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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.
Deuteronomy 4:41-5:5
Series Deuteronomy
Teaching on Deuteronomy 4:41-5:5
| Sermon ID | 82125150535673 |
| Duration | 1:02:58 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Deuteronomy 4:41-5:5 |
| Language | English |
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