses made an all our endeavor to receive the Commandments of the Lord, that God spoke with His own voice. He did this for forty days without eating or drinking water. Forty days without any food and water will drain the strength of the body to its last drop. In other words, His effort was up to the last drop of his strength or all that his body could conjures up to receive the Commandments. Basically, he had nothing left in his physical strength because he offered up all of his being to receive the Commandments. How about their Lord? In order to make sure of the Covenant conditions, God, personally in ablaze of fire, the LORD, wrote with his fingers on two tablets of stone of His own making. In this way, in order to uphold the Covenant condition, the Lord also made an extra ordinary effort to make sure of the Covenant Conditions so that this might be known clearly and might be upheld by His people without any compromise.(1-11) But while Moses and God were making such efforts to make the Covenant successful, what did Israel do?  

They made for themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf and indulged in revelry. God noticed this and said,

12b “They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for themselves." 13 And the LORD said to me, "I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! 14 Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they."

God spoke to them in His own voice in His glory the Ten Commandments. When they heard this, they were so scared to death that they asked for Moses to listen God’s word directly. He spoke the word in His glory and that glory came upon them in power that they felt like dying. Nevertheless, in less than forty days, while Moses was up with the Lord, pouring out his strength to solidity the Covenant of Blessing, Israel violated the second command, and indulged in revelry. Was God’s voice not strong enough that they so quickly turned away from the Commandment? No, Not all! He has shown them the full glory and power with a voice loud and clear enough to scare them to death. AND YET, they did not retain the WORD of the Lord to their hearts and quickly turned away from it. Truly they are stiff-necked people. They are unable to hear and unable to retain what they hear. What did they hear? What did they harken their minds to? It is their inner need of the flesh. Till this time God was with them visibly, either through the pillars of fire or cloud or through Moses’ presence as the direct agent of God’s message. But for the first time since they left Egypt as a nation, they were alone, without visible presence of Moses and the Lord, though they might be able to see the top of the Mountain with cloud. They were cut off from the visible communication agent, Moses. So they were to think and reason in spirit, the word of the Lord. But they could not think anything beyond what they could see and feel. So they said this;

Exodus 32:1 When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, "Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don't know what has happened to him." (Exo 32:1 NIV) 

This was the first occasion whereby they must expressed their faith in the Lord who is invisible. But instead, they followed their desire and made a golden calf, a direct violation of the Lord’s command. It is a frank demeaning and defamation of the Lord Almighty, who is Spirit.

Within their faculties, what they should have done? It is to pay attention to the WORD of God. That is holding on to the WORD that God gave to them. But they failed to do so and they violated the Covenant. God was about to wipe out the nation from the earth and then to start a new nation with Moses. They were as good as dead, losing completely the covenantal privilege and blessing as the Lord’s chosen.

As soon as Moses saw this happening at the bottom of the Mountain Horeb, Moses ‘threw’ the two stone tablets and they were broken to pieces on the ground. (This is not Moses’ willful act but an act that came about spontaneously by the heavy weight upon his heart—most likely from the Lord). The Covenant that God made with Israel was broken to pieces and there was no way to put the pieces of these tablets together again.  As what happened there, the violation was set in stone that they were no longer be God’s chosen and could no longer to receive such blessings. So as far as God was concerned, they were totally written out of the Covenant. In other words, their fate would be like those that they were told to exterminate. This was a crisis. In order to restore or to remake the Covenant again, Moses pleaded with the Lord. He pleaded for the people Israel and for Aaron, whom God was about to destroy for good. He melted the golden calf and crushed and ground it into a powder and threw it into a stream. There shall be no trace of such idol ever again!

Was this the only occasion when Israel rebelled against the Lord?

Second, four rebellions before and after the Horeb (22-23).

It is obvious that at Mt Horeb, Israel behaved with stiff-necked mind. Where did the stiff-necked mind come from? To answer this question, Moses lists four more incidents where Israel showed their unwillingness to hear the word of the Lord and to obey His teaching.

22 You also made the LORD angry at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah. 23 And when the LORD sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, "Go up and take possession of the land I have given you." But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You did not trust him or obey him.

·         at Taberah (Num 10:33-11:3)  

10: 33 So they set out from the mountain of the LORD and traveled for three days. The ark of the covenant of the LORD went before them during those three days to find them a place to rest. 34 The cloud of the LORD was over them by day when they set out from the camp. 35 Whenever the ark set out, Moses said, "Rise up, LORD! May your enemies be scattered; may your foes flee before you." 36 Whenever it came to rest, he said, "Return, LORD, to the countless thousands of Israel." 11:1 Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.  (Num 10)

They set off toward the land of God’s blessing from the Mt Horeb after they barely escaped God’s judgment. In front of them was the ark of God, in which the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. In three days of the first leg of the journey, they complained of their hardship in hearing of the Lord. It implies that they had direct complaints against the Lord.  God was angry with them and sent fire and consumed them. Three days before they were almost wiped out by God’s anger. Moses barely averted God’s wrath. Yet they complained and faced fire judgment.

·          at Massah (Exo 17:1-7) 

Israel arrived at Massah few days before they got to the Mt Horeb. There was no water and they quarreled with Moses. In God’s direction, Moses stroke a rock and water gushed out. They named this place because they tested the Lord by saying “Is the Lord among us or not?” As soon as they felt their lives were in danger, they complained against God and questioned His will and His integrity as their Lord.

·         at Kibroth Hattaavah(Num 11:31-35),

4 The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, "If only we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost-- also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. 6 But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!"  (Num 11NIV)

This event came soon after the event at Taberah where some were burned to death because they complained against the Lord for hardship. At this time, they complained to the Lord of the lousy food, manna. They wished to enjoy all fresh vegetables and various meats as they did in Egypt. Their main complaints was that the life in Egypt was far better than the life with the Lord. In other word, God did not treat them well as he should. God rained down quails and they ate quail for a month. While some were gorging themselves with so many meats, God sent plague and some died. 

·         at Kadesh Barnea (Num 14)

I am not going to the details of this incident. But I will highlight the complaint.

Numbers 14:2 All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, "If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness! 3 Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?" (Num 14:2 NIV)

Though they had seen God’s power and His love for them, they did not believe the Lord. This is a direct expression of their disbelief in what God said in covenant:

Exodus 19:5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." 7 So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak. 8 The people all responded together, "We will do everything the LORD has said." So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD. (Exo 19:5 NIV)

The previous three examples were of the human frailty and their inability to endure the threat to their lives, such as lack of water, lack of tasty food, and hardships of life. All these adverse situations pushed them beyond their limit of tolerance. So were they felt when they heard that the people in the land were strong and well-fortified for they saw nothing but struggle and death (Num 14:2-3). The fear of death overwhelmed their hearts. In all these situations, God pushed them to these conditions so that they might be able to see what they had in their hearts. What was in their hearts? It was either what they knew of or had in them or what God offered to them, the Covenant.  It is obvious that they chose to trust what they knew of or what they had in themselves, totally ignoring the WORD of the Lord, given in the Covenant Blessing. This is stiff-necked mind and incorrigible nature of human being whose life is constrained by the power of death.

Moses is telling these stories so that they may be keenly aware of who they are. There is nothing in them worthy of Covenant blessing. Long before they get to this point, beyond Jordan River looking over the land of God’s blessing, they were totally written out of the Covenant Blessings! 

There is nothing good in them to be worthy of such privilege and preferential treatment as the nation of God’s abundant blessing. Even though they defeated and eradicated the most powerful nations from the land of blessing, it was not their credit. God did not hand them the land not because they were righteous.

Then how could they get back to the Covenant blessing again?   

3.       In His mercy, God decided to renew the Covenant (9:25-10:4).

Moses made another forty days and forty night with the Lord to plead on behalf of Israel and Aaron. At this time also he gave out all of his strength in seeking God’s grace and mercy, without food and water.

In 9:25-29, Moses pleaded with the Lord for rescinding his decision to destroy Israel on three grounds.  First, Israel is His; from inception of the nation, it was His work, His creation, no one else with His own labor and hard work. In other words, the very existence of Israel is of Him and His grace. Second, he asked the Lord to remember His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Though Israel committed egregious violation of the Covenant, after all it is the Lord who gave the promise long before Israel came to be and despite of their weaknesses, keeping that promise will surely uphold His glory and power among all people of the world. Third, if He wipes out Israel, then, the world would raise a question on His ability and will to bless his chosen. On all these three, Moses was asking God’s mercy.  

After hearing Moses’ prayer, God rescinded his decision to wipe out Israel and offered a new covenant. IF we flip causes and effects, we can say that Israel survived from God’s wrath because of these three reasons: first and foremost, God’s mercy, and second, God’s truthfulness to His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and third to uphold His glory and His power and His will over the world.

As he heard Moses’ plea for his people and Aaron, God rescinded his decision to wipe them out and offered another covenant. 

10:1 At that time the LORD said to me, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark. 2 I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark."

God told him to chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones. The first ones were made totally by God, the stones as well as engraving the Covenant on them. Moses or Israel did not do anything. But at this time Moses or Israel had to prepare two stone tablets out of their hands. In addition God told him to make a wooden ark for the two Covenant stones. Again God engraved the Ten Commandments on the two stone tablets with his finger over forty days and nights, and gave them to Moses. They were the same as the old ones in the sense that it took the same amount of time and efforts, works of forty days and forty nights, of Moses and God to make these two stone tablets and that on these two tablets were the Ten Commandments as was with the two initial ones.  So as far as the conditions of the Covenant blessing was the concern, nothing has changed. God was giving them the second chance to stay in God’s blessing. There is nothing in Israel that would make her worthy for God’s blessing. Whatever the blessing Israel gets from the Lord, it is all from God’s mercy, from trustworthiness and for His glory.   Nothing in Israel that merit God’s blessing. They are not any different from the people that God told them to wipe out.

4.       God revealed his will to keep the Covenant even with Israel’s failure.(10:1-11)

Giving them a second chance was a grace. But what if they fails again? Along this line of question comes a need to set up to prevent from happening of the same event, breaking of the Covenant that would lead permanent severance of Israel from God’s blessing. In addition, this provision must have a mean to uphold the Covenant even if Israel fails again, which is almost certain in view of their history.  This provision is revealed God’s will in how He reissues the Covenant.

In this second time, God set up three things differently from the first one: God gave the Law of Covenant differently on two concerns; what if Israel fails again, which is almost certain to come, and the second one is what to do if such Israel fails again to abide by the Covenant conditions. Would God change the Covenant conditions so that Israel may be able to follow? Or will He do something totally different to fulfill the Covenant so as to bring them in for His kingdom?   In how He did differently from the first one, God answers to these two questions:

a.       God told Moses to make a wooden ark and put the stone tablets in the ark (10:1b, 3, 5). So the Ten Commandments, the covenant condition, was created at the top of the mountain and this was put in the Ark there in a protected condition and brought it down to Israel. This is God’s provision to protect and to preserve the Covenant, which is in hands of men. In this is God’s will to uphold the Covenant for good, by all means. Even knowing such incorrigible nature of sinful human being, God would not amend or modify the Conditions of the Covenant amenable for men to comply. It is God’s determinative will to uphold the Law no matter how bad and weak human beings are. This would prevent man from handling the tablets in his hands. It shall be protected and preserved for ages to come until all the covenant promises is completed. To do so, God told Moses to make an ark and put the Ten Commandments in the ark and led the ark with the Covenant inside stand in between God and Israel as a permanent reminder that Israel has to keep up with the Covenant in order to meet the Lord, in the Most Holy Place.  One thing we are also to note is that the wooden ark will last for a finite time while the stones lasts indefinite time. This means that at certain point, when the wooden ark is decayed, the stones will be vulnerable again as it happened first time.

b.      God entrusted the ark in the care of Levites as a whole. Aaron, the high priest, was the primary agent of such rebellion. At that time, many Levites took initiative in their zeal to the Lord by killing those who indulged in the golden idol (Exo 32:28-29). So God entrusted the care of the Covenant Law in the hands of the Levites whose heart were most zealous for the Lord as a whole or collectively, not a single person or family of high priests. (8) God entrusted the ark in the hands of Levites as their inheritance (9). God relies on those who showed their zealous heart to the Lord as shown in the golden calf incident.  They were to keep and protect the Covenant (the ark) by their life because the ark is their life line. These two ways, the ark and entrusting the ark in the care of zealous Levites collectively, God provisioned in order to protect and to preserve the Covenant.  But would it last enough to see fulfilling the promise?
When the kingdom Israel failed to keep up with the Law of Covenant, God imposed the Covenant curse upon them. God subjected Israel to a foreign power, Babylon.   The ark with the Ten Commandments may have been destroyed or lost when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the temple and the whole city of Jerusalem in 586 BC. In the Herod’s temple, there were no stone tablets of the Covenant. Not having the Covenant stones means that Israel failed to keep the Covenant and as it was at the first violation of the Covenant at Mt Horeb.  Since Israel were as good as dead at the first violation of the Covenant, so was this time as well.  This was full reflected the situation of Israel when Jesus came. John the Baptist declared the impending judgment and Luke describe the time of people being in shadow of death (Luke 1:79; Isa 9:1-2).  In this sense the first violation of the Covenant at Mt Horeb representation of the forth-coming failure of Israel. If God withheld his judgment on Israel at first violation, and offered a remedy so that despite of their failure so as to continue to fulfill His promise to Abraham, then the second, or the remedy for their failure implies an ultimate or final solution to resolve the weaknesses of flesh and to fulfill His promise to Abraham.   This is indicated in how God would engrave the Law in the stones that Moses presented to the Lord.
@ The Levites played a very important role in keeping the Law of God in Israel history. Levites served as scribers as the keeper of the law. They became the source or nidus of renewal or revival, the most typical examples of this is Ezra.  Also out of Levite tribes came many prophets (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Obadiah, Micah, and Zechariah) for they adhere to the Word of God, the Covenant from the Lord.

c.       God told Moses bring two stones hewed by Moses or Israel. Before, God spoke directly to them with His own voice and then God in His own hand made two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments. This means that men have to accept what God gave and to abide by it. It demand man’s attention to the WORD of the Lord and man’s obedience to the WORD of the Lord.  In order to succeed in keeping the Covenant relationship, man is to work on his heart to accept and to obey them. But at this time, man has to bring stone tablets before God and He will engrave the Law on them. This is the clear change of how God will deliver his message to His people. This is in God’s consideration for the fact that men cannot make themselves up to the Covenant.  No matter how it should happen, the locus of the change must come in the heart of man. Man’s heart must be filled with the Law of Covenant blessing: love the Lord with all your heart and love the neighbor as yourself.  God would engrave the Law with His own hand in what they bring to Him.  When Moses did bring two stone tablets, God engraved the Ten Commandments on them.  This is an implicit expression of God’s will to engrave the Ten Commandments when Israel bring stones to Him.
Jeremiah lived and prophesied just before and during the fall of Judah by Babylon. Prophet Ezekiel gave God’s message while he was in exile in Babylon. In other words, these two lived during the time when Israel was punished for their violation of the Covenant blessing. Also during this time Israel also lost the Ark of Covenant, the Ten Commandments.  When Israel’s failure to keep the two Tablets of the Covenant Record becomes to set in stone, these two prophets gave Israel amazing words of God concerning how the Covenant shall come about in Israel. : Jeremiah 31:33 "This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”  Here God expressed His will to write the Law in the hearts of man as Deut 10:2 amply suggests. Almost at the same time with Jeremiah, God spoke this word through Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” denoting the incorrigible heart or stiff-necked mind as ‘heart of stone’. So God’s call to bring two stones with His will write the Law on them comport with His will to do the same thing in coming future.  As we know this prophecy was fulfilled in and through Christ.

What does this tell us of God? I cannot think anything but the grace of God. As Moses brought the two stones to the Lord, so we must recognize that our heart is heart of stone and no matter how much we try with this stone heart, it is impossible to keep the Law of Covenant. At the same time we must bring the heart of stone to the Lord for He is willing to write the Law of Covenant blessing in our heart. As Jeremiah and Ezekiel prophesied, Jesus came to fulfill the Law and did complete meeting the Law, the Covenant blessing. In Him is whereby the heart of stone can change into the heart of flesh, filled with love for the Lord and for the people. Praise the Lord of all grace for all sinners with a heart of stone!