A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 6 (Part 2)

Deuteronomy 6:5—“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This is the First Commandment. It is on this commandment that all the others are predicated. For if you love God with your whole being, you will want to obey all the other commands in the Law. This is the foundation, not only of the Old Covenant, but the New Covenant as well. Love for God should be the foundation of our lives entirely. After all, He chose those who would be His when He did not have to. Should we not reciprocate that love to Him, seeing that He had mercy on us and plucked us out of the Hell we deserved? This is the principle laid out in the first four commands in the Tables of the Law that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Exodus 20:3-11—3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 7 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” Notice what it says in verse 6. “But showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” He will be merciful to those who love Him. And how do we show we love Him? By keeping His commandments. We will have no other gods. We will not make for ourselves any carved images. We will not take His name in vain (this does not only mean using His name as a cuss word, but taking to oneself the title of “Christian” when one is not).

“But what about keeping the Sabbath? Should we not hallow the seventh day and rest on that seventh day?” This is a question that is still being bandied about to this day, that the seventh day (Saturday) is still the Sabbath. The answer is this: The Sabbath was a sign of the Covenant between God and the people of Israel. Exodus 31:16-17—16 “Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. 17 It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever.” Ezekiel 20:19-20—19 “I am the LORD your God: Walk in My statutes, keep My judgments, and do them; 20 hallow My Sabbaths, and they will be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the LORD your God.” The command not only included the people, but their sons, their daughters, their servants and their cattle, and the stranger within their gates (Exodus 20:10). So as long as this Covenant was in place, the people of Israel were obliged to keep the Sabbath as the token of that Covenant. “But what about today?” Well, are we still under that Covenant? No, we are now under the New Covenant, and the blood of Christ is the sign of this New Covenant (Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). And our eternal rest in Christ is now our Sabbath rest.

The writer of Hebrews tells us this. When they were writing the New Testament, the writers came as close as they could to saying certain things without explicitly saying them. This is one of those places, this time talking about the Sabbath and how we in the church are to understand it. He equates the seventh-day rest of God with the people of Israel falling in the Wilderness, and their leader Joshua giving them rest from their enemies. And he does so very concisely, telling us that our rest is not the seventh day, nor was it when Joshua led them in conquering the tribes in the land of Canaan, but it is found by faith in Christ. Hebrews 4:3-11—3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, ' They shall not enter My rest,'" although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts." 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience. Notice in verses 4-5 The Writer speaks of God resting after Creation on the seventh day, then comparing it with the rest given to the people by Joshua. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." What do these verses have to do with the seventh-day Sabbath? This: that we who believe in Christ are, by virtue of our faith in Christ, now resting in our Sabbath rest, which is Christ. For we who have believed do enter that rest. Did not Christ Himself say that He would give us rest? Matthew 11:28—“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The Writer of Hebrews picks up on this principle in Hebrews 4:9-10—9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Those of us who have come to Christ for salvation are already in the Sabbath of God, as we who have entered into the rest provided by Christ have entered into that Sabbath rest, and we have taken our Sabbath as God did on that seventh day!

Your earthly Sabbaths, Lord, we love/But there's a nobler rest above;

To that our lab'ring souls aspire/With ardent hope and strong desire.

In your blest kingdom we shall be/From ev'ry mortal trouble free:

No sighs shall mingle with the songs/Resounding from immortal tongues.

No rude alarms of raging foes/No cares to break the long repose,

No midnight shade, no waning moon/But sacred, high, eternal noon.

O long-expected day, begin/Dawn on these realms of woe and sin!

Break, morn of God, upon our eyes/And let the world's true Sun arise!

(“Lord of the Sabbath, Hear Us Pray” by Philip Doddridge) 

Not only do we show love for God by keeping His commandments, we also show we love Him by trusting Him. What was the theme throughout the book of Numbers? The people were grumbling and complaining. And why were they grumbling and complaining? Because they did not trust God to provide for them. And yet He did. Whether it was manna or quail or water from a rock, God always provided for them. But time after time after time (in fact, ten times according to Numbers 14:22)Him.

 they did not trust God and they put Him to the test. And every time He showed them that He is the God who cares and will always provide, as He provided the ram for Abraham when he trusted God in Genesis 22:14 and called the name of the place where he was to sacrifice Isaac יְהוָה יִרְאֶה (YHVH Jireh, “God Provides”). When we are faced with a sore temptation, and we think there is no way out of it and we must give in, God has promised us that He will provide a way out. 1^st Corinthians 10:13—No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. There is no temptation that no man has seen before. “But you don’t understand…!” Someone does. Someone had been through the exact thing you’re going through. And God has prepared a way through it; we must only trust Him and enter through that way. When we and/or our family is hungry, God will provide food. Psalm 37:25—I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. Do you have to get the store brand instead of the name brand? God has provided that. Do you have to put back an item you want but don’t necessarily need? You can do that. Do you have to go to a food pantry to get the things you need? God has provided that too. In the end, God has provided for your needs, you only have to be humble enough to accept it. That is how you show that you trust God and by so doing, you show that you love Him.

Deuteronomy 6:6-12—6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 10 So it shall be, when the LORD your God brings you into the land of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, 11 houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant—when you have eaten and are full—12 then beware, lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” The command was not simply to passively listen while Moses was speaking, and not only to take them into their heart, but to make them a part of their daily life. They were to talk with others about them, they were to teach them to their children, they were to write them everywhere and on everything. What better way to remember something than to read it and speak it—and write it—repetitively? They were to remember these words with every breath of their being, as Moses told them, “lest you forget the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”

“You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.” These became known as “phylacteries”. They were (and still are) leather boxes worn on the arms and the heads of the Jewish people. Of course, by the times that Jesus walked the earth, the Pharisees had made it a practice to make these phylacteries as large as they could, so they may be seen by others and the person wearing them would be thought of as more pious than other men. Matthew 23:5—“But all their works they do to be seen by men. They make their phylacteries broad and enlarge the borders of their garments.” They did not enlarge their phylacteries and the borders of their garments out of piousness and love of God. They enlarged them out of a sense of self-righteousness. Today, the Mishna—known as a kind of “oral Torah”—lists several requirements for the phylacteries—their dimensions, the material they are to be made from, etc. 

 

From JewishEncyclopedia.com:

Phylacteries, as universally used at the present time, consist of two leathern boxes—one worn on the arm and known as "shel yad" (Men. iv. 1) or "shelzeroa'" (Miḳ. x. 3), and the other worn on the head and known as "shel rosh"—made of the skins of clean animals (Men. 42b; Sanh. 48b; "Yad," l.c. iii. 15). The boxes must be square (Men. 35a); their height may be more or less than the length or the width ("Yad," l.c. iii. 2); and it is desirable that they be black (Shulḥan 'Aruk, Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 32, 40). The boxes are fastened on the under side with square pieces of thick leather (; Men. 35a) by means of twelve stitches made with threads prepared from the veins of clean animals (Shab. 28b), and are provided with loops (; Men. 35a) at the ends, through which are passed leathern straps () made of the skins of clean animals (Shab. 28b) and blackened on the outside (Men. 35a; comp. "Sefer Ḥasidim," ed. Wistinetski, § 1669). The strap that is passed through the head-phylactery ends at the back of the head in a knot representing the letter ד; the one that is passed through the hand-phylactery is formed into a noose near the box and fastened in a knot in the shape of the letter ש (comp. Heilprin, "Seder ha-Dorot," i. 208, ed. Maskileison, Warsaw, 1897, where a wonderful story in relation to the laws governing the making of these knots is told). The box containing the head-phylactery has on the outside the letter ש, both to the right (with three strokes: ש) and to the left (with four strokes: ש; Men. 35a; comp. Tos., s.v. "Shin"; probably as a reminder to insure the correct insertion of the four Biblical passages); and this, together with the letters formed by the knots of the two straps, make up the letters of the Hebrew word "Shaddai" ( = "Almighty," one of the names of God; Men. 35b; Rashi, s.v. "Ḳesher"). The measurements of the boxes are not given; but it is recommended that they should not be smaller than the width of two fingers ('Er. 95b; Tos., s.v. "Maḳom"; Men. 35a; Tos., s.v. "Shin"). The width of the straps should be equal to the length of a grain of oats. The strap that is passed through the head-phylactery should be long enough to encircle the head and to allow for the knot; and the two ends, falling in front over either shoulder, should reach the navel, or somewhat above it. The strap that is passed through the hand-phylactery should be long enough to allow for the knot, to encircle the whole length of the arm, and then to be wound three times around the middle finger ("Yad," l.c. iii. 12; Oraḥ Ḥayyim, 27, 8, 11).

(There are many more rules for their construction and contents. See more at https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12125-phylacteries)

WHOO! That’s a lot! God was not concerned about what they were made from (as long as it wasn’t an unclean animal), or how big they were, etc. He only cared that they were made and that the people used them to remind themselves of the words spoken to them by Moses, the words of the Covenant. These were to be used as teaching tools and reminders, not as ways for people to appear more pious by how big the phylacteries were.

Part 3 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen. 

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 6 (Part 1)

Deuteronomy 6:1-3—1 “Now this is the commandment, and these are the statutes and judgments which the LORD your God has commanded to teach you, that you may observe them in the land which you are crossing over to possess, 2 that you may fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. 3 Therefore hear, O Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you—'a land flowing with milk and honey.'” Now that Moses has reviewed the people’s history up to this point, it is time to move forward and see what it will mean for the people. As Moses says in verse 1, this is a prologue to the First Commandment in all the Law. All the 613 commands are but evidence to show that the people are obeying this First Commandment. The Commandment is found in verse 5, which we will reach shortly.

Many people today think that following God is a recipe for a dull and boring life, that it means following a bunch of rules and regulations, and that missing even one such regulation even once means eternal exclusion from the presence of God in the fires of Hell. And this is really backwards thinking. We do not keep commandments in order to love God—we strive to keep His commandments because we love Him. Think of your own relationship with your parents. Do you obey them in order to develop a kind of love for them? No. You love them, and because you love them you try to obey them. If you mess up, and stay out past your curfew one night, do they banish you from the family forever? No. You are chastened, as any good parent would do, because they give you rules so that you will not fall into ruin.

That was the reason God gave these people the commands. He did not do it in order to make their lives more wearisome and dreadful, He gave them commands so He could show them wat it meant to be a child of God. And these commands were not boulders to be strapped onto the people’s backs—they were so the people could know what it means to please Him. 1st John 5:3—For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome (KJV—grievous). And what would be the result of following these commands? “That your days may be prolonged…that it may be well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you.” If one were to follow these commands, they would be in good standing with God, and He would look favorably on that person, and extend their life. Also these commands would keep the person away from those things which shorten their lives.

On the authorship of this passage, The Expositor’s Bible says—

To some readers in our day this repetition, and the renewed postponement of the main subject of the book, have seemed to justify the introduction of a new author here. They are scornfully impatient of the repetition and delay, especially those of them who have themselves a rapid, dashing style; and they declare that the writer of the laws, etc., from chapter 12 onwards cannot have been the writer of these long double introductions. They would not have written so; consequently no one else, however different his circumstances, his objects, and his style may be, can have written so. It is true, they admit, that the style, the grammar, the vocabulary are all exactly those of the purely legal chapters, but that matters not. Their irritation with this delay is decisive; and so they introduce us, entirely on the strength of it, to another Deuteronomist, second or third or fourth-who knows? But all this is too purely subjective to meet with general acceptance, and we may without difficulty decide that the linguistic unity of the book, when chapters 6 to 12 are compared with what we find after 12, is sufficient to settle the question of authorship.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9—4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. 6 And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Verse 4 in Hebrew reads שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד (Shema Yisrael: YHVH Elohenu, YHVH echad). Verses 4-9 are part of a prayer that is still being recited to this day by observant Jews. If you notice, the Tertragrammaton (יְהוָה, YHVH) is used twice here, and these days Jews do not pronounce this, but rather substitute the word אֲדֹנָי (Adonai, “Lord”) or הַשֵּׁם (HaShem, “The Name”). They feel that they have lost the true pronunciation of the word, and rather than offend the Sovereign and mispronounce His name, they use a word which describes Him as Lord of all Creation without mispronouncing His name. At any rate, the passages that make up the Shema are Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41. These passages are combined into one long prayer, and is recited in the morning and in the evening.

Verses 4-5 are recited by Jesus when He is asked which is the greatest commandment in the Law (Matthew 22:37-38; Mark 12:29-32). When asked by one who wanted to know what he had to do to inherit eternal life, and He asked what it said in the Law, the person quoted verse 5 and Jesus said "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live." (Luke 10:28). This passage has always been important to the Jew, for this is the cornerstone of their faith, that God is One. So let’s look at these verses one by one

Deuteronomy 6:4—4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one!” The first word, “Hear” is the Hebrew שְׁמַע (Shema, lit., “hear”). Moses was commanding the people to listen to what he was saying, as this would be the foundation of their faith. They were not to just sit idly by while he spoke. They were to actively listen to his words. He was not speaking just to hear himself talk, he was imparting to the people what they needed to know in order to rightly believe in the God who brought them out of Egypt and to trust in Him and Him alone. “Hear”. A word we should remember today when the truth of God is being spoken. We should be hearing what our preacher is saying, and even more than that we should be listening. We can hear all kinds of things, that is the nature of that physical sense. But do we really listen? Do we actively take in what he is saying, and apply it in our lives? Or do we simply show up so we can say we have “done our duty and went to church”? Strong’s defines the word שְׁמַע (Shema) thus:

To hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively to tell, etc.):  attentively, call (gather) together, carefully, certainly, consent, consider, be content, declare, diligently, discern, give ear, (cause to, let, make to) hear (harken, tell),  indeed, listen, make (a) noise, (be) obedient, obey, perceive, [proclaim or make a proclamation], publish, regard, report, shew (forth), (make a) sound, surely, tell, understand, whosoever [heareth], witness.

Does this sound like a passive hearing of what is spoken, or do you get the sense that more is involved? As we will see in Verses 7-9 it involves not only hearing, but also listening, considering, pondering and telling, repeating and publishing publicly. As we are to do with our faith in Christ. We should not let our salt lose its savor, but use it to season the world with our faith (Matthew 5:13; Mark 9:50; Luke 14:34). We are not to hide our light under a basket, but let it shine forth into the world, that they may see the true light, which is Christ (Matthew 5:14). “Hear”–listen, consider, meditate on the Lord and His word, and publish it forth, let the light you have been given shine forth into this world of darkness!

“The LORD our God…” YHVH was their God. Not one of many gods they were to worship, but THE God, the only one to whom they were to devote their lives and their devotion and their worship to. The only One who had done for them and the only One who could do anything for them. What could idols and images do for them? As he said just a few verses prior, Deuteronomy 4:27-28—27 “And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.” The gods of the pagans—the Canaanites and the Amorites and the Moabites and the Ammonites—these could do nothing, as they were simply images made by the hands of men, and had no sense of sight, smell, hearing, touch or taste. They were simply statues and poles, which could not be animated and which could not animate. But YHVH, He was—and is and always will be—the God who is, the God who has been since eternity past and will always be until eternity future. He formed the Earth, He created the stars and the moons and all the planets—not only in our Solar System, but throughout the Universe—He gave us not only the brains to think, but also the ability to think. He gave us emotions to feel. He alone is God, has always alone been God, and always will be the only God who does. Ba'al cannot see, Chemosh cannot feel, Ashteroth cannot guide into the right ways. Buddha cannot save, Allah cannot deliver, none of the Hindu gods are alive and can do anything. YHVH is our God, the only One to whom we may look for salvation and deliverance.

“…the LORD is one!” Many are the ones who take this verse to mean that only the Father is God, and to deny the deity of Christ (like Jehovah’s Witnesses). Still others use it as the basis of Modalism, and to say that God only appears as the Father in the Old Testament, the Son in the Gospels, and the Holy Spirit today. This was the theory posited by Sabellius (and before him the Monarchians) and promulgated today by the Modalists like TD Jakes. But this is to deny the truth of the Tri-unity of God—that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all at the same time.

Is this too hard a thing to believe? That Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also God who appeared in the flesh and dwelt among men? John says as much, in John 1:1, 14—1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory. “Well, John 1:1 says the Word was with God. That means the Logos was a separate being from God.” To that I would say See my post concerning John 1:1 here. The idea of the Trinity was not one that (as is supposed by some) was invented by Constantine and the Council of Nicea (for all the great things this Council did and spoke, it is treated by many as the moment when Christianity, and all things pertaining to it, were invented). The Trinity, and the deity of Christ, was something believed by the Early Church (Ante-Nicene) Fathers, even in the 100s and 200s AD. Ignatius, in his “Epistle to the Ephesians” (chapter XIX) wrote the following:

Hence every kind of magic was destroyed, and every bond of wickedness disappeared; ignorance was removed, and the old kingdom abolished, God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life. And now that took a beginning which had been prepared by God. Henceforth all things were in a state of tumult, because He meditated the abolition of death.

In his “Dialog With Trypho” (chapter CXXVIII), Justin Martyr wrote:

And that Christ being Lord, and God the Son of God, and appearing formerly in power as Man, and Angel, and in the glory of fire as at the bush, so also was manifested at the judgment executed on Sodom, has been demonstrated fully by what has been said.

Hippolytus, in “Refutation of All Heresies” (Chapter X):

The Logos alone of this God is from God himself; wherefore also the Logos is God, being the substance of God.

“Well, that’s all well and good. But these are simply men, who were not writing under the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit. Besides, they were writing long after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Is there any Scriptural proof?” As a matter of fact, yes, there is. Titus 2:10, 13—10 not pilfering, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things…13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. 1st Timothy 2:3—For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior. “But the people of Israel did not believe in a Savior besides the Father.” But that does not mean that the Son was not their Savior. 2nd Samuel 22:3—The God of my strength, in whom I will trust; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge; my Savior. Isaiah 45:15—Truly You are God, who hide Yourself, O God of Israel, the Savior! “Okay, so what does that mean? It is God who saves through Jesus Christ.” Read Titus 2:13 again. Jesus is referred to as our Savior and as our God! To say that Jesus is a separate Savior from God is to deny the words spoken by God in Hosea 13:4—“Yet I am the LORD your God Ever since the land of Egypt, and you shall know no God but Me; for there is no savior besides Me.” 2nd Peter 1:11—For so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. God is the only Savior, and yes, He does save through Jesus Christ our Lord. That is because Jesus is the Word of God, the Son of God, the Lamb of God—in short, Jesus is God!

This also speaks to something Jesus said, in John 17:11 (ESV)—“Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me (“which” refers to those whom the Father gave Him), that they may be one, even as we are one.” The Mormon, the Jehovah's Witness, the Modalist, the denier of the Trinity will try to say “This just means they were unified in purpose. This is no ‘proof text’ for the Trinity! Are you trying to say that Peter and Thaddeus were one being?” Yes, that is what I am saying. “HUH?” 1st Corinthians 10:16-17—16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? 17 For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. 1st Corinthians 12:12-14—12 For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact the body is not one member but many. If we are in Christ, then we are one body, members of one another. Romans 12:4-5—4 For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Ephesians 4:25—Therefore, putting away lying, "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor," for we are members of one another. So yes, we are one with the other members of Christ—same flesh, same blood, same essence, same everything. We all share in the one body, which we are in Christ. And just as God is One—the Father being the First Person, the Son the Second Person, the Holy Spirit the Third Person, but all these are one—so should we, though being different members of the Body of Christ, be One in Love, in Fellowship, and in Purpose. Charles Spurgeon—

Hence the diversity. If the hand were made exactly like the foot, it would not be a tenth part as useful; and if the eye only had the same faculty as the ear, it would not be able to see, and the whole body would be a loser thereby. Do we begin to compare eyes, and ears, and feet, and hands, and say, “This is the better faculty”? No. They are each one needful. So do not compare yourselves among yourselves, for if you are in the body of Christ, you are each one needful, and the peculiarity which you possess, and the peculiarity which your brother possesses, have their place in the body corporate, and must be precious before God.

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen. 

A Survey of the Old Testament Law--Deuteronomy 1-5 (Part 2)

Deuteronomy 4:32-35—32 “For ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened, or anything like it has been heard. 33 Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard, and live? 34 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 terrors, according to all that the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? 35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him.” In the 1800s, Joseph Smith invented a “God” more to his own liking, and this “God” is worshipped by many Mormons across the globe. Temples have been built to him, universities have been built proclaiming to teach about this “God” to many unsuspecting followers. But this “God” is the invention of a man’s imagination—He doesn’t exist, He can do nothing for anyone, and the “gospel” that is offered to the followers of this “God” can save no one, as these worshippers follow a false god who does not exist, and has never existed except in the mind of a money-digging polygamist.

This “God” is one of millions of “Gods” who rule over millions of universes, and had to learn how to be a “God” himself. In what is known as the “King Follett Discourse”, Joseph Smith elaborated on what he believed and taught to be the nature and person of God, how He was once a man and progressed to godhood:

In the sermon, Joseph taught about divine nature and eternal progression. He countered the long-standing theological tradition that treated God as wholly different than humanity. He explained that “if men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend themselves.” He taught that God “was once as one of us” and that “all the spirits that God ever sent into the world” were “susceptible of enlargement,” having the capacity to become like God in the eternities. Joseph also taught that a core part of each person is coeternal with God, comparing this divine core to a ring, without beginning or end. The King Follett sermon was the most direct, public explanation of these doctrines, but it was not the first time they had been introduced. The Book of Mormon and the book of Moses both contain passages that stood at odds with the theological position dominant in Joseph Smith’s day that God is “without body, parts, or passions.” Revelations received by Joseph Smith as early as 1832 taught that spirits existed “in the beginning with God” and that through the power of Jesus Christ’s Atonement, individuals could “receive their inheritance and be made equal with him,” becoming gods. Joseph Smith had elaborated on these revelations in various settings, helping others grasp the implications of his teachings.

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/king-follett-discourse?lang=eng)

This speech was based on the famous couplet spoken by Lorenzo Snow, “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”

The Prophet Joseph Smith himself publicly taught the doctrine the following year, 1844, during a funeral sermon of Elder King Follett: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938, pp. 345–46.)

(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1982/02/i-have-a-question/is-president-snows-statement-as-man-now-is-god-once-was-as-god-now-is-man-may-be-accepted-as-official-doctrine?lang=eng)

This is nothing more than self-worship, and goes against the clear teaching of Scripture, that YYHVH alone is God, that nothing and no one can become God, and that “there is none other besides Him.” God did not have to “learn” how to become God, He has always been God. None can become God, for He alone is, was, and always will be God. This was a lesson the people of Israel would have to be reminded of many times throughout their history, and one which many humans today need to be reminded of.

In Deuteronomy 5:1-33, Moses repeats what we call the Ten Commandments, and reminds the people that these are the words of the covenant God made with them, to make them a people of God, set apart to Him, simply for His good pleasure. You will hear many today speak against the doctrine of Sovereign Election—that God chooses those whom He will save—and say that “it’s not fair!” Well, was it “fair” for God to only choose this people to receive His Law and be brought into a covenant with Him? What of the Ammonite, or the Moabite? Would it not have been “fair” for God to tell them His law and how to please Him and how to atone for their sins? Was it “fair” for God to only choose—not all the descendants to Abraham, not all the descendants of Isaac—but only the descendants of Jacob to be His people? For He did not enter into an everlasting covenant with the descendants of Ishmael; He did not enter into an everlasting covenant with the descendants of Esau; He only entered into such a covenant with the descendants of Jacob (Israel), and it was only these with whom He made a covenant that these should be His people.

And this Law that He gave—the Ten Commandments and the other 513 commands—were the rules they were to live by in order to continue to be considered His people. These commands were not burdens, they were not grievous. They were how all people should act in accordance with the holiness and righteousness of God. If someone does not want to obey these commands, they cannot be a child of God. If they want to steal; if they want to murder; if they want to defile their neighbor’s wife; if they want to commit acts of homosexuality, then they cannot be called the people of God. Because these things go against everything He is and that person will not prosper as a child of God. As it says in Deuteronomy 5:32-33—32 “Therefore you shall be careful to do as the LORD your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 33 You shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.” I’ll finish with these words from Matthew Henry—

Seeing God had shown himself so tender of them, and so willing to consider their frame and gratify them in what they desired, and withal so ready to make the best of them, - seeing they themselves had desired to have Moses for their teacher, who was now teaching them, - and seeing they had promised so solemnly, and under the influence of so many good causes and considerations, that they would hear and do, he charges them to walk in all the ways that God had commanded them, assuring them that it would be highly for their advantage to do so. The only way to be happy is to be holy.

Deuteronomy 5:6-22—6 “' I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 7 You shall have no other gods before Me. 8 You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 9 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 10 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. 11 You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. 12 Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the LORD your God commanded you. 13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. 16 Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may be well with you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. 17 You shall not murder. 18 You shall not commit adultery. 19 You shall not steal. 20 You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 21 You shall not covet your neighbor's wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his male servant, his female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.' 22 These words the LORD spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.”

Here we come to the crux of this entire study—the Law and its application to our lives today. Here we have Moses repeating the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) that God gave to him atop Mt. Sinai. These were the terms and conditions of this covenant that God made with the people of Israel. But what of the other 513 commands in the Law? Were the people to keep them too, and if they didn’t, what would happen to the people? And why were these ten given apart from the other 513? And most importantly for us, what do they mean for us today? Are we supposed to keep them? All good questions, so let’s address them.

“What of the other 513 commands in the Law? Were the people to keep them too, and if they didn’t, what would happen to the people? And why were these ten given apart from the other 513?” First, let’s talk about these ten in relation to the entirety of the 613 commandments contained in the Law. The Ten Commandments were given to all the people atop Sinai as the cornerstone of the entire Law. But these Ten Commandments don’t include the commands against homosexuality, bestiality, and incest. The Ten Commandments were the first ten spoken by God to the people, and written by God onto tablets of stone. Moses then brought these tablets down to the people, who said “It is enough! You alone go up and speak with God! We will wait down here! We are frightened by the voice of God.” So Moses went back up Sinai to receive the rest of the Words spoken by God. And what we have as Exodus 20:22-Leviticus 27:34 (with the exception of a few places) was the other 513 commandments, also spoken to Moses by God within that same time frame. So really, all 613 Commandments of the Law were given to Moses upon Mt. Sinai within those 40 days and 40 nights that Moses was at the summit. And the penalties for breaking these commands, which were included with the giving of the commands, were to be carried out against the violators of the commands—whether considering the person unclean until sundown, or cutting the person off from the people, or the death of the perpetrator.

“So why does Moses only mention the Ten Commandments here?” Two reasons. First, these were the only ten that the people heard spoken at the mountain before they got scared of hearing God’s voice, so Moses received the other 513 commandments after he ascended back up the mount. Exodus 21:1—“Now these are the judgments which you shall set before them.” God continued giving His law to Moses even after the people said they did not want to hear the voice of God lest they be consumed (Exodus 20:18-21). The other reason Moses only restated the Ten Commandments was for the sake of time. Do you think it would have behooved Moses to speak the entirety of the book of Leviticus at this time? To again write all the words he wrote in that book? No, it was sufficient for him to only speak and write the words which the people heard, as they could understand the rest when he later wrote Deuteronomy.

“So what does this mean for us today? Are we supposed to keep the entire Law, or just the Ten Commandments?” This is where we need to slow down and let the Scriptures speak. These were the words of the covenant that God made with the people of Israel, the covenant which they broke (Jeremiah 31:32). Once this covenant was broken, God would make a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31). So God began preparing the way for the new and better covenant to come into being. Malachi 3:1—"Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," says the LORD of hosts. This is speaking of John the Baptist (see Matthew 3:3). He would announce to the people of Israel that the time of the establishment of the New Covenant was at hand, that God was going to establish a new Way for the people’s sins to be forgiven. John 1:29—“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” No longer would the people have to bring bulls and goats to the temple of God for them to be slaughtered and butchered in a particular way. God was providing His own Lamb, upon whom the sins of all the believing would be laid, and He would take those sins to God for them to be expiated. And in this new covenant, there were not 613 commandments which were to be followed to the letter, but rather only two simple commands. Matthew 22:36-40—36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" 37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Whereas the Torah observant Jews were trying to keep the covenant that their fathers had already broken, Jesus was going forth announcing a new covenant which they refused. While the old covenant was mediated by Moses (Galatians 3:19), this new covenant would be mediated by God Himself—the Second Person of the Godhead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Hebrews 8:6, 9:15, 12:24). And just as at the base of Mt. Sinai the people did not want to hear the voice of God lest they be consumed, now they did not want to hear the voice of God because it spoke against them and their inability to uphold the covenant that God made with their fathers.

So Jesus spilt His blood, ushering in the New Covenant. Now, what did this New Covenant say about the Old Covenant? It says that a new and better covenant may be established, that the Old Covenant is ready to be done away with (Hebrews 8:13). Included in that Old Covenant that is being done away with are the commandments contained therein—the Old Testament Law. “So you’re saying this Law was done away with?” Yes, that is what I am saying—but only for those who believe. There are many who are afraid to say that, thinking that saying this will give people carte blanche to act however they want to according to their desires. But let’s discuss this for a minute. First, what else would the apostle Paul mean when he said in Romans 6:14, when he said For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace? His words are clear, that the Law does not hold sway over us as believers in Christ. You are not under law. Plus, when we are saved, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, leading us in the ways of righteousness, and convicting us of sin, so that if we do sin our hearts will be heavy and we will go to God and ask for forgiveness, which will be provided to us through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Yes, but in Romans 6:14, when Paul uses the word ‘you’, he is writing to believers. We believers are not under law, but what of unbelievers?” The unbeliever is still under that Law, and it will hold him accountable to God. “Explain.” I will. He writes to Timothy in 1^st Timothy 1:9-10—9 Knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, 10 for fornicators, for sodomites, for kidnappers, for liars, for perjurers, and if there is any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. The Law will judge those who continue to commit sin and whose sins are not taken away by the blood of Christ. If your sins have been paid for by Christ, they will not again be brought up before God when you die—You are not under law—the blood of Jesus has taken away those sins, and you will stand righteous and accepted by God  (Psalm 103:12; Micah 7:19). But if Christ’s blood has not washed away one’s sins, and one dies in those sins, how is God to judge that person for those sins? What standard is He to use? He will use His Law. The law is not made for a righteous person, but…for sinners. The sinner, in the New Testament, is one who does not have faith in Christ as His payment for sins. That is who the Law is now for—the one who stands naked and open to God, their sins still clinging to them like refuse, and that person will be judged by His Law.

Paul says in another place, What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions (Galatians 3:19). God gave His Law because of sins. He did not give the Law in order to make people righteous, but rather because people are unrighteous. He gave it to the people of Israel because He chose them, out of all the people in the world. He did not give it to the Edomites. He did not give it to the Amalekites. He did not give it to the Hivites or the Perizzites or the Girgashites. He gave it to the Israelites, not because they were any better than their neighbors, but to show their neighbors how sinful those neighbors were. Moses would tell the people in Deuteronomy 9:4-6—4 “Do not think in your heart, after the LORD your God has cast them out before you, saying, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land'; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out from before you…6 Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” That must have been a blow to their pride. And this is the effect the Doctrine of Election should have on us. That God chose us, not because we were good enough or righteous enough—for we are neither, at heart—but because we are unrighteous, there being nothing in us that would commend us to God. But we are all, each and every human being, a stiff-necked people that shrink away from God every chance we get.

And it is this Law that shows us so. In our unregenerated state, we want nothing to do with God. We make for ourselves idols that we will desire against and above God. We want what we want, and we will kill and steal and covet until we have it. “But what about people that do not kill and steal?” James 2:10-11—10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. Do they believe in God? No? Then they have created for themselves a God they worship even if they don’t believe they do. They say they do not believe in any gods, but they do. If they believe that the human race is the pinnacle of everything, then they believe that the human race created itself, thus setting up the human race as their god. These are the people that the Law will condemn when they stand before God on the last day.

A Survey of the Old Testament Law-- Deuteronomy 1-5 (Part 1)

Chapters 1-5 consist mostly of Moses recounting everything that happened to the people and the events that took place from the time they were camped at Sinai until the events recorded at the end of Numbers. So we will kinda fast forward through these chapters and just kinda hit the highlights.

Deuteronomy 1:1-5—1 These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on this side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea. 3 Now it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that the LORD had given him as commandments to them, 4 after he had killed Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and Og king of Bashan, who dwelt at Ashtaroth in Edrei. 5 On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law.

When it says this side of the Jordan, it is referring to the land east of the Jordan, across the river from Canaan. As many who deny the truth of the Bible will tell you, it is an eleven day journey by foot from Mt. Sinai (Mt. Horeb) to Kadesh Barnea. And they will use this fact to scoff the fact that it took forty years for this journey to be accomplished. But this is where their ignorance is shown, as it was not simply trekking by foot that took forty years, but the command of God because of the complaining of the people that God commanded them to wander in the wilderness for forty years (Numbers 14:29-35). Had they simply obeyed God and not grumbled over every inconvenience and hardship they felt they suffered, the generation that came from Mt. Sinai could have been in the Promised Land within days. But they wanted everything the way they wanted it, and because God did not give them every whim of their heart the way they wanted it, they complained and cried out to go back to the slavery they endured in Egypt, thinking that would be better than being free and provided for by God. So that generation was consumed in the desert, and their children entered into the land of promise rather than they.

This address takes place in the eleventh month, שְׁבָט (Shevat) on the first day of the month. It is given in a place referred to by Moses as in the plain opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab.. The Paran and Hazeroth here mentioned are not the Paran and Hazeroth where the people wandered and encamped (respectively) after leaving Sinai, but are different places with the same names, as was common at that time. This was in an area now called Arabah, which encompasses the Jordan valley between the Sea of Galilee all the way to the Gulf of Aqabah, the northeastern arm of the Red Sea.

(https://www.ldolphin.org/crew/fig01.jpg)

The names of the places in our text pinpoint the location where Moses spoke these words, and was likely the area known as Heshbon, which was due east of Jericho. It was at this place where Moses spoke to the people the Law he had received from God on Mt. Sinai as recorded in Exodus and Leviticus. Until this time, the people did not know this Law or what it contained. All they knew was that God spoke to Moses on the mountain and at various times thereafter, but the substance of those conversations they were not privy to. Now that Moses was speaking these words to the people, they would be without excuse, and would be expected to learn these commands and follow them as they were told.

In Deuteronomy 1:6-46, Moses recounts their journeying and their grumbling about the land the 12 spies had seen, and even about his own denial into Canaan because of his own disobedience. He continues this narrative in Deuteronomy 2:1-7, recalling how they passed by the land of their brethren Edom, the descendants of Esau. Deuteronomy 2:1-7—1 “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness of the Way of the Red Sea, as the LORD spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days. 2 And the LORD spoke to me, saying: 3 'You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4 And command the people, saying, "You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch yourselves carefully. 5 Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You shall buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink. 7 For the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing."'” This is another place where the skeptic would point to and say “Contradiction!” For if you remember, Numbers 20:14-21 recounts when the people asked for passage through the land of their brethren and were denied. But here in Deuteronomy it says they would buy food and water from them. So how do we reconcile these two things? Easily. While the king of Edom did not permit them to pass through the land, the Edomites nevertheless sold them food and water for their journey. “That still doesn't answer the contradiction!” There is no contradiction. It’s simple. While it is true the camp of Israel did not pass through the land of Edom, there were most likely small groups of people who ventured into Edom to buy food and water.

Deuteronomy 3 continues the narrative, recounting the battles the people had with Sihon king of the Amorites and Og of Bashan, and how God went before them and defeated these kings, and how God denied Moses entry into Canaan, despite his pleadings, for his disobedience at the rock of Meribah.

Deuteronomy 4:1-4—1 “Now, O 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 God of your fathers is giving you. 2 You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you. 3 Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal Peor; for the LORD your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. 4 But you who held fast to the LORD your God are alive today, every one of you.” We humans need to be reminded so many times of so many things. Which is why Moses reminded them of what happened at Ba’al-Peor (Numbers 25:1-18). The women of Moab enticed the men to lay with them in sexual idolatry of the pagan gods. And in one day 24,000 died of the plague that God sent upon them for their idolatry. “Well, that’s pretty memorable; I don’t think anybody could forget that!” Remember that in Numbers 11:1 the people complained, God burned up the outskirts of their camp, then just three verses later they complained about the manna that came down from Heaven! These were people with a very short attention span, and needed constant reminders about the power of God. So Moses reminds them of this episode where so many died because of their idolatry, and constrains them to listen to and obey the commands from God “which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you.” He was not simply talking just to hear his own voice, but showed his genuine concern for the people and for the name of God by entreating the people to listen to and obey the words which he was giving them. These were God’s chosen people, and how would the neighboring nations think of the name and reputation of God if these people carried on with worshipping the idols of these neighboring nations? They would not think very highly of Him if He chose people who would abandon Him.

Deuteronomy 4:5-20—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. 6 Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' 7 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? 8 And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day? 9 Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren, 10 especially concerning the day you stood before the LORD your God in 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.' 11 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. 12 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. 13 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. 14 And the LORD commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. 15 Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, 16 lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male or female, 17 the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, 18 the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. 19 And take heed, lest you lift your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the host of heaven, 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. 20 But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be His people, an inheritance, as you are this day.” No other nation in the history of planet Earth was ever called by name by the God of all creation. No other nation was given His Laws, His sacrifices, or a way to be reconciled to Him other than the people of Israel. God made no covenant with any other particular nation on Earth other than Israel. He did not covenant with the Hittites, or the Amorites, or the Canaanites or the Egyptians or the Babylonians. Only with the Israelites. This is a great thing to consider. That the God of all Creation would make a covenant with a people who were not even a nation! And if the people walked in His statutes and obeyed His commandments, the neighboring nations would consider them wise and understanding. For who has wisdom but God? Wisdom was the first of His creation (see Proverbs 8:22-31). It is God alone who gives wisdom to men; it is God alone whose wisdom created the universe, so that all the planets and galaxies do not rush here and there and crash into each other. And who has understanding but God? Who can plumb the depths of all things and know exactly how they work? Who can know how the mind of man works except he who has understanding from God?

Moses spells this out in verses 15-19. If their neighboring nations saw them worshipping created beings as they worshipped, the people of Israel would be seen as no different from them, as these neighbors worshipped all kinds of things found in nature—stars, sun, moon, cattle, creeping things. All the things Paul warned us about in Romans 1:22-23. Seeking to be thought of as the wise of the world, they showed just how foolish they really were, thinking that birds and animals and insects were to be worshipped, rather than the God who created all things, visible and invisible, and who could destroy all of creation with a snap of His fingers. Are cats longsuffering? If they cry to be fed, and you do not feed them right then and there, will they understand? Can dogs create? Can moths or beetles fulfill your needs? No. Only a fool would think so. But all of these things the pagan nations believed, and gave obeisance to these things, thinking that by doing so their lives would be more at ease. But what did these things do for these people? Nothing. What did God do for the people of Israel? He did to them and for them according to their obedience or according to their defiance.

Deuteronomy 4:25-31—25 “When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly 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, 26 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. 27 And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. 28 And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. 29 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. 30 When you are 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 31 (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.” It is not long after the death of Joshua that the people do this very thing. The book of Judges is nothing but a repeating cycle of disobedience by the people, captivity of the people, the people crying out to God, Him delivering them, their repeated disobedience and captivity, them crying out and being delivered, and so on and so forth. The histories of the kings of Israel and Judah are marked by this same pattern in the books of Kings and Chronicles. In 622BC He allows the northern kingdom of Israel to be taken captive by the Assyrians. The people of Judah learned their lesson the hard way in 587BC, when after King Josiah died—the last of the godly kings of Judah—they made his son Jehoahaz king. He was quickly deposed by the conquering Egyptians who placed his brother Eliakim (whose name they changed to Jehoiakim) on the throne, and he was carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. His son Jehoiachin became king, and he too was carried off to Babylon, and Zedekiah (Jehoiakim’s brother) was installed by Nebuchadnezzar to be king of Judah. And Zedekiah did all the evils that were done by Jehoahaz, Eliakim, and Jehoiachin. These evil kings carried the people away in their sins with them, and the people were ultimately carried away to Babylon and the temple in Jerusalem was burned. And in 587BC God allows Judah to be taken into exile to Babylon because of their idolatry. And much like their time in Egypt, when they were obliged to raise monuments to the Egyptian Gods, they would serve false gods in whichever dispersion they were taken in. Keil and Delitzsch—

There among the heathen they would be obliged to serve gods that were the work of men's hands, gods of wood and stone, that could neither hear, nor eat, nor smell, i.e., possessed no senses, showed no sign of life. What Moses threatens here, follows from the eternal laws of the divine government. The more refined idolatry of image-worship leads to coarser and coarser forms, in which the whole nature of idol-worship is manifested in all its pitiableness. “When once the God of revelation is forsaken, the God of reason and imagination must also soon be given up and make way for still lower powers, that perfectly accord with the I exalted upon the throne, and in the time of pretended 'illumination' to atheism and materialism also” (Schultz).

Which is why Moses said at the beginning of verse 25, “When”, not “if”. These words were spoken to him by God, who knew the people would act corruptly, and make for themselves idols, and be carried away to a land they did not know and would serve the idols of this unknown (to them) land. And none of the idols they set up for themselves could stop what God was doing. BUT… Did God forget the covenants He made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the people? No, He did not. For as He promised, He raised up a king, Cyrus (he was king of Persia, and defeated the Babylonians in the year 539BC), who made a proclamation and gave the Jews permission to return to the land of Judah and rebuild the temple.

The warnings are no less dire to us today. If we do not worship God, if we do not give Him His due reverence, if we do not exalt Him as the High and Omniscient Potentate, we will be reduced to worshipping those things which are no gods, the fictions of men’s minds which are good for nothing but to entertain the intellect and whims of men for a moment, but in the end can do nothing for them. The new atheists—Richard Dawkins, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Christopher Hitchens—will join the older atheists, like Voltaire, and bow their knee before God and recognize Him as King of all Creation!

Part 2 next week

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Amen.