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)
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. 1st 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
