Deuteronomy consists of sermons from Moses to the Israelites. This is a new generation who will be inheriting the promised land under Joshua. And we could locate in the timeline of Moses's life that these are sermons in the last year of Moses's life. He's approximately 120 years old and it's about 1406 BC. And while he's using these last months of his life to give sermons to the Israelites, It's the kind of thing that they need to hear that they haven't been ignorant of entirely before, but they need to have their faith built up and they need to remember some history. They need to be warned about the dangers of sin and spiritual waywardness. This is a generation that did not come out of the Exodus. So we have to think about the reality that in Exodus, they're delivered from Egyptian captivity and they go to Sinai, but now 40 years have passed. And those who were growing up in the land would likely have no memory of that earlier event, unless they were older children, of course. I'm speaking in broad statements when I say this is a people that didn't remember the Exodus. By and large, the Exodus people who would have a memory of that have grown old and died under the judgment of the Lord across those 40 years. Moses is reminding people of history. He's building up their faith and he's going to warn them of the dangers of sin because they're going into the land. He's not, but they are. In Deuteronomy 4, this address from Moses is a new one that began with these words. And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I'm teaching you. That's in verse 1. In the opening eight verses, they emphasize the words of God for the people that no one should alter them, that no one should take the liberty to add to what God has said unless God reveals it such. Instead, the Israelites are to make it their goal to study and to keep the commands of God. The existence of divine commands confirms that God is drawn near to them. He's not like any other supposed God of the ancient Near East. He's the living God who's made himself known to a people that he's both delivered and directed toward a land of promise. We pick up in Deuteronomy 4 with verses 9 to 31, and there are three parts to the passage tonight. Let's look together at this first part in verses 9 to 14, part of our scripture reading just a moment ago. Deuteronomy 4 and verses 9 to 14 tell us about remembering the revelation of the law. Moses needs to tell them a story, because Moses has the kind of first-hand account that he can provide, and he was an adult, and now approximately 120 years old, able to remember distinctly what it was like to be before a blazing mountain, quaking with power, and to hear the voice of God thundering forth with commands. And in verses 9 to 14, they're going to be remembering the revelation of the law. It opens with this exhortation. Only take care and keep your soul diligently. They are to immediately have an application in the first eight verses that we see here in verse nine, an application for what Moses has said, that they need to tend to the matters of their soul, to take care of it, to keep it, To keep their soul diligently means they are to have a kind of attentiveness to the words of God that make a difference in the way they think. the way they behave in the world, what they want for their lives and for their people. They're not to just go instinctively by the desires of their hearts and the instincts of the flesh. They are to keep their soul and to take care, which is the opposite of recklessness. It's the opposite of spiritual waywardness. It's to give a purposeful focus and attentiveness to the state of their soul before the words of God, and the reason they're to focus their lives in such a way. is that lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life, make them known to your children, your children's children, how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God, and he's gonna give a reference there to their past. They need to remember. As clearly as I can put it, one of the ways we care for our souls is to gather that we might remember. This is a way in which we take care of and diligently keep our souls. That's not because we are God saving ourselves. It is not that. To keep your soul, it is expanded in verses nine and following in the idea of making your mind think on something. deliberately orienting your thoughts to remember and that in remembering your life will be part of rhythms of remembrance and through that diligence your soul rightly directed unto God. They're to keep their soul lest they forget the things their eyes have seen. You see the danger of not deliberately remembering to think on the words of God is that those things will not be any longer on the foreground of your mind. And if they're not on the foreground or the forefront of your mind, they may result in your own life departing. Departing from wisdom and into folly. Departing from what would be honoring to God and to what would be destructive to you and dishonoring to the Lord. lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. He needs them to realize the steps in their future are being guided by, or I should say determined by, what their steps are today. Their feet are aiming. Their choices are directing them. And he sees a danger in front of them. And the danger is that all that has happened in their history would slip from the memory of their hearts in such a way that the rest of the days of their lives are not being framed by this. One of the ways that they are called to remember is that not only they are thinking on it, but they are conveying it. This helps us keep our soul diligently. We're not only thinking on the words of God for the sake of our own souls, we know the need to talk about the words of God for the sake of others. He's thinking about multi-generations here, isn't he, in verse 9? Make them known to your children and your children's children. So he wants you to think about your life in such a way that it would be a blessing to subsequent generations based on how you are thinking about your steps. That the current generation after you and the generation after that would have the kind of ripple effect from your own soul, diligence, and keeping. taking care and guarding your soul, seeking to remember what your eyes have seen, lest it depart from your heart. What is it exactly that they're to be thinking on? The event that he has in mind chiefly at this point in Deuteronomy 4 is the Mount Sinai revelation. And of course, that's enormous. There are amazing things, you know, a rod strikes a rock in Exodus that comes forth with water. That's amazing. Or you have plagues in the early parts of Exodus upon the house of Pharaoh. That's amazing. I mean, there's wonders that he could easily draw their attention to. What does he want them to remember in this case? In Deuteronomy 4, he wants them to remember that he gathered the Israelites to the base of a mountain and he proclaimed words, commands that are to shape their lives. How on the day, in verse 10, you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb. Now some of them hearing these words were not standing there. They are standing before Moses now remembering, and collectively, their corporate identity with the Israelites, they are in continuity with their ancestors in this way. He's saying, you stood, even if they didn't physically stand those many years earlier because they had not yet been born. You stood before the Lord your God at Horeb. Horeb is another word for Sinai. So Mount Sinai or Horeb is where God says to me, gather the people to me that I may let them hear my words so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth and that they may teach their children so. And you look at verses 9 and 10, you know what Moses is worried about is that the words of God would slip from their hearts all the days of their lives. They need to think on the words of God so that they may learn to fear the Lord all the days of their lives. What does Moses want for their future? Well, he needs them to think about their future and what would be best for their coming days. And what would be best for their coming days is that they are walking with God. But why would they assume that they'll be walking with God 20 years from now if they're not walking with God today? Why should they presume, well, at some point in the years to come, I'll follow the Lord. Moses needs them to think about their soul today. He needs them to think about their soul today. That they might be learning to fear the Lord all the days they live on the earth and that they may teach their children. There's a responsibility that verses 9 and 10 are laying before the Israelites. The Israelites know the living God. They've received words from the living God and they are to take it with such gravity and seriousness that it becomes part of what they want to talk about. It's not something private. It's not something secret that they're only gonna disclose to an inner ring. No, it's something that they are to be talking about with others, both contemporaries and younger than them, so that generation by generation, people are learning of what God has done. Lest the things that God has done depart from the hearts of the people and disaster follow. In verse 11, he describes what took place those 40 years earlier. He says, you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Just imagine this tall mountain extending into the clouds. It looks like it just extends into heaven itself. You know, it's such a massive mountain. Here they are at the base, overwhelmed by its grandeur. And when they're there, the mountain is aflame. And it's as if the extent of the mountain's top reaching into the heavens is like the fire itself going into the heart of heaven itself. The mountain wrapped in darkness and cloud and gloom. All of these are manifestations outwardly of what the Bible describes as a theophany, or an encounter, or a revelation of God. This theophany or this encounter with God, God is not the darkness, God is not the cloud, God is not the fire. But God in these elements manifests his presence in such a way where there is a visible, there is a visibility to something unusual and supernatural happening that suggests the presence of God drawn near. This mountain burning with fire reminds us of Moses' initial encounter with the Lord in Exodus 3. It wasn't a mountain on fire at the time. It was just the bush. Same mountain, but only the bush was on fire on the mountain and Moses draws near. The Israelites have this memory that they drew near to a mountain later in the days of Moses' leadership. This is no longer just a bush on fire and a voice of the Lord coming from it. Here is the bush that has become the mountain on fire. And from the mountain on fire, the voice comes not just to Moses, but to the Israelites through this mountain covered with fire, darkness, cloud, and gloom. You could go to Exodus 19 to see this. In Exodus 19, 16, that on the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain. Exodus 20 verse 21 says the people stood far off and Moses drew near to the thick darkness. When Moses is describing the mountain experience in Deuteronomy, he's giving you language that you get in Exodus about it. Now what happened when the Israelites drew near to this mountain? Well, in verse 12, the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. There was only a voice and he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform. That is the 10 commandments. He wrote them on two tablets of stone. Verses 12 and 13 are very important to Deuteronomy 4. Words are spoken. These will later be called the Ten Words, or the Ten Commandments, as we will typically call them. But the Ten Commandments is otherwise said in a way that you could translate the original language, the Ten Words. These commands are the words of God that He spoke. They heard the sound, but how weird it is, they saw no form. There is just a voice. However, the presence of earlier things, like the darkness and the quaking of the mountain in Exodus, the glory of the fire that seemed to stretch into the heart of heaven itself, all of this suggests that they're not hearing something that is mentally off within them. They are hearing an external objective voice. They collectively, as a people, hearing the manifestation of God, though no form. The reason no form matters is because God is not a creature. There's the creator-creature distinction that's established in the Word of God from Genesis forward. Only God is the creator, and everything else is derived from God, made by God. And God is the unmade maker, the one who forms and who himself has no beginning, and yet no form himself, that the Israelites could say, ah, that's what God is like. God is not like a thing that takes form. God is not something that has like a shape that the Israelites could say, that's the shape of God. God is like this element or this material. There's no form, only a voice. And the reason this can be especially perplexing to us as creatures is because we're used to, from our visibility and our embodied state, recognizing forms and seeing shapes, and we have analogies of things in our lives. Oh, it's shaped like this, or it's like that form, or this reminds me of that. But God is so different from us. This is a being without form. They hear a voice, and he declares his covenant in verse 13, the covenant that would be formed at Mount Sinai, the covenant with Israel. This covenant will be established in blood, according to Exodus 24. A sacrifice is offered, blood is sprinkled on an altar and on the people. A code, a covenant code is read, and by code I mean the laws. The covenant book is read and they say, we will obey. So God is declaring the covenant, but the covenant he declares can be summarized chiefly by the 10 commandments. You could say that every other regulation and command found in the book of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these commands are applications of and outworkings of the Ten Commandments. It's the Ten Commandments that are then engraved on two tablets of stone. We remember that this takes us then to Exodus 19 and Exodus 20, where they come to Mount Sinai, and in Exodus 20, he speaks the commandments of God. It's unique after the Ten Commandments, because the Israelites, having heard the Ten, say to Moses, we can't bear any more words, you need to go hear anything else from God that He wants to tell us, and you be our mediator. But until Moses ascended Mount Sinai to be their mediator, they all heard the voice of the living God. And in verse 14, the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules that you might do them in the land you're going over to possess. I take this to be those extensions and applications of the Ten Commandments, which are found later in the book of Exodus, after Exodus 20. Decrees and laws expanded on in the book of Leviticus, reiterated in parts of Numbers and Deuteronomy. These are what are called the statutes and the rules. Why are those applications being made? So that the Israelites will go into the land and live like they've got spiritual sense. So that they will go and love God and love neighbor and not live in immorality and idolatry. They will go with some spiritual soundness of mind. He says in verse 14, it's so that you can do these statutes. Why am I giving you these? So that you can go do them. Why am I giving you these rules? So that you can go live them out in a land that would not be following me, but instead rebelling against me. But you're going over into that land to possess it. That's the mighty conquest. In verses 9 to 14, they are remembering the revelation at Sinai. And then in verses 15 to 24, he's going to draw a present command and application. In light of what they're remembering, what should they do? Well, it sounds like how he began verse 9 when we look at verse 15. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully. Sounds in some way like only take care and keep your soul diligently from verse nine. It's a similar command. So this is a main theme then. He's wanting to press on them to say, okay, given what you're remembering, how should you be responding? You should be watchful, spiritually watchful. Watch yourselves very carefully. Don't you carefully watch things that you care deeply about? Maybe it's a possession, maybe it's a relationship. It's not on the periphery of your mind. You give diligent thought toward and careful watchfulness of what really matters to you. He's wanting them to take a consideration of their own soul and realize the state of their soul matters so profoundly. Therefore, they should watch themselves very carefully. Now, one of the reasons they should watch themselves is because they're going into a land that is going to try to craft things and forms and shapes to worship. In verses 15 to 24, after remembering the law at Sinai, they're gonna be avoiding the snare of idolatry. Verses 15 to 24 is about avoiding the snare of idolatry. Watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb, out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure the likeness of male or female. So you know what they're not supposed to do? They're not supposed to look toward the mountain where the God without form spoke and then go into the land and make a form saying, this is that God. They're not to do that. Because that would not be accurate. We'll think about this idolatrous concept in just a moment, but notice in verse 16, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image. Idolatry flows out of the state of a corrupted mind. This is not just Paul's idea in Romans 1. Paul teaches what he does in Romans 1 because Paul believes the Old Testament. Paul is steeped in the revelation of things like Deuteronomy 4. And what does Paul recognize? That what mankind has done is exchange the truth of God for a lie. Rather than worshiping the living God and the Creator, they've exchanged the worship of the Creator for created things that are not God. In other words, out of their corruption, they have acted corruptly by making a carved image for themselves. He says, don't do that. Beware lest you do that. You're gonna be so tempted to do that. In verses 15 and 16, since you saw no form, that should shape the way you worship. You saw no form. Don't go into the land and start making them. God didn't appear to them in some sort of shape that they're to say, all right, let's take that image. Did anybody, let's get the person with the best memory. And you should just sort of recall, like we're drawing out, you know, what did the person look like? And you're to take that particular sheet of paper and make an image accordingly. Don't make a carved image in the form of any figure. And then he's gonna, if somebody were to say, well, when you say any figure, Moses, what do you really mean? He's like, let me just give you some examples of what I mean. When I say don't make it of any figure, I mean, first of all, don't do it of people, male or female, don't try to make a form of any figure the likeness of any man or woman. because in the Israelite contemporaries' day, their cultures would have ancient deities shaped like a woman or shaped like a man. It would not be unusual at all for there to be some sort of gender-specific thing to an idol that was worshiped. And then in verse 17, not only are they not to try to make a likeness to worship in the way that it would reflect a male or a female, in verse 17, don't do it in the likeness of any animal. And he says, if somebody were to say, when you say any animal, you know, like how specific do you be? Okay, any animal that's on the earth, any animal that's in the air, any animal that creeps on the ground, anything in verse 18 that's in the water. So in other words, whether it's sky, whether it's on the land, whether it's in the ocean, let's just eliminate all those, okay? So that he's not being vague. He's breaking down the various realms of creation, isn't he? In verse 17, don't take an animal that's on the earth, or a winged bird in the air, or the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish in the water, and say, let's craft our deity like that. Of course the other nations would do such things. whether it was a likeness of something male or female, a likeness of something that was in the water, a likeness of something that was upon the ground. You think about the golden calf that the Egyptians would worship and that the Israelites made in Exodus 32, a golden calf, which would certainly be a violation of these very commands. Don't make something to worship out of something that's like a form of what God has created because God is not a creature. You're not to take creatures and say, this is our God. In verse 19, and beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you'd be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them. Things that the Lord your God has allotted to the peoples under the whole heaven. You know what verse 19 is about? People who look to the stars for their hope. who look at the stars and the patterns of things and the might of the sun and the beauty of the moon, who look at the heavenly bodies and say, well then my eyes will be drawn from what's on the earth and I will be drawn toward what is in heaven and I will worship the majesty of those things. This astral worship, this astronomical pull of the desires and worship of human beings is understandable in the sense that we see above us such majesty. Such a display of power and governing bodies in the heavens that move and orbit, a series of beautiful things. And we have the kind of technology to be more amazed at what is beyond this earth than they could possibly have fathomed in their day. And yet even in their day, people would look above and like the Egyptians have the sun god, Ra. and that their sun god would be their chief deity of their Egyptian pantheon, captivated by the sun. He says, don't look at the sun and the moon and the stars, any of the host of heaven, in the sense that you're drawn up to them to worship them. and bow down to them to serve them. Those are things, not gods. They're things. One of the most important elements of Genesis chapter one, in a world that was filled with the worship of astronomical and heavenly deities, was God in Genesis one being reported as making the sun and the moon and the stars. that those things are not God's. Genesis 1 says they're made by God. So we don't bow down and worship them. God has allotted those things to the peoples under the whole heaven. I take the end of verse 19 to mean people can look above and be impressed and in wonder at the heavenly things, but those have been allotted by God to serve his purposes across the nations. In other words, who benefits from the sun, and the existence of the moon, and the beauty of the stars? Well, we can recognize it all around the world as the Earth is orbiting and moving. We can see the fittedness of the language in verse 19, that God has allotted those things for all the peoples, not as things to be worshipped, but as things that reflect the beauty and grandeur of the Lord. Psalm 19 teaches this, doesn't it? The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim His handiwork. So you look up in the sky, the sky is not a thing to be worshipped. The sky is a thing that ought to prompt our worship of God. God has allotted those things under the whole heaven to benefit and to govern the seasons and times of His image bearers. Consider Jesus's words in Matthew 5, 45, that the sun, the sun rises upon the just and the unjust. The rain falls upon the just and the unjust. When we think about the activity of the heavens, God has allotted those things for the benefit of the nations, but not as things those nations should worship. In human folly, the things made by God have been things crafted and formed in some sort of likeness to be worshiped by sinful man. Some scholars wonder if Paul had Deuteronomy 4 up to this point in mind when he wrote the words of Romans 1 and in verses 18 and following. I won't read all of those verses, but just to give you an example of what I mean. In Romans 1 and in verse 19, what can be known about God is plain to them because God's shown it to them. His invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse, Paul says. Although they knew God, they didn't honor him as God, they didn't give thanks to him as God. In their thinking, they became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Notice Paul's little list there. Mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. It's like the list in Deuteronomy 4. covering male and female, covering things in the heavens, creeping on the ground, things in the sea. And so in their idolatry, their depravity is revealed. Idolatry doesn't reveal people seeking God. Idolatry reveals people rebelling against God. Idolatry is a revelation, a disclosure of the sinful state of mankind. Now in verse 20, Paul says, I'm sorry, Moses says, this is back in Deuteronomy 4 verse 20, but the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace out of Egypt to be a people of his own inheritance as you are this day. You know, the good news is the Israelites had been delivered as an Exodus people. The iron furnace of Egypt kept them in the heat of its slavery and oppression. They were like an iron furnace that in which you would want to be taken from because of the pain and the awfulness of being caught in such a device. And in the iron furnace of Egypt, God has pulled out his people. Just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were delivered from the fiery furnace in Daniel, God did that once for a whole nation out of Egypt. He brought them out in the mighty Exodus, and they're His inheritance to this day, to be a people of His inheritance and to receive the land, no doubt. He says here in verse 20, God did this, He's taken you and brought you. And then in verses 21 and 22, speaking of inheritance, Moses seems to like to take the opportunity to remind them, by the way, I'm not going in there. The rest of you are, I'm not. So he says in verses 21 and 22, seeming to hinge with this idea of inheritance, furthermore the Lord was angry with me because of you and he swore I shouldn't cross the Jordan. That I shouldn't enter the good land the Lord your God's giving you for an inheritance. For I must die in this land. I must not go over the Jordan. But you shall go over and take possession of that good land. Verses 21 and 22 seem to be an expansion on that idea of inheritance from verse 20. He said you're to be a people of God's own inheritance. By the way, I'm not going, am I? I'm not crossing that Jordan. I gotta die here. This is like the third time he's mentioned this, and we're only in chapter four. So, you know, Moses grieved the idea, deeply grieved the idea that he would not inherit the land with the people. And he's bringing it up here again in his sermon. In verses 23 to 24, though, that finish this subsection, he says in verse 23, take care lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you. and make a carved image. So forgetting the covenant could look like making a carved image. Do you see how the language and logic of verse 23 is working? Take care lest you forget the covenant, and then if you go farther down the line, and make a carved image, the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden you. One of the ways they will demonstrate a forgetfulness or a rejection of the covenant is if they forget literally the first two commandments. It's literally numbers one and two. You shall not have any other gods before me. You shall not craft for yourself or make for yourself an image to worship. Commandments one and two. You're not gonna get lost in the commandments searching for the prohibitions of idolatry. It's the top of the list. No doubt, I think, showing the primacy of and importance of right worship with the people of God toward their Lord. Take care lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Verse 24 explains the command of verse 23. So in verse 23, he says, you need to take care lest you forget this and end up making a carved image. It's like, well, why should we bother with that? What would be the problem with that? Well, in verse 24, here's the explanation. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire. You think the iron furnace of the Egyptians was not a light thing to trifle with? Do not live in rebellion against the living God. He's a consuming fire. No one ever said that about Egypt. But the Lord your God is a consuming fire, and that, no doubt, is a warning about judgment. Calling God a jealous God is a statement that is not having any negative connotations in the way that sometimes, in human relationships, we can know jealousy to be maybe an unflattering characteristic sometimes. But if you think about the rightfulness of jealousy in certain contexts, like covenant relational contexts, such as a covenant the Israelites are in, that if you imagine by analogy a human relationship where there's been some sort of promise and vow exchange like in a marriage, there is a rightful place for jealousy that's connected to love and devotion. Because if there was a breach of covenant and a pursuit of sexual immorality and not a provoking of jealousy on the part of the other spouse, you would be concerned about what the nature of that love and commitment really looked like. You'd think, well, wait a second, doesn't it bother you? So consider in a lesser to greater kind of way, here God is in covenant with the Israelites. If they were to go after other gods and make other gods for worship like the nations, and Yahweh, the living God, say, well, That's not a big deal, I can overlook that. What would that say of God's commitment and devotion to his own righteousness and glory? What would it say about his worth, as if worshipping other gods would be the same as, or not a big deal as, in light of who God is? It is good that God is a jealous God. God would not be worthy of worship if he shared his glory with idols. In other words, we need the biblical declaration that God is a jealous God for us to understand with careful thinking and patience all the good things that are meant by God being a jealous God. Nothing deficient there, nothing lacking there, nothing problematic with his character there, but rather something fitting and good and that God would be unworthy without. He needs to be a jealous God and therefore consuming fire over idolaters. The last section of the passage tonight moves to their future. One way to track these divisions is to say they had to remember their past, such as that event at Mount Horeb or the revelation of the law at Sinai, and then they were to avoid idolatry in the present because they're going into that land and they need to not make any other forms and idols. They need to worship the living God who was without form and whose voice gave them commands like don't have other gods and don't make idols. But what about their future? If we move from a past to present to future shift, here you have in the future an anticipation of restoration from exile. Think about that phrase for a moment. Anticipating restoration from exile. Now they're not even in the land yet, why are we talking about being removed from the land? Why are we talking about them being removed from the land and then brought back? A restoration from exile, they're still waiting on the east of the Jordan River to cross. These verses are incredibly forward-looking. Consider the perceptiveness of Moses. Warnings that ring like prophecy, as if he is predicting the future road for them. in ways that they could not have possibly embraced fully at the time. He says in verses 25 to 31, when you father children and children's children and have grown old in the land, that's in view, therefore, a conquest, an implication of going in and receiving inheritance. You're there. You're having generations. You're growing old. You're in that land. Well, if you act correctly, By making a carved image in the form of anything and by doing what's evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to provoke him to anger. Well, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today. That you will soon utterly perish from the land that you're going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. You know, pause here for a second. If they think we're going into this land and it will be our land no matter what. This land, we will be secure in this land and there is nothing to uproot us. We're in this land, no matter what enemies outside come against us or enemies domestically from within arise. When we're in this land, it's the promised land where the Israelites, he says, you won't live long in it. If you violate my covenant, you will be utterly destroyed. This is what later the prophets will warn the Israelites has drawn near to them when they are a split kingdom into a northern and southern, and Babylon will eventually come against the southern kingdom to destroy Jerusalem and the temple. It's like those words of Moses from Deuteronomy are echoing into the later history so that those prophets are saying, God told you this day would come. He told you that if you go into this land and you forsake him and you pursue idols, that God would bring exile and curse upon you. The curses of the covenant. I think verse 26 is warning about covenant curses. So that utterly perishing from the land, that's a covenant curse. It means to not only die physically, but to be displaced in exile. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed. Look more now in verse 27. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples. That means their home address is changing. It's Canaan from Joshua forward until the exile. Until the exile comes through the Babylonians who arrive on Israel's doorstep, and Moses had told them centuries earlier, the Lord will scatter you, that will happen. And you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there in verse 28, you'll serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. You know what lacks five senses? Idols. They don't have any, they can't do anything. And they can't speak, and they can't eat, and they can't hear, they can't see. These are the works of human hands. And it's like God is saying, my land of promise that I'm giving to the offspring of Abraham is for right worship. If you want the gods of wood and stone, I'll send you to a nation that worships them. And you'll go. I'll scatter you among the nations. You'll go to those peoples and you'll worship those gods if you want them so badly. You want those gods? I'll give you those gods. You want to be like those nations? Then you can live among them. They will reap what they sow. No injustice committed here from God. You'll serve them. And then in verses 29 through 31 that ends our sermon tonight, there is a promise looking beyond the days of exile. If the Israelites were to listen to Moses and say, Moses, what a dark turn your sermon just took. I mean, we were with you when you were remembering history, and we're like thundering mountain of Sinai, covenant, and we're ready to cross over. But oh my goodness, it got dark quick. Moses, what are you talking about? Serving the gods of wood and stone, as if we would ever do such a thing. And here in verses 29 through 31, he is giving them the hope that should the day of exile ever come, exile is not the last word. That's really good news. He says in verse 29, but from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him. If you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul, when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you'll return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you. or destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. You see what verses 29 through 31 are doing is holding out the hope of restoration post-exile. Should the day come when they're displaced from the land, is all hope lost? No, you know what they should do under the exile of judgment or the judgment of exile? They should seek the Lord. They should seek the Lord with all that they are. They should turn from idolatry, and they should search after God. In other words, they should remember. They should think on the words and ways of God. They should recall His wonders. They should speak of it from generation to generation. From that place of exile, from there, seek the Lord. You will find Him. And if you search for Him with all your heart and with all your soul, you will find Him. Those future days of exile are called in verse 30 here, tribulation. It's trouble. days of suffering and difficulty. And when the Babylonians came to the Israelites doorstep in the southern kingdom of Judah, they did experience tribulation. They deposed the king and they burned the palace and they wrecked the temple and they tore down the walls and they took away so many thousands of Jews into exile. When you're in tribulation and all these things come upon you in those latter days, you'll return to the Lord your God and obey His voice. The promise of restoration did take place when Babylon fell to Persia and the Israelites were granted a return to the land. But I'm convinced that those prophetic hopes, no doubt echoing language like this from Deuteronomy 4 all those years earlier, that these hopes were not completely fulfilled in the days of Israel's restoration back to the land and a rebuilding of their temple in Persian time. Instead, we need the prophecies of things like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel and Ezekiel, which promised that after the exile, God had a greater work coming and the restoration and the obedience of the people to their God would take place because God would form a new covenant on in which their hearts would have the word of God written, written upon their hearts, a covenant that was not like the covenant they broke. Jeremiah 31 verses 31 to 34 talks about that. And that in these latter days that verse 30 is talking about, it's ultimately in my judgment points to the days that the Messiah would bring in his new covenant work. where people would return to God and they wouldn't return just physically moving from this land of captivity to this land of exile, but they would move spiritually from darkness to life and into new birth because they know the Son of God. Because by His Spirit, the Word of God has been written upon their heart in a way that can only be called new creation, new covenant, something of eternal life that has taken place. You will return to the Lord your God and obey His voice. We know across the storyline of the Old Testament, the very grim history of Israel that's going to unfold. The days of Joshua are going to come when they inherit and conquest the land. But then the days of judges are going to come. In the days of the judges, it goes bleak. Even in the days of David, when the monarchy is established with a king from Judah's tribe, the Israelites are not perfect. Not even the kings are perfect. Even David's descendants, one king after another, none of them are the Messiah. None of them are without sin. All of them die. None of them reign forever over a kingdom. In the days of the Davidic descendants, those kings ultimately end in exile, where the Israelites will fall and succumb to the might of Babylon. And even when Persia defeats Babylon and the Israelites are granted a return, the Old Testament storyline ends in an incomplete way, on purpose, where promises have been made that have not found their fulfillment in the Old Testament days. where an expectation to reign with God and to know God and to walk wisely with God and to have obedient hearts has not come to fruition as the prophets had foretold because the days of the Messiah would bring such promises true. It would inaugurate their fulfillment when he announced a coming kingdom at hand. In verse 31, we're told why they will return. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you, or destroy you, or forget the covenant with your fathers that He swore to them. Now they might be forgetful, but they can count on the fact that God will keep His covenant promises. And he's not only made that covenant at Sinai, I think when he says here, your fathers, the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them, I think we're thinking about Genesis oaths at that point. The covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, that before there was an Israel and before there was a Sinai, there were earlier promises. And God is saying, I'm keeping my promises. None of them will fall to the ground. You may forget, I will not forget. You may forsake, I will not forsake. You may leave, I will not leave you. Their only hope is that God will not leave them. Their only hope is that he will not destroy them. Their only hope is that he is merciful and that when they come to him and when they seek them with their whole heart, that he will gladly receive them with open arms. And ultimately, the good news of the Old Testament promise here takes us into the New Testament era of Christ Jesus, the true and greater Israel, the one who would bring together not 12 tribes, but 12 disciples and announce a kingdom that was at hand and call people to repent and to be baptized in the Jordan River in the words of John the Baptist. It's like something new was happening. different from the covenant that they broke, something grand and spectacular in the announcement of the days of the New Testament Gospels. And we realize that the warning about idolatry abides. Because, as John Calvin once put it, our hearts are like idol-making factories. And we might not be thinking, well, how can I make something in the likeness of this female or male or this creeping thing or this bird in the sky? But our hearts can be drawn to hope in what is a God. And I think that's why, just like Moses is warning his Israelites against idolatry, It's why the book of 1st John ends the way that it does. Here's a new covenant letter and the last words of John to his readers in 1st John 521. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. It turns out whether you were a believer in Yahweh in the Old Testament, or a believer in Yahweh through His Messiah in the New Testament, the warning about idolatry mattered. And an antidote toward a heart prone to idolatry was to gather to remember and recall the wonders and revelation of God. And there is no greater revelation that God has given us than the Lord Jesus Christ. You think fire on a mountain and thick cloud and smoke and words spoken at Sinai were great? Wait till the story of a crucified Messiah and an empty tomb. It's greater than everything they've seen before. Let's pray.