Deuteronomy 31-32

This is the moment when the time of Moses comes to an end.  Moses is about to die before Israel enters into the land of Canaan and Joshua is now being commissioned in the presence of the Lord.  Imagine being in the literal presence of the Lord's glory in person and God literally speaking directly to you as he explains what you are about to take on.  All of this is happening and God speaks and the words that he speaks to Joshua, are a little less than encouraging.  Imagine hearing from God who is about to lead you into a land that you have waited desperately for, that he has promised you, and hearing that you are going to absolutely reject the God that gave you victory.  Not only will you reject me, you will replace me with other gods and reject me.  Israel will eventually fall into punishment and even death for their lack of faith in the Lord.  Even after this annihilation of words that comes, God tells Moses to write it out as a song that Israel would sing it and remember it throughout all of the years of their history.

In reading this passage, I almost have a number of personal contentions:  
1.  Why would God tell his children this?
2.  Why would God allow his children to go through this enormous punishment?
3.  Is it fair that God tells them that this is their future before Israel embarks into its history?

All these issue are brought up in my mind and I can only come to one logical conclusion.  God literally uses Israel as a mechanism to display that they are literally nothing without him.  They will fail as a people if he is not their God.  It is all about him.  The life force that Israel had was completely dependent upon God and if they did not seek him, they would literally fall into judgement and die.  This teaches us a lot about the nature of God and it is consistent with the teaching that Jesus proclaims about himself in the New Testament.  In John 15:5 "...apart from me you can do nothing."  This is what God uses Israel to reveal about himself.  Israel fails without me.  The same rings true for us in our lives.  We have the propensity to run to other gods, worship other things, and turn away from the very God who came to redeem us.  Let us continue to remind ourselves that with God, I can do nothing.