You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for your sovereign will and providence in our lives. Lord, we thank you that we are here this evening, that we can come together and we can hear the truth of your word. So Lord, we pray that that is exactly what would happen this evening, that we would hear and understand and do your word. Lord, we thank you for this example that you give us of the Israelites and your dealings with them in this book of Deuteronomy. We pray that you would just impress it upon our hearts that we would be changed As a result, we pray all of this in your holy name, amen. All right, so last week, we were in the sort of middle to end of chapter four of Deuteronomy. And we heard essentially that this, you could call it the main theme that we've been in for a little while within chapter four, and kind of the entirety of what we've covered so far in Deuteronomy has been that there is no other God besides Yahweh. We saw that through the condemnation of idolatry, the punishments that would result if they were idolatrous. We see this through the history of Israel that we've recapped through chapters one through four. and we see just how good God has been to them, even up until this point, before they enter into the promised land. But as we were talking about last time, idols and this theme of there being this one God, it was pointed out that given the impotence and foolishness of other little G gods, that they have never done anything like what the one true God has done for his people. In fact, they couldn't do anything. These other gods could do nothing. But the one true God actually does work through history, works through just works his will out on this earth. But the one thing that these other gods do, even though I just said that they don't do anything, well, they do pull you away from the one true God. That's what they do. They can't do anything else. They just distract from the true God and they leave everyone in a worse state than they were in before. And that's what we've seen as these warnings against idolatry have taken place early on here in Deuteronomy. We had heard from John chapter four last week to bring some context in to Deuteronomy. Jesus said to the woman at the well, just further cementing that idea. that all other things don't satisfy. And this water, even that she was talking about with him, real water in a well, that it would make you thirsty, you'd have to come back to it over and over again, you'd still be thirsty. But following Christ, being his people, saved by his son, would bring that well of eternal water. So even though idols aren't real, We also heard that human service to idols does have real consequences. Do you remember one that was brought up at all? There was a connection between our modern day and days way, way, way long ago when they would sacrifice. What would they sacrifice to the idols then? Children. Right, and we see that to some extent even today, sacrificing children for the sake of your own selfishness, for the sake of your own comfort, et cetera. But the idea that in service to idolatry, let's just say, there are real world consequences, even though they're not real idols, even though they don't talk like God talks. All of these things that were explained so far in the first couple chapters, but there are real circumstances that occur And so we were exhorted to pursue the God of life and not the little g gods of death, essentially. But if you go back past last week, when we met on the first Wednesday night for prayer in here, Andrew was talking a little bit more about God's immutability. Remember, he had preached on immutability, and he had a few more notes, some more things to sort of engage us with. But I found it so interesting that he covered that. We're talking about idolatry for the past month, let's just say, in here. He said these few things, so I wanna bring this to bear on what we've heard so far, what we're gonna hear even tonight. Talking about God's immutability, that he does not change. God is not inactive or inanimate. So like these false gods were, inactive, inanimate, God is not like that. God is active and animate. He does things. God is not antisocial or impersonable. He's not a God that's just far removed from his people and doesn't involve himself in those things. He's a personal and social God in that way. He had said, Andrew had said, God is immutable, but he's not apathetic or heartless. So he's not a robotic machine that just, I do this, and I pull these strings, and these things happen. But he has a heart, and he has a heart for his people. And he expects his people to have a heart for him, which is kind of what we've been hearing. And the last one that I wanted to bring up from this idea of immutability was that God is immutable, but he's not unapproachable. And we heard last week about false gods, the stories of the mythical gods, and all the Father God and Mother God, and they have all these children gods, and all the things, all these mythical stories that were all fake and false in those days, but they were all unapproachable. God is approachable. God was approached by Moses in between God and the people. He was an approachable God in that way. So don't let these thoughts of idolatry confuse us or this human way of thinking about God confuse us. God is active and personal, personable. He has a heart. so to speak, and he is approachable. We covered that in chapter three, I believe, that who else has a God that they can pray to, that they can go to? Do you do that with the little wooden gods that they would make, et cetera? No, this God heard and said that you should come to me. So all of these things are just a little bit of context as we head into this week and we wrap up chapter four and head into chapter five. So, why don't we read? We are beginning in chapter four, verse 41, and we'll go to 5.5. So, Deuteronomy 4.41. Then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan, that the manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past. He may flee to one of these cities and save his life. Bezer in the wilderness on the table land for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites. This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel. These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules which Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt. beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, in the land of Sihon the king of the Amorites who lived at Heshbon, who Moses and the people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. And they took possession of his land and the land of Og, the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived to the east beyond the Jordan. from Aror, which is on the edge of the valley of the Arnon, as far as Mount Sirion, that is Hermon, together with all the Araba on the east side of the Jordan, as far as the sea of the Araba under the slopes of Pisgah. Chapter five, And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them, and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain." And we will pretend that he said is not a part of verse five, because that doesn't make any sense. But with the Lord bless the reading of his word and all that we have to hear even tonight. So this section that we are in tonight, not only is it maybe a little bit awkward because we have these cities of refuge. And then if you follow these headings, the introduction to the law, and now we're gonna go into the 10 commandments within chapter five. So it's a little bit disjointed, but it's technically not, if you look at it as a whole, from what we've been through, chapter one, two, three, now four, and heading into five. So this covenant that it's speaking of here, God made a covenant with these people, and it talks about Horeb. Anybody remember what's the equivalent of Horeb? What was the mountain at Horeb? Sinai, yeah. Same thing, different label, let's say. So when it's talking about this covenant that was made between God and the people of Israel at Horeb, at Sinai, it's all talking about the same covenant when Moses came down with the Ten Commandments and gave the law from God to the people. And then we hear, and we're gonna keep hearing in Deuteronomy of all the stipulations, all the things that now that this covenant was made between God and them, that there are these things that they need to obey. So this is all talking about the same covenant. It's being renewed now with this younger generation. Remember the older generation, what happened to them? Yeah, they all died in the wilderness. They weren't allowed to go into the promised land. And the second generation, we can call them, they're about to go into the promised land from all the wilderness wanderings. And now they're about to go in. But the thing that we need to see through these first four chapters, let's say, is that it's been really laying out a historical framework. There's been so much history, we even hear of it in our section with the King, you know, King Sihon and the Land of Og and all these things that happened. There's been so much history laid out, different places that I brought up, maps and things, just historical framework. And that describes things that actually happened. different from idols and little g gods. These are things that actually happened, things that happened to these people, things that God had done for them. And these kings, these two kings it says of the Amorites that we read about already in the book, God gave them the win in battle. He gave them the victory. And so all these things are God working. among his people. Things actually happened. And the whole idea of this history is that these things happened at a real time, at a real location. It was precise. It was tangible. It was real. And the people would have known. They lived through it. Or at least the parents did. And they were young. And so all this history had meaning for them. So this is all set into this historical framework of what God had been doing. all of this time among his people that he called out from Egypt. Last week, we'd already said we heard about these fanciful tales of gods and how they really didn't interact well with humankind. They were mean and spiteful and they wanted to vie for power and be the chief god and all these fanciful mythical stories that were around in this time period and adventures of gods and goddesses whose favor could be won by performing certain religious acts. some of them even being human sacrifice, we'll just say, whether children or not. And that that would gain you favor somehow with these mythical gods. But when you put that and you juxtapose that to Israel's history, real history, tangible history, things that actually happened, none of those stories were true because none of those gods were real. But Israel's God was real and was the only God. And he actually, was it a couple weeks back, we talked about how he spoke to them. And it says even tonight that he spoke to them out of the fire, face to face, hearing a God, not just mythical stories, but actually hearing a God speak to his people at Sinai. So the whole setting of all of this history is that it was a true story, and it really happened, and it's the story of a God who gives before he commands. And we'll hear more about that a little bit later. But in the way that he interacts with his people, it's not demanding and commanding them, and then you'll be in my good graces. They're in God's good graces. He redeemed them and then he tells them what they are to do in light of that. So let's look at these three cities that just quickly appear here and we'll move on from them. Verse 41, then Moses set apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan. I'm going to give you a map again. So these three cities in the east beyond the Jordan, that the manslayer might flee there. Anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally without being at enmity with him in time past, he may flee to one of these cities and save his life. Bezer in the wilderness on the table land of the Reubenites, way down low here. Bezer is the first one. Ramoth in Gilead. The next one up for the Gadites and Golan way up high in Bashan for the Manassites. So these were the territories for Gad and Manasseh. And I believe down lower, yeah, Reuben, the Reubenites. So these were these three cities, each in one of these areas, locations, where these tribes were going to settle before going across the Jordan into the promised land. Now the whole thing about these cities, how does this operate? What in the world are they? Well, it doesn't really explain all of that precisely here, but in the book of Numbers, In chapter 35, you hear more about these things. In the book of Deuteronomy, you'll actually hear a lot more about them in chapter 19. So when we get to chapter 19 of Deuteronomy, you'll hear more because there's established more cities of refuge that are on the other side of the Jordan. So these were on the east side, and then on the west side of the Jordan, there's gonna be three more cities, total of six. But in Numbers chapter 35, Just for a little more context, we won't dive deep into these cities, but 35 beginning at verse six in Numbers says, the cities that you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge. So the context is that the Levites didn't actually have a land or location like these other tribes did, but these six cities of refuge, well, those were gonna be also where the Levites would be, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give 42 cities. So there's gonna be six cities of refuge, but 42 for all the Levites. All the cities that you give to the Levites shall be 48 in total with their pasture lands. So this is a subset of the cities that the Levites would get. And then a couple verses later in 35 verse nine, that's when you get more into the cities of refuge. And it says in 13, the cities you give shall be six cities of refuge. You shall give three beyond the Jordan and three in the land of Canaan. So the three that we're talking about to the east of the Jordan and then three that are going to be in the promised land. And they'll be cities of refuge. It says in Numbers 35, 15, these six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them that anyone who kills any person without intent may flee there." And we can get into the details of how that operated when we get to chapter 19 but if someone didn't intentionally murder someone, right? Something happens and there's an accidental death that was inflicted by a person. The families of the one who died would want immediate and swift retribution, and oftentimes would go and try to kill the person who killed their son or daughter, let's just say. But if it was some sort of accident, there was no justice, no trial, no anything like that happening before someone seeks to take revenge. These cities of refuge were a place where that person could go and they were not allowed, the family or anyone else, a husband of a wife that was accidentally killed. They couldn't do anything to that person when they were in the city of refuge. Yeah, right, I don't know the exact answer to that, but I'd assume because it's in here, there was reason to give them a safe haven for the times that things like that would happen. You're building your house, and you're up there fixing your roof with your neighbor, and you toss him a tool, and he grabs it and falls off the edge of the roof and dies. People could still come after you and say, you did that. You threw him the tool. I'm just using an odd example. But there were times, sure, when things like this would happen. And I think the main gist of all of this is that God is a God of justice, perfect, righteous justice. And if someone came after someone to then murder them because of something that happened via accident and there was no due process according to the laws that he's laying down in these Old Testament books, then where would be the justice? And so they had protection in these cities until such a time as their case could be heard and the truth and justice could actually come out as a result. I went a little bit deeper into that than I thought maybe I was going to. But we will hear about it again, because in 19, that's when the next three cities will be assigned. And they go a little bit more into that. But you can see, even from the map, that there was one up in the north, in the middle, and in the south. And then the same thing I believe will happen with the other three on the other side of the Jordan is that they're sort of laid out so that one could get to these cities of refuge if the need arose. And these tribes were already allotted their place. The men were still going to go travel to take over the promised land, but women and children were going to stay behind. So they were already settling into there, and they needed to have these cities for the weird predicaments that may come up. But like I said, the way to see this is not, how did this work? And what if somebody did this? And what if somebody did that? And what are all these circumstances that would arise? But it's the practical outworking of God's love and provision for his people. He provided them a way to not have some swift retribution that was unjust happening to them. So he was dedicated to his perfect justice and made a provision for this. The other thing that, as I was reading about this, people were pointing out was, what were the Israelites doing for 40 years prior to this? Wandering around. What did they live in? Tents. Yeah. They were largely nomadic, if you wanted to call it that. Their lifestyle was nomadic, they were in tents, they were wandering through the wilderness. Technically, I think I have this one still. They wandered all the way down to Sinai, Sinai was down here, they wandered way down, they wandered all the way back up, and then they took over those territories that were up there, which we were just talking about, but they were largely nomadic. And now what's happening in these lands of Gad and Manasseh and Reuben that they were assigned, there were already houses. There were already structures. There was already urbanization, if you want to call it urbanization, in these locations, in these cities. And so now they have to go to living not in a nomadic way. Now they have been assigned a territory. They have to live in an urbanized way in these permanent locations. So it's a shift away from how they were living to a new way of living. And so provisions like this for cities of refuge or provisions about how they should live in these cities, we're going to come across a whole bunch as we get into the meat of Deuteronomy, that these things are the way that God's telling them, here's how you're going to need to live. You're going into the promised land, and it's going to be a shift. Not only will you be surrounded by nations who practice idolatry, but you're gonna have to live in a different way. And this is pointed out by a lot of people that in Deuteronomy, about 25 times it uses this phrase, in your gates. So in your territory, in your cities, in your gates, this is how you should live. So there's this idea, it sounds weird to say urbanization because we think of modern cities and towns, but it was not the way that they were used to living. And so it was a change. And God in his kindness is going to lay out here how they are to live in these locations. So those are the three cities that it mentions here. Now we get to the introduction to the law, verses 44 and 45. This is the law that Moses set before the people of Israel. These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the rules which Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt. Which is true, when they came out of Egypt and they were at Sinai, he spoke these testimonies and statutes and rules. And now that they're on the edge of the promised land, he's doing it once again, speaking these testimonies, statutes, rules, setting this law before the people of Israel again. So these verses, this really starts Like it says in the heading, hopefully, of your Bible, it says the introduction to the law. This is the introduction to the second major section of Moses' address. Remember, Moses addresses the people of Israel. This is his second major address. This one is going to cover chapters 5 through 26. His second address is the longest one and this is going to be the real expounding of the law in broad ways and then in specific ways. So whether you want to note this or not some people think that this section 44 to 49 before we get into Chapter 5 and the Ten Commandments people believe that this section should be a part of Chapter 5. Well, you know, there weren't chapter numbers when this was written. These chapter numbers help to organize what it is that we're reading it as we read it. So whether or not this section is essentially tied to chapter five, or as other people argued, that it's essentially a closing of chapter four of the first address, it's kind of inconsequential whether it's the beginning of one or the end of another, because the idea here is that Moses is explaining and interpreting the law to the Israelites. And so that's what this whole book is about. He's essentially, we've said this a bunch, that he's essentially preaching to them. He's taking the law that God gave, he's giving it again, and then he's gonna expound upon it, how they should live in all these cities, in this promised land, because he's gonna apply it now to the people in this circumstance that are going into the promised land. And was he going to go in? Was Moses gonna go into the promised land? So I took the map down. But when they're on the edge and they're not over the Jordan into the promised land, because he was not allowed, he has to give them everything that they need for life and godliness in the promised land on the other side. Now, the interesting thing is that this second section, I'll say, Moses's second speech from chapter 5 to chapter 26, Seems huge, but it's broken into two sections. Five through 11 are broad and general, and 12 to 26 are specific and detailed. And we'll see that as we continue to go through and study Deuteronomy. It starts off with the big picture, broad, general, the law of God, and then 12 to 26, as it goes on further and further, gets more specific and more detailed. And one thing that I thought was very interesting was that there were comparisons people were making to this section of Deuteronomy to Jesus. If you remember in Matthew, When he gives the Sermon on the Mount, at the very beginning you have the Beatitudes. You know the Beatitudes of Matthew? And those Beatitudes speak to broad, sort of general, they called it entire life, sort of theology. But then, as he goes on into the Sermon on the Mount, he gets more detailed in his teaching, and it gets expounded then. The things that he said in the general part then get broadened, no, not broadened, narrowed in, the opposite of broadened. They get narrowed in to more detailed teaching. And so a lot of people were making this acknowledgement that Jesus, one, was steeped in scripture. He had to grow up and he had to study it. As children in Israel, he had to study and know the scripture, on top of the fact that he was the literal word incarnate. But he was so familiar with Deuteronomy that people say Deuteronomy just came out of him. When he finds himself in the wilderness being tested by Satan, Every single quote that he gives back to Satan is from Deuteronomy, both chapter six and chapter eight. So Deuteronomy just came out of Jesus. And this section particularly that we're going into, section of five through 11 were very formative chapters in the life of someone in Israel. So it showed his own commitment to do the will of his father in the way that it ties into Deuteronomy in this way. So as we see in verse 45, these three words used again, we've heard these previously, the testimonies, statutes, and rules These three, and there's other ones as well, are all descriptors of the law, just slightly different variations of how you would describe the law. But it's all essentially pointing to testimonies, statutes, rules, judgments. Sometimes it says they're all pointing to the law of God in its entirety. And we see again here, So Moses, it says, he sets this law before the people, the testimony, statutes, and rules, which Moses spoke to the people of Israel when they came out of Egypt. So this theme again of speaking, and along with speaking is hearing. Just like God spoke to them at Sinai and they heard, the same theme is continuing where Moses speaks to them and they're going to be told to hear. Speaking and hearing come up over and over again in this book. Verse 46 beyond the Jordan, in the valley opposite Beth-Peor, in the land of Sihon, the king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon, whom Moses and the people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt. And they took possession of his land and the land of Og, the king of Bashan, the two kings of the Amorites, who lived to the east beyond the Jordan." from Arur, which is on the edge of the Valley of the Arnon as far as Mount Sirion, that is Hermon, together with all the Araba on the east side of the Jordan as far as the Sea of the Araba under the slopes of Pisgah. Really, it's just continuing to talk about all of the things that occurred on this east side of the Jordan as they came from the south and they came up and defeated The two kings of the Amorites, this was all up here before they split these tribal territories. But this was already covered in chapter 2 and 3. We had the defeat of King Sihon in 2, and then the defeat of King Og at the beginning of 3. battles that took place with these kings that were in this location where they have settled these, well, you could say three, but two and a half tribes. And so it's just, it's recollecting that history again, just hearkening back again to what we covered, what Moses had already said in his first address. Now he's bringing it back up. It's more of a summary. of all that he had talked about in his first address, all the things that happened to them as they came into this area. And now they have overtaken, defeated these two kings. All of this area was theirs now. They're waiting to go across the Jordan. These were the things that happened. to them in this location. And these verses then introduce the whole next section of the book, because it's kind of another summary. He went through his first address. Now he gives this brief little summary again. Whether or not these addresses happened one after another, or whether there was time between them, he's giving another summary of what he had said in the first one. from chapters two and three. The interesting thing is that in Old Testament and even just ancient covenants and treaties, oftentimes there was repetition. Same thing would be said over and over again. Why would we ever need to hear repetition of something? That's how you learn it. That's how you know it. Apprehend it. You forget. We all forget so quickly things that we hear. And so the repetition aspect of this was not uncommon. And often summaries weren't uncommon either. You would get through a portion of whatever the covenant was and then summarize that and then move on to the next parts. And so that's similar to what's happening here. It doesn't jump out at you unless you understand how these covenant documents work, but this is a covenantal structure and document with these people, between God and His people. But like I said, these acts of God that happened in history, He helped them in these battles. They cleared out this whole area, defeated them. These things were very significant. The history of what God had done among them, what he had done for them. These were significant things for them to continue to remember. Why does God always tell them, remember I brought you out of Egypt? And over and over again, remember that time you were all enslaved and I brought you out and you're my people? And it just continues to be repeated. So these are true acts in history. The God who demands their allegiance. So we're going to head into the law in these bunch of next chapters. It's going to be all the law that was given to them explained to them by Moses. But he doesn't demand their allegiance in order for them to gain anything. because he's already met their needs. We've talked about all the things he supplied in the wilderness, the food, the water, et cetera. They just said, we just want to go back to Egypt. But he met all their needs. He showed them grace in saving them. He redeemed them out of Egypt and then says this is how you should live. Now he demands their allegiance through these covenant stipulations. But it always works in this pattern. The Lord does something first and then asks something in return. So you have redemption first and then covenant obedience that's required and expected. But never the other way around. So he had delivered them. Remember the word, I don't know who was teaching, but suzerain and vassal, these covenant players, let's just say, the suzerain was the one that was higher than the vassal. but they were under a cruel suzerain before in Egypt. But God had delivered them through his power from this cruel suzerain, this cruel power of Egypt, and they in turn should be glad to be under a totally different ownership. God had said that now you are my people, my inheritance. They were under different rule than they were before. And so it's not just the fact that he rescued them when they came out of Egypt, which he had done. He rescued them, he brought them out of slavery, but he continued to give them victory over enemies. And that's what this section here is calling out, these two kings. He kept giving them victory, blessing them, redeeming them from these cruel kings and suzerains. So as we heard that God is a speaking God and we should be a hearing people the God who speaks is the God who saves. All those gods that don't speak that he talked about in the previous chapter they don't save but the God who speaks saves and after he saves he expects obedience. And now we head into chapter five. So this is really, really just the introduction to the law before it gets into it. But it says in verse one of chapter five, And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. So, Moses calls all of Israel to him. Now, remember we had said before, this potentially was a few million people, and so they weren't all going to hear him speak at one time, but he summons them to hear. However that worked, he summoned them to hear the law, the statutes and the rules that were just talked about at the end of chapter four. And he speaks, again, this theme of speaking. He's speaking in their hearing, and they should learn them and be careful to do them. This was his proclamation of the law as God's mouthpiece. And this constant emphasis of this theme of hearing, speaking, the theme of the ear being the organ of response and obedience, hear, O Israel, he says, And remember, we had said before that God could not be seen, but what could he be? He could be heard. They didn't see any form. They saw smoke and lightning and fire and all kinds of things at the mountain at Sinai. They had seen that stuff, but they didn't see God. God is what? God is spirit. And so he wasn't seen, but he was heard. Has anybody heard the word before Shema or the Shema from the Old Testament, technically from Deuteronomy? Anybody know what it is? Yeah, hero Israel, the Lord, let me look at it, 6-4, Deuteronomy 6-4, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That's what's traditionally referred to as the Shema. But the interesting thing is that Shema actually means something in Hebrew. So it's not just this saying here, but does anybody know what Shema actually means? Yeah, yeah, it is a word. Yeah, exactly. So we call that the Shema but we call it the Shema because that word that begins chapter 6 verse 4 is hear. Hear O Israel. And that happens over and over and over again in Deuteronomy. The most famous one is 6 4. But we see that right here in verse 1 of chapter 5. What does he say to them. Hear O Israel. The same thing. So he says Shema which means hear or sometimes depending on the context to hear. They were to hear. But in 5.1 we see a few different words actually. He tells them to hear, hear the law that he's speaking in their hearing. So hear it and then You shall learn them, so hear and learn, and then be careful to do." We have these three commands from Moses at the beginning of this section of the law. They should hear it, they should learn it, and they should do it. Now the interesting thing is that hearing the law by itself isn't enough. That's not enough to produce a wholesome and holy society. So they're gonna go into the promised land. Can they be a wholesome and holy society over there if they just hear the law? Could they be a wholesome and holy society if they hear and learn the law? Do they have to have all three? Do they have to hear it, know it, learn it, and then actually do it? That's the whole point of what he's calling them to in this verse. It's a crucial verse because of these three things. There is a need for a fundamental collective commitment to actually do the will of God. And they would do the will of God out of gratitude and covenant loyalty. That's the whole idea. So they would they would hear and learn the law this covenant that he's making with them and then they would do it all together. They would do it out of gratitude because he was their God. Although hearing and remembering or knowing the law had value and still has value you have to hear it. How will you know it if you don't hear it. But then you have to know it. You have to learn it. It's repeated over and over again. You have to hear it over and over so that you learn it. But then the covenant demands more than just brain power or a good memory or mental capacity. The people who were supposed to do it. not just remember in their minds, thou shalt not this and that and this and that, and then go and kill someone. Thou shalt not murder. Well, I know it. I heard it and I learned it. And then instead of not killing someone, go and kill someone. So although the hearing and the knowing, the learning is immensely valuable, You have to have that in order to do it. You don't have anything if you don't do it. And this made me think, for those of you who have children or know anything about children, that if they heard their parents, and then they learned what it was that they wanted them to learn, and then they don't do it, was that successful? What's the whole point? So that they would actually do it. If they hear you say, don't do that thing, and you say it often enough that they know you're going to say, don't do that thing, and then they go and do it, we would all say that was not a success. And it's the same thing with God. He gives them this law. He repeats it over and over. And even if you go through all the prophets he's still repeating this over and over. You're my people. Listen to me. Look at what I have done for you in the past and then do it. So the whole idea is to put these truths into practice but not to flip it all on its head and put the truths into practice because you think that's going to gain you some sort of favor. The whole idea of Deuteronomy is that they already have God's favor. They've been redeemed. Now put this into practice. And God knew that throughout all the succeeding generations. Now this is the second one. You had the first one. Now you have the second generation. There would be people who were intellectually familiar with these things but totally indifferent to actually doing them. They would know them. And we even see this in the New Testament. What was a group of people in the New Testament that knew the law, the Pharisees, but were their hearts really truly committed to doing it, the essence of the law, or just the letter of it? Because they knew it, and that's as far as that went. But if you think about this idea of knowing, learning, hearing it, learning it, doing it. Disobedience actually sounds like it's a pretty bad sin. Because in a lot of these occasions, people knew and they still did wrong. Think about Achen. Achen knew that theft was wrong and he did it anyway. David is a good case study. David knew all the commandments. David knew about covetousness, theft, adultery, and murder, and he still went to Bathsheba, and he still subsequently ordered the death of her husband. But he knew the law. In his mind, he knew the law. He had heard it, he had learned it, and then he broke it. He was not doing the law. Ahab is another one. Ahab knew the offense of idolatry, covetousness, false witness, theft, murder, but he took part of all of those sins. So we hear the Ten Commandments and we think, that's pretty easy when you hear them at face value. And there was a guy in the New Testament who approached Jesus and said, I've done all these things. What else do I need to do? But all of these, let's just call them all of these sad stories that are told in scripture, they serve as a warning. Oftentimes we see them and we think, this is terrible, how could David do that? It's a warning, it shows you that we all succumb to sin. But it also shows you none of these people sinned out of ignorance, not because they didn't know or had never heard who was God and what did he expect of me. So surely they knew about these statutes and rules and ordinances, all the law, but taking care to do them, which is what this says, it says, you shall learn them and be careful to do them. There's a care that needs to be taken in order to do them. James, which was a good example earlier, James again is another good example. It says, be doers of the word and not what? Hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks intently at his face in a mirror. He looks at it and goes away, and then he forgets what he looks like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1, 22 to 25. In Matthew 7, 24 to 27, Jesus says, And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell. And great was the fall of it." We need God's grace to even do a little bit of this law. We can't obey unless we've first been redeemed. which is what they had been redeemed out of Egypt and now they're told to obey. We've been redeemed by Christ and we are told to obey and we are given another helper, the Holy Spirit. In Deuteronomy chapter nine, it says in nine verse six, know therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because you are righteous. It's not because they were good and they were righteous that God's going to take them to this promised land. It says because for you are a stubborn people, which is accurate. But it's not a result of what they had done. It's a result of what God had done for them. Let's finish out this introduction to chapter 5, verse 2. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at the time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. The fascinating thing about this, and lots of people have written about it, is that it says that he made a covenant with these people. It says, not with our fathers did he make this covenant. But he did make the covenant with their fathers. This is the second generation. The first generation fell in the wilderness. Why is he saying that God didn't make a covenant with their fathers? But he says, but with us who are still alive today, essentially. And goes on to say that God spoke with you face-to-face. Did God speak with all these second generations face-to-face? Some of them may not have been born. So is the Bible wrong? He did make a covenant with their fathers. He did speak to their fathers face-to-face and not with them. Did they get afraid because of the fire? Well, if they weren't there, how could they have been afraid of the fire? This whole section has all these questions and people write and write and write and write all about it. But the idea here, the real point, is that there is continuity of the covenant. from the fathers to the people that are standing there before Moses in that day. And these are the ones that are going to go into the promised land. The whole point is that that covenant, yes, it was made with the fathers, but he's commanding them to live in obedience in the promised land. These people that are still alive, that's why it says, who are all of us here alive today. Where was everybody else? Dead in the wilderness. It's not that the covenant wasn't made with them but these are the people who were alive and here today. And so there's continuity as it flows out of God's covenant with them that it is just as if this generation was there. That's what this is saying. It's just as if they were there. It's just as if you heard face to face at that mountain and you were afraid of this fire. Because God is the same. He was the same to that first generation. He's the same to this second generation. This is a renewal of this covenant of sorts. And so even if those things didn't happen directly to these people that are a part of the second generation, it did. This covenant was still with them. It was still with them as God's people. And they were just as much a part of it as the people who had died in the wilderness. And this phrase, face to face, Well, that sounds crazy, too, because it says God can't be seen, right? Nobody's seeing him. The whole idea of face-to-face is essentially to say in person. If I said, Travis, can we have a face-to-face meeting later? That means I'm not gonna call you or text you, we're gonna actually be in person, face-to-face. Yeah, FaceTime, that's probably why it's called that. Because of Deuteronomy, Apple decided to call that FaceTime. But that's the idea of this phrase here, face-to-face. Were they face-to-face? Well, when God brought the previous generation to the mountain and they heard God speak, it was in person. They were there before God on that mountain. Not literally but metaphorically they were face to face. It had a personal nature to this covenant that was made with them. So like I said before God is not some impersonal God and these aren't just some abstract general duties that they should follow. And these people were far removed from obeying what had been given in this covenant. They weren't. The whole idea of this law of God is that it flows from and exudes God's character. It's his righteousness and his perfections that come out of you. You read this law and you will hear who God is. So it was more than a list of stipulations. Do these things don't do these things. This was fundamentally a relationship between God and his people through this covenant. So before we get into the meat of this law, which we'll get into in just a couple weeks, I'm not sure how we have this broken down, but I know, I believe each one of the Ten Commandments, we will take a separate week to go over just that one. Because we want to really elaborate on what do these things mean. But a lot of times, The law of God, especially in the Old Testament, it's pushed aside, it's perverted by people these days. Attitudes are, ah, that law doesn't matter, it doesn't apply to us. It's just some nebulous ways that people could live to be nice and moral. But the whole idea is that this is displaying in word, this is displaying God's character, who he is, how he worked among his people. So I wanna leave you with this, with a quote as we end. A man named Sam Bolton said this, the law sends us to the gospel. to learn how to be saved, because the law can't save us. So the law sends us to the gospel. We need saving. How can we be saved? But then the gospel sends us back to the law to learn how we should live. So the law points us to the gospel, and then the gospel points us back to the law, not to be saved by the law, but to do it because we've been saved through Christ. And you could almost say that you have grace and then law and then more grace to do the law. So that's the whole idea of this as we go and head into, like I said, the meat of the law. We have to keep these things all in mind, because after all, in the New Testament, Ephesians starts out with, in chapters one to three, all of who God is and what he's done for his people. And then in chapters four to six, it says, this is how you should live. And the same in Romans, chapters one to 11, explain all the doctrine. And then in chapter 12 to 16, it says, and now you should live like this. In light of what God has done, then you should do something. not to earn his favor, but because he redeemed his people. And it's the same from them, it's the same for us. So we need to keep this right biblical view of law and obedience, that we're not gaining any favor, and neither did they, but it's all out of gratitude for what God had done in their lives, and the same thing in our lives, we pray. So why don't we pray for that now? Lord, we thank you that you have given us the truth of your word. We thank you that even these events that have taken place so long ago have such application and relevance for us today. Lord, may we look back on our redemption, on the salvation of our souls that you have wrought in us. May we look back on that, remember it, and then live lives that are in accordance with the truth of your word. Lord, help us to do that. We know we can't do it perfectly, but help us to strive to not be hearers only, but to go and to be doers as well, we pray in your name. Amen.