CCS Sermons
Deuteronomy 4:1-40
And now we get to be in the Word. So we're going to be in Deuteronomy chapter 4 tonight. I was originally ambitious thinking, oh yeah, we'll do 4 and 5, but 4 is a long chapter. [ Laughter ] Oh, this is out of the way. All right, very good. All right, Deuteronomy chapter 4. And what a blessing. Just being back here, we had a couple of Sundays that we missed because we were on vacation. And, you know, there's just something about when you miss your family, you know. It was just like, man, we're back. This is great. And we missed y'all. So, well, praise the Lord. Let's go to prayer. Father God, we thank you so much, Lord. What a blessing, Lord, that you have given us a family, Lord. You brought us, Lord. Your Word tells us that you brought those of us who were far off, you brought us near, Lord. And you've settled us into the body, Lord. Lord, you're continuing to do work in our hearts and our lives. Lord, some of us have had rough days today. Some of us had easy days, blessing days, Lord. But, nonetheless, you have been with us, Lord, and whether the day has been difficult, or whether the day has been smooth, Lord. You've been on the throne of it all, Lord. And so, we are grateful for that, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for the things that you have protected us from today, Lord. Thank you for the things, the blessings that you have given us that perhaps we don't even recognize yet, Lord. But we just want to give you our hearts right now. We want to give you this time, Lord. With, Lord, we pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts to your Word, and you would open your Word to our hearts, Lord, God, that you would be free, Lord, to speak to us, Lord, tonight. Guide us and direct us, Lord. I have some notes, Lord. But, unless you, Lord, God, give life and breathe through your Holy Spirit into our hearts, Lord. It'll just be a waste of time, Lord. We want to meet with you tonight, Lord. And your Word is so true and holy and righteous, Lord, and we need it, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. You are our Lord, you are our rock, you are our Redeemer, and Lord, we love you. We thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So, just a quick, I'm not going to really give a summary so much as just, we'll give a brief outline of the chapter. But, this is, if you recall, this is the last opportunity, the last messages of Moses to this new generation that has risen up. The old generation that had come out of Egypt died in the wilderness. And we've looked at that in the previous chapters about how, and it'll be touched upon again here. And in coming chapters. But this is now this new generation that has risen up. And now the Lord is going to use Moses. In chapter one, he used Moses to recount Israel's failures at Catech Barnia, and then the wanderings that they did in chapter two, the conflicts that they came in. And then in chapter three, how they had already defeated these giants. And they had already conquered strong, high-walled cities. And those were the very things that the previous generation had used and responded to out of fear to say, we can't go in. Because there's giants there. There's high-walled cities. And the Lord had already showed them, no, with me, you can do all things. But if you're seeking to do it under yourself, you're going to fail, as they did when they tried to do it on their own. And so now we come to chapter four. And we see Israel commanded to worship God and God alone, to keep his laws, and to be careful not to add or subtract from his laws. And we'll see that in verses 1 through 19. And really he'll touch upon it in verses 31 through 40 as well. We see the Israel of God lifted up in verses 20 through 23. And again, in 25 through 30, where Israel's commanded to remember, they belong to the Lord, and that there will be consequences if they stray from him. And then finally, he has some final instructions in verses 41 through 49 that lead into the next few chapters, where he gives a prelude to the law, some final instructions. And then he will get into in chapter 5 and preceding chapters, a retelling of the law. So there's our little guide here for where we'll be tonight. So we pick up in verse 1 in chapter 4. Now, oh Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments, which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord your father-- excuse me, the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word from which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. So now Moses is making applications from where they had come and a prelude to where they're going. The first verse really is a summary of the whole chapter, as I said. It's essentially about the attitude the people should have toward the law. I like what the Bible knowledge commentary-- I like how they put it. It was just so succinct. He says, the solemn formula here, oh Israel, indicates that what follows, the decrees and the laws, is not incidental, but absolutely necessary for the survival of Israel as a nation. When Moses said that the Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb and not with our fathers, he was teaching the Israelites that his covenant was meant to govern the living and not the dead. Moses had the right to say this for he was the mediator of the covenant. The Lord spoke with Israel face to face from the mountain of Sinai, but did so through Moses. Moses was that mediator. Moses was the instrument, if you will, that God used to bring the people out of the land of bondage and his intent, as we said, was to bring them into the promised land. It's only a 11-day journey, but yet because of sin, because of their unbelief, because of their failure to believe and trust the Lord, it took him 38 years to get to that point. So Moses tells him three things here. He says, listen, observe that you might possess. Listen, in other words, receive the instruction. Moses had reminded them of their many rebellions against God in their wilderness, and so now he wants them to think about their need for present of the obedience in the light of their past rebellion. It's important for us to remember those things. David Gusick adds this. He says, one of Satan's great strategies is to make us remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember. If we don't remember our past sins and rebellions against God, we can easily repeat them falling into the same sinful patterns and traps. And that is so true. You know, the things that the enemy of our soul, Satan, would do is he would want us to focus on those things that were to forget. Were to forget those things what we did before and to recognize that we are forgiven in Christ. But were to remember the weak areas so that we might be equipped to go to the Lord and say, Lord, this is an area of weakness I'm entering into here. And I need you all the more. 1 Corinthians 10, 12 says, therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. And we're going to see that word, take heed, repeat it over and over again. Just in this chapter in verse 9, only take heed to yourself and to diligently keep yourself. In verse 15, take careful heed to yourself for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at whore out of the midst of the fire, verse 19. And take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, and all those, you feel driven to worship them. And then verse 23, take heed to yourself lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you. Down from there, you see it again. You see this over and over again many times. Maybe he doesn't say take heed, but he'll say listen. He'll say here, observe. No, and it's up to the enemy wants to deceive us. And he has so many counterfeits out there. We spent some time with some people in the last couple of weeks here that are deceived. Because they have cut off from themselves the word of God and access to God. And God is saying, I just think of that passage in Isaiah, where it says, all day long, he's reaching out, longing for them to come. So we need to listen. We need to observe, observe, to see how it applies to our life. Hearing the word of God is more than just physically hearing with the human ear. It's a matter of focusing our whole being, our whole mind, our heart, and our will on the Lord, receiving what he says to us and obeying it. The word of God must penetrate our hearts and become part of our inner lives before it can change our lives. And this is what Jesus meant when he said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Repeating what many of the prophets said. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. The Hebrew word to do or to observe, it comes from the word to do, to fashion, to accomplish, a saw is how it's in Hebrew. But listening is not enough. We need to put into action. Kent Hughes said this, we deceive ourselves by thinking we're doing fine, because we know the Scriptures when we actually may be headed for a crash. This is a trap into which even mature Christians can fall. We begin to look at the Bible for knowledge, often to find material for our ministry. Maybe we're teaching, maybe we're preaching, maybe we're counseling, maybe we want to encourage somebody. But we're looking for that. But we also need to develop the habit of reading the Bible with a view of, Lord, how does this apply to me? How does obedience come into play in this? As I'm reading this, Bible knowledge is worthless without us putting into action, without obedience. You couldn't ask Teresa about how this last week, we were going through our devos and the Lord just spoke to her heart a verse. And she said, I need to do something as a response to that. And the Lord did. And that is putting faith to action. It's like, Lord, I hear your voice. I receive it. And Lord, help me look for that opportunity. It's been said, the only part of the Bible you truly believe is the part you obey. Interesting. Possess is the third. Go forth and take hold of what God has for you. Israel failed to fully possess the land, because their failure was in their second part, in that observing part. They failed to observe and apply God's word to the heart. When God was saying, I am going before you, I'm going to send my hornet ahead of you. I'm going to drive these nations out. I am giving you this land to beset. You're going to be victorious. They may be puffed themselves up for a while, but they didn't take it to heart. And match that with faith. See, the children of Israel were just like us. They were great and fantastic at listening. Oh, I can listen. But again, listening is not all that God is interested. God says we need to listen to His word, and then we need to keep His word. And that's where the rubber meets the road for us. We need to apply it. How often-- and I'm guilty of this-- how often have I gone through my devos in the morning and I'm tired and I'm distracted because I'm thinking of a meeting that's coming up or something that I have to do when I get to work and everything like that and I'm reading. And I go away and I think, what did they even read? And the Lord just convicts me on that. The word of God is written to us, not primarily to inform us, but primarily to conform us. He wants to make us more like His Son, Jesus Christ. And it will inform, but it doesn't just stop there. It doesn't have a place in my life. If it doesn't have a place in my life where it conforms me into the image of Christ, it's not deep enough. God has more. God wants us to not only hear the word. He expects us to obey the word of God. James 1.22, I think we've quoted this a couple of times, right? But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourself. Or if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in the mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. That's so often what I was talking about in those. When I'm gone through the habit of my-- it's a good habit of being in the word every day. But sometimes I go away and I immediately forget. But, verse 25, but he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it and is not a forgetful here, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. Don't we want that? And we see presented and preserved for us their failings. First Corinthians, again, tense, has all these things were written for our admonition so that we can take heed. And we can both say, hey, I don't want to be like that. Because it's too easy to deceive ourselves. The ultimate deception is believing that all God requires for us to do is here and not do. We need to both here and do. Jesus said in Luke 646, why do you call me Lord and not do the things which I say? Luke 11, 28, Jesus speaking to the Pharisees, he says, but more than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. I'm beating this drum a little bit because I think we need it. I know I need it. I need to be reminded Romans 2, 11 through 13, for there is no partiality with God. For as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law. But as many as have sinned in the law will be judged by the law for not the hearers of the law are just in the sight of God, but the doers of the law will be justified. Now, we know Christ has fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law. So we're talking not about a salvation issue for you and I. It's not about us being received by God. If our faith is in Jesus Christ and our trust is in his finished work on the cross, then that issue is settled. But there is so much more that God has for us. He has promised us life and life abundantly. And if you look at yourself, am I living an abundant life? This may be a place to start if you're not. Am I doing what you're calling me to do? Am I hiding your word in my heart and not just hiding it, but I'm letting it out as it needs to come out? See, Moses's warning Israel not to be deceived. Deception means to believe a lie. And Moses is warning them not to believe that lie that all I need to do is agree with or hear. But I don't have to obey. I don't have to apply it in my life. One guy said, Christianity is in danger of becoming a spectator sport. I think this was an old quote. I think it's become more and more in some circles, a spectator sport. People are now conditioned to come. And when they come, you know, and they receive-- that's why I always emphasize when I'm leading worship. And I know you do too. It's like, you're the choir. We're just leading the singing because it's not about a performance issue, but in some circles, it is about a performance. The word needs to impact our lives. The word of God should lead us to the author. See, it's possible entirely to have a relationship with the word of God and yet not have a relationship with the living God. The word of God is God's revelation, which should bring us to the revealer. It should bring us closer. It's a tool that brings us to Christ to speak to our lives. And he gives a warning. You're right off in verse 2. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it. It's important principle regarding God's word. We're not to add to it. In other words, we're not to make traditions and opinions of men that are equal to the law of God that minimize what God's word is saying. Nor are we to take away from it by bad teaching or explaining away a passage. Well, Jesus really didn't mean this. In fact, the commentators probably added this. He probably really never. And you have those whole circles that are going on. And there's a warning. And there's a warning that's repeated as well for the book of Revelation 22, 18. John says, "For I testify," actually, it's quoting Jesus here, "for I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in his book." God honors his word. He doesn't want it messed with. Verse 3, "Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal, Pior, for the Lord your God is destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal, a Pior. But you held fast to the Lord your God and are alive today, every one of you." So here's a graphic reminder and an encouragement for them. Graphic reminder of how some had failed to obey. Baal, Pior, was that symbol of idolatry, if you will. But it was that time when Israel was coming through in the wilderness. And you remember, Pastor Bob quotes this a lot in various forms, because Baelik had asked for Baelim, he contracted with Baelim to curse Israel. Baelik was the king of Moab, and he wanted to defeat Israel. Baelim was forbidden by God to do it. And instead, every time Baelik would send him a place, well, look down on him. Surely you can curse them now. And God wouldn't allow him, just praises and glorious blessings upon Israel would come out of his mouth. Baelik finally realized he couldn't defeat Israel from without, from without side. So Baelim showed him how he could do it from within. The point about Pastor Bob was that he talks about Baelim. Remember, he wrote the donkey, and the donkey spoke. And I'm-- and Pastor Bob, our evidence that God can still use donkeys today, right? So what Baelim did, Baelim being that greedy sword, and we see so many pronouncements against Baelim, especially in the book of Jude, Baelim showed him how he could get them to idolatry, to sin from within. He said, "Send down the women to mingle among them. Send your women down." And in verse-- this is in Numbers 25, "Now Israel began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to sacrifice of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Baelim of PR, and the anger of the Lord was aroused against Israel." You see, so often, that's the tactic of the enemy. If he can't get us from the direct confrontation, he'll go the other way. He'll find another way. I find a loophole. Find a weak spot. At Baelpior, Israel sinned by committing both sexual and spiritual immorality with the women of Moab. Moses warned the people of Israel that if they rejected God now, as they did back then, the result would be the same. Many would die in the judgment of the Lord. See, there's negative and heavy consequences when we're out of line with the Lord, when we fail to obey Him. But verse 4, "But you who held fast to the Lord, your God, are alive today." So he encourages them. Moses leaves it on a positive note. He says, "Look, you guys did obey. You guys are here today." And verse 5, "Surely, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess." So in these first five verses, he gives the first reason they ought to observe and keep the commands of the Lord, that they might go in and possess the land. You see, God is doing something in all of us in allowing us to go through life as we do. Sometimes we hit trials and bumps on the road, and sometimes it's smooth sailing. God is doing something. He's working something in us that He might bring us to that place that He has prepared for us. Jude exhorted, "Keep yourself in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Keep yourself in the place where God can demonstrate His love for you." God wants to demonstrate His love. He wants to show you His love. But you've got to be in harmony with Him. And so we need to obey His voice, keep His commandments. Second Chronicles 16.9, one of my favorite verses, though it was given at a time when it was actually a rebuke. He says, "For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him." He was given this to King. I think it's Hezekiah if I remember, right? I didn't write this in Second Chronicles 16. "Who had failed to believe and trust the Lord and had gone instead of trusting the Lord gone and made a pact with the enemies of God. That worked, but yet the prophet came and said, "Man, you missed a blessing. God really had a blessing for you." If your heart is really set on the things of God, God will truly demonstrate that love in your life. I love this little passage about, a little quote here that Spurgeon talks about Dwight L. Moody. Now Dwight L. Moody was a poorly educated, unordained shoe salesman. He felt the call of God to preach the gospel. In early one morning, he and some friends gathered in a hayfield for a time of prayer, for confession, and consecration. They just laid it out. And in that prayer, you'll recognize this quote. It's often attributed to Moody, but it was this guy Henry Varley. He says, "The world has yet to see what God can do with, and for, and through, and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to him." D.L. Moody was deeply moved by those words, and later he listened to the great preacher Charles Spurgeon, Moody's biographer, and he described how he responded. Spurgeon says, "The world had yet to see with, and for, and through a man, through an inn, a man, Varley meant any man. Varley didn't say he had to be educated, or brilliant, or anything else, just a man." We would say, just a person, because it doesn't even have to be a man. Well by the Holy Spirit in him, Moody would be one of those men, and then suddenly in that high gallery, he saw something he never realized before. He was God, and if God can use Mr. Spurgeon, why should he not use the rest of us? And why should we not all just lay ourselves at the master's feet and say to him, "Send me, use me." See, if God is for us, who can be against us? If God is already saying, "Go, I want you to go, I want you to..." If God opens up and you're reading the words, and you see this, and the word says Jeremiah, you're the watchman. And if you don't go out and share with this, the judgment that's coming, then I'm going to hold their blood against you. But if you go as the watchman, and you share what I've told you to do, and they refuse to obey, then that's not on you, that's on them. So many times, that's one particular scripture. So many times a scripture will strike us, and we go, "I need to do something." Obeying the commands keeps me in the love of God and allows me to possess the land. And that's the first reason that Moses said. Second reason we see in verses six through eight, he says, "Therefore, be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is wise and understanding people.' For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon him, and what great nation is there that has set statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law, which I said before you this day. Second reason is God wanted them to be a witness for all the people. If they would obey and keep the commandments, the other nations would look and say, "Wow, these guys are blessed. How come? Why do they have all this favor? Who's fighting for them?" And the answer is because they're obeying the Lord, they're following the Lord. See, God's intention was that through Israel's obedience to the covenant, he would exalt them among the nations and make them a witness. This was so like that foreigners like the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon at the height of his blessing would see that the Lord God of Israel was indeed the Lord God. It's incredible witness to the world when Christians obey the Lord. Not just know what he said, but doing what he said. I like this. Jesus never called us simply to witness with words alone. He called us to be witnesses in a way we live. Not to add salt, but to be salt. Not just to have light, but to be light. You and I are witnesses in the world. Only to the degree though that we're willing to live in the light. Only to the degree that we're willing to walk the talk. The world is watching to see if we will truly live what we profess to believe. And I don't know about you, it's happened to me where people are going through things and they find out stuff that we were going through and they say, "How do you do this? How are you not crushed by this right now?" It's a great opportunity to say, "Well, you know what, the only reason is the Lord God. We're clinging on to him and he's given us. He gives us hope. He gives us peace. He gives us strength to go through each day. What a great opportunity. Yeah, the enemy hates us. The world hates us. We're going to have trials. We're going to have tribulations. We're going to have those problems. Jesus said, "But take heart, I've overcome the world." No other nation had the privileges that Israel had that God should be so near to them in answer when they call, and yet God has called us to be even more. It's 1 Peter 2.9, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. You see, we once lived in darkness, but now we live in the light. Actually, as Paul said, we were once darkness, literally, but now we have the light. Let us live. It's still in the light. Verse 9, and we'll pick it up here a little bit more now, "Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, unless they depart from your heart all the days of your life and teach them to your children and your grandchildren." And so again, be careful. Watch yourselves closely. Don't forget these things, but do them. Live by them. 1 Timothy 4, 16 says, "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine." Doing in them, for in doing this, you will say both yourselves and those who hear you. Israel was not just to do what God says or whatever. As parents, they were not to be, what's I saying? Do as I do, but don't do it. Do as I say, but not as I do. That's the saying. Instead, they were to take heed to themselves first and then to their children. I remember a PSA that was popular, well, I don't know, popular, it's the right word, but it was on television a lot, it seemed to be when I was growing up, and it was an anti-smoking campaign, and there was this father and the son, and it was there walking along. Just like if you've seen the Andy Griffith Show, Andy and Opie walking along, it was one of those things. You know, when the father picks up a rock, the son picks up a rock, and they're doing all this stuff, and then they sit down in the field, knick next to a tree, and it's this thing. Each time they're like, "Father, like son, like father, like son." They sit down and put their backs to the tree, and the father cakes out a pack of cigarette, and he puts a cigarette in, and it says, "Like father, like son." The message was there, "Dad, your son is catching what you do, whether you say anything or not," and there was a responsibility there. Be careful. And Israel was told the same, "Teach them to your children." Those of us that are parents, our grandparents, we have opportunity to teach our grandchildren. Take those opportunities because sometimes they're taken away from us. There's 10, especially concerning the day you stood before the Lord your God and Horeb, when the Lord said to me, "Gather the people to me, and I will let them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children." Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness, and the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form. You only heard a voice. So he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform. The Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone, and the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statues and judgment that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. So Moses again speaks about how the law came at Horeb, at Mount Sinai. People were fearful because of the thunder and lightning, and the experience at Horeb was designed to produce in them a fear of God, a fear in their hearts, so that the covenant between them and the Lord could be possible, God, infinitely perfect and holy, and yet without the Redeemer that was to come. The law was the mediating way that they could approach God through the sacrifices, through the rituals, through the ritual laws, and the moral laws teaching them how to live as a people that would live holy lives and set apart. In the Old Testament, the fear of God is more than awe or reference, though it included both. When God is becoming so acutely aware of his moral purity and his omnipotent, that one is genuinely afraid to disobey him. I don't want to hurt my father. As a child with loving parents, I didn't want to hurt their feelings. And even though I was a little sinner and I got into all sorts of trouble, especially getting into my dad's tools without asking and worse, not putting them back where they belonged on the pegboard, that was a big thing. I was disciplined for my behavior, but what hurt me more than maybe a spanking or whatever was the fact that I had disappointed my dad, the fact that I had made him be disappointed in me. And so that's that presence that God wants to have in us, and that's what he wanted to them to have. Fearing God also includes responding to him in worship, in service, in trust and obedience. That day on horrib, God's omnipotent was displayed in the fire, in the black clouds, in the deep darkness and the voice that rumbled and thundered in the heavens. His moral purity was displayed in the ten commandments that were called His covenant. Verse 15 then, he says, "Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at horrib, out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of a male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth, and take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun, the moon and the stars, and all the host of heaven, and you feel driven to worship them and serve them, which the Lord your God has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people and inheritance as you are this day." So Moses points out, they didn't see anything, but they heard the voice. He didn't want them to make any representation, any likeness, any image, and all those during that time the idolatry was so often centered in figures, or in statutes, or in different things. Now it's in ourselves, and in nature, or whatever. We just got back from the Pacific Northwest, and on the little island that my son and daughter in law live and grandchildren live, man it was a lot of worshiping of the nature, beautiful nature, beautiful things, but you'd see these little places where they were clearly just the focus was on Mother Nature, not on the Creator. Moses is warning them as they enter the land. You're going to be with people there that are into all sorts of idolatry. So they were stern warnings to guard against the temptation to fall into the idolatry before the God even took them into the land. God doesn't want us to make any grave and images, he doesn't want us to make any likeness, and as I said, there's an inner compulsion within man that drives him to worship something. It was it Bob Dylan, you're going to worship something, yeah, you're going to serve somebody. It might be the devil, it might be the Lord, but you're going to serve somebody. Because we are designed with that empty spot that we need to worship, we need to worship God, but Satan has so many outward lies. God is seeking worshipers who will worship in spirit and truth, John 4. Man's too focused on the outward form, but God puts the focus on the inside, on the heart and the mind, on the will. See if you change the outward form, the actions, there's no guarantee that you're going to change the heart. You know, you might go to a 12-step program and you might get clean of whether it's drugs or alcohol or whatever that you're going to do that program for, but if it's not rooted and based and clearly centered on the Lord and in a personal relationship with him, you could just be a sober, rather than a drunk one to hell, you could be a sober man going to hell, because it's not the inward heart that's changed. But if you can change a man's heart and will, you'll change the outsides as well. Because God works that way, doesn't He? He changes us from the inside out. Furthermore, He reminds him in verse 21, "The Lord was angry with me for your sake and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, but I must die in this land. I must not cross over the Jordan, but you shall cross over and possess that good land. Take heed to yourself, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you and make yourselves for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." Jealous in the sense, not in the negative sense, Pastor Bob, you just did this a few weeks ago talking about how the Lord is jealous for us and one of the passages we're finishing and I just thought it was so great. Because jealous is not that one that wants to control, that wants to subjugate the jealous is that jealous envious for the love. God is saying, "I want you to love me as I love you and I want you to respond as I want to lead you into the paths of righteousness." Moses is recognizing that it was for Israel's sake that God was not letting him go. Moses was recognizing, "Hey, I'm an example because of my failure to properly represent God. God is being perfectly righteous to discipline me by not allowing me to go into the promised land so that you would take notice and you would take warning and say, "Oh, wow, if Moses can't make it, what about me and come to the Lord?" Israel needed to see that no man, not even Moses, was above the law. They also had to understand that it was indeed better that Joshua lead them into the promised land as well. So when we get to that later on, as Moses prepares Joshua, verse 23, "The danger of forgetting and the danger of pride," where he says, "Take heed to yourself lest you forget." We've beaten this drum again and again, but I think it's a message that comes around over and over again because Israel forgot and he doesn't want them to forget. We can first kinder at the instant and all these things happen to them as examples. They were written for our admonition upon whom the edons of the ages have come, therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. God is jealous for our worship and he's a consuming fire, but he's loving and gracious as well and the same fire that can destroy wood, hay and stubble can temper, steal and can prepare and purify precious metal. So we've got to remember that. We need a right understanding of the nature of God. The attributes of God is one of our favorite books by Tozer. There's so many good books of Tozer. He deals with these things of God so often, I would just recommend if you haven't discovered A.W. Tozer, let me know, I'll give you a hook up with some good books, verse 25. When you get children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land and act correctly and make a carved image in the form of anything and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed and the Lord will scatter you among the people and you will be left a few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you and there you will serve God's the work of men's hands, wood and stone which I neither, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. Boy, that's a verse to underline in any Bible. You will find him if you seek with all your heart and with all your soul. When you're in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey his voice for the Lord your God is merciful God. He will not forsake you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them. So Moses whether he realizes or not he's prophesying of what Israel's future would be because they would enter into idolatry and they would forget his covenants and they would find themselves in captivity in a strange land and they would be surrounded by those that were idolaters. And God yet in that would preserve a remnant that would come back into the land. It's interesting to know despite being driven from their homeland they retain their natural identity, no other nation has been able to retain their enemy, their identity and their language without a homeland except for Israel. What an enduring testimony to God and in verse 29 again, here's the wonderful merciful grace of God. Is that the right verse? I may have said the wrong verse, no I'm in the wrong chapter, that's what it is, verse 29. Yes. But if from there I love the NIV, if you there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him, if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul, are you looking for the Lord? Where are they when they would apply this? It would be the place of defeat and failure, reaping what they had sown in disobedience and rebellion, yet Moses said if they would cry out from there that place of bondage, that place where they say man I've blown it, the place where the enemy says okay you've done it now, God is really done with you now. God's word says no, if you cry out from there, if you seek him with your heart, if you cry out from there and you earnestly seek the Lord with your heart and soul and true repentance of heart and soul, God promises to be found. God promises to everyone who seeks him, I will be found by you. We got five minutes we can wrap this up. For us now, verse 32, concerning the days that are passed which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth and asked from one end of heaven to the other whether any great thing like this has happened or anything like it has been heard. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have and live? Or did God ever try to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and by great tears according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Moses is saying look back into your history, look back. Israel had a totally unique experience with her God. No other nation could claim to have heard the voice of God speaking out of the fire. No other nation could point to a God who had created it by redeeming it from a stronger nation. Verse 35, "To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord himself is God, that there is none other besides him. Out of heaven he let you hear his voice, that he might instruct you. On earth he showed you his great fire and he you heard his words out of the midst of the fire and because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt with his presence, with his mighty power, driving out from before you the nations, greater and mightier than you to bring you in to give you their land as an inheritance as it is this day." Four things, and we're going to conclude with this, four things that God did. Why he got, Moses said here's four reasons why God has done this. First thing is that you might know the Lord himself is God. Sorry, you read a verse from Deuteronomy chapter 7 and it's echoed here. God is pursuing a continual love relationship with his people and it started way back then. God is continuing that. He wants one that is real, one that is personal, he's the one who initiates the love relationship more than anything else God wants us to love him with our whole being. Number two, that you would know that there's no other God besides him. See, God's love for you and I is so strong that he desires us all for himself. He doesn't want to share us with anyone. That you would find your only satisfaction in the love relationship that he has for you. Number three, that he might instruct you. To instruct you, this word you saw, is one who reproves or brings correction or disciplines. Well we don't have a lot of time to even dig into this, but Hebrews chapter 13, I think it is, talks about how God reproves its evidence that you're his child, if he's bringing discipline and correction. If God's not correcting you, then you have to begin to ask, am I a really his child? Purpose of this miraculous deliverance was to enable the Israelites to know not simply by their intellect but in their experience that the Lord is God alone. The experience of hearing from heaven, his awesome voice on the earth, seeing the great fire was not primarily aimed at instructing their minds, but rather at the discipline of their moral nature. It was meant to instill a spirit of submission and to quell the natural inclination to go and do what feels right. There's a way that seems right to man, but the end is destruction. It was designed to make those, his children fear to disobey his commandments. And finally, number four, he says, because he loved your fathers. The first time we see in the book of Deuteronomy, in the Bible, at all up to this point, we don't see God speaking of his motivation being out of love. The reason God had taken such care to give Israel this extensive moral education was that he loved their fathers. He loved their nation. Because of that love, he delivers them out of Egypt, a nation stronger than Israel, and he would drive out from Canaan nations stronger than Israel, and he would give the land of them as an inheritance. So his final exhortation is to keep the commands of the Lord, to listen and keep, listen and keep. Then it may go well with you and with your children after you, and you may prolong your days in the land. Only in doing these two things would Israelites find prosperity and long life in the land. The words so that it may go well with you occur eight times in this book, and serves to emphasize this motive. Those of you taking notes, Deuteronomy 4, 40, Deuteronomy 5, 16, chapter 6, verse 3, verse 14, chapter 12, 25, chapter 12, 28, chapter 19, 13, and chapter 22, verse 7, over and over again. Then it may go well. God wants us, again, if God is for us, who can be against us? We're going to pick up there in verse 41, because it kind of leads in to the next passage here, where Moses starts talking about the cities of refuge that he sets aside, and we're only going to touch on them, because he picks up that again in chapter 19, and then the prelude to setting for the recounting of the law. Father, we thank you, Lord, for your word, and I trust that your Holy Spirit is speaking to each of us, Lord. I know, Lord, even as I'm sharing these things, you're bringing to remembrance in my own heart, my own life, Lord, areas, Lord, that I have struggled in, and I have failed, and yet, even in that, Lord, where you have forgiven me, Lord, and you brought me close. Lord, I pray, Lord, that no one leaves this place being condemned or put down, but encouraged, Lord, that you love each one of us, Lord, and that you want us to be close to you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, bless us as we go, and we thank you, and we praise you in Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen. God bless. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.