Deuteronomy 5–6 (Part 2)

Deuteronomy chapter 5. Last week we covered the 10 Commandments and we basically just got through the 10 Commandments and that's as far as we got because it was, we took our time to unpack each of the commandments and get into some specifics about them. And so we're in chapter 5 still, but we're picking it up in verse 22, right after Moses dealt with all of the 10 Commandments. And here's what he said to the people. He said,

(ESV) And they came near because the voice of the Lord freaked him out too much to be completely honest with you. This is, if you've ever watched the movie, The Ten Commandments, that came out back in black and white days, I think they still play it at certain times of the year. At least they used to. Anyway, the scene where the Ten Commandments are given is in the movie, is given just to Moses. He's up on the mountain and they did a pretty good job for back in those days. Fire coming out of nowhere, and writing on the rock, and then God carving the rock out of the side of the hill. And it was pretty well done, but it gave you the impression, if you were to watch that movie and say, well, that's the way it happened, you would come away saying, well, Moses received the Ten Commandments and everybody else was just doing their own thing. But the fact is, like, he's reminding them here in Deuteronomy 5, they all heard the voice of the Lord. They all saw the mountain literally burning with fire. They all saw the smoke. They felt the shaking of Mount Sinai and they heard the trumpet sound as the Lord spoke. As the Lord spoke the Ten Commandments to them, they all heard the Lord speaking the Ten Commandments, but that's all they heard. But that was enough. And it says in verse 24, and he's reminding them,

And it must have been assumed on their part, by the people, that if God spoke directly to someone that they couldn't survive that which is a rather odd assumption given the fact that God had been speaking to Moses all along. I'm not sure what they thought God was doing with Moses on his prior, meetings with the Lord. But, anyway, the whole experience seems to have been just too much for them to handle because now look what they say in verse 25. They say,

Again, I've said to you before, I've had people say to me, I just wish God would speak to me, or appear to me, and talk to me, then I would believe. These people had God talk to them and they begged Him to talk no more. That's the reality of the awesomeness and the glory of God. They heard God speaking the Ten Commandments and they came to Moses immediately and said, please don't let Him say anything else. If He does, we will die. It's pretty amazing, isn't it? In our arrogance sometimes, we're thinking, Hey, I just want God to talk to me. Just God speak to me. Do you think you'd be able to stand it? Do you think you'd be able to handle the Lord speaking to you? These people, who had seen already incredible things that God had done, felt like if the Lord spoke one more time, they would die. And one of the reasons that this was the case is because the message of Mount Sinai was not a comforting one necessarily. Do you remember before God began to speak? What did Moses say to the people? He said, don't approach the mountain, the foot of the mountain. Keep your distance. If you even touch the lower part of the mountain, you will die. So this was not one of those. This was not come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. This was not an invitation of welcome. It was a warning of stay back, stay back. Keep your distance or you will die. And that's why the author of Hebrews, in contrasting what those people experienced, and what you and I have in our relationship with God, wrote a rather interesting comparison. Let me put this on the screen for you so you can see it. Hebrews chapter 12 is where we're starting. Okay. It says,

But you have come to Mount Zion (right?) and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, (the word festal means in celebration) and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. And this is all from Hebrews chapter 12. I love this contrast. He's telling them, you didn't come to this mountain that was burning with fire where the people trembled. Even Moses trembled, and they were just freaked out by it. You've come to Mount Zion. Not Mount Sinai, Mount Zion. And it's a different sort of a situation. We have this, sense that God wants us now to come near. He says, come to Me, and we take it for granted. So was that a different God? Was it a different God in the old Testament who said, no, you guys got to stay away, than the God of the New Testament who says, come. No, it's not a different God. What has changed? The blood of the Lamb has been slain. That's what's changed. In under the old covenant, the blood of the Lamb had not been slain. At least not the fulfillment of their sacrificial systems, meaning the Lamb Jesus, because sins had not been atoned for in that sense. In a final way, which Jesus accomplished. God showed Himself holy to the nation of Israel that they might fear Him, but God is still just as holy today. And that's something we need to remember. Even though through the blood of the Lamb, we have been bid to enter. Verse 28. He says, “And the LORD heard your words, when you spoke to me. And the LORD said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. 29 Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!” What is the Lord saying here to Moses? He's saying that the attitude of the people at that particular moment was very good from the standpoint of their attitude toward God. But also, God says here, oh, but I wish that they would continue to feel this way. God, who knows all men, of course, knows that we have a tendency in our lives to be very God friendly when life is in a tailspin. We have a tendency to be very God sent. I'll remind you of what happened in our country, on several different occasions when things got very tough for our country. On 9/11, for example. It was amazing how many politicians and people on TV were suddenly talking about God and prayer. It was amazing, really. I mean, I remember watching it and just like, wow. And the President and Senators, and they're all stepping up to talk about God, and they're all stepping forward to talk about how we just need to pray for the victims. And everybody was talking about God because we had gone through this very traumatic experience as a country where for the very first time, that level of terrorism took so many lives and caused so much devastation. And suddenly we were all very God friendly. And that's our human nature. It's the way we are. It's the way I am. I recognize my own heart that I can be very sensitive toward the things of God when I'm hurting. And yet when life pulls back from that hurt and begins to settle out a little bit, suddenly, I'm not as interested in praying. Suddenly I'm not as interested in reading my Bible. Suddenly, I'm not as God friendly as I was before. What God is saying here is, these people they heard My voice. They saw the mountain on fire. They felt it shaking. They heard the trumpet. They heard the Ten Commandments. And now they're all ready to be obedient. Oh, but I wish they would always be this way. Along these lines, there's an interesting passage in John's Gospel. I want to show you on the screen, John chapter 2, look at this. It says,

This is a really fascinating passage because what it says is Jesus, people got very Jesus friendly during certain parts of His ministry, because they saw the miracles He was doing. And they were following Him and going, Jesus is great. And they followed along and so forth. But it says in this passage that Jesus would not entrust Himself to those people. Why? Because He knew, He knew what was in their heart. What's in their heart? A very fickle attitude toward God. At the root of our lives, we are extremely fickle. And we will run to God when life gets hard and we will back off when it eases up again. And God knows that. It's interesting here. Jesus knew that some of the, many of the people, most of the people, would end up turning away. Not everybody, but most of them.

There's a particular point in John's Gospel where Jesus said some very challenging things to the people. And it says, after that, many people stopped following Him. Jesus even turned to the 12 and said, so what about you guys? You're going to leave too? Remember Peter's response? He says, Lord, where are we going to go? Only You have the words of life. (John 6:68) Look at verse 30. “Go and say to them, “Return to your tents.” 31 But you, stand here by me, and I will tell you the whole commandment and the statutes and the rules that you shall teach them, that they may do them in the land that I am giving them to possess.’ 32 You shall be careful therefore to do as the LORD your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.” “33 You shall (and here comes the words of the covenant, You shall) walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess.” There it is right there. That's the covenant between God and Israel, okay? That is not the covenant between God and the church. Different covenant. God said in Jeremiah, I'm going to make a new covenant with the people. This is the old covenant. And the covenant is, obey My law, obey My word, obey My statutes, I'll bless you in the land. And it'll go well with you in the land. Deuteronomy 6. “Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules— that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2 that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long.” Again, God is spelling out, or Moses is reminding them of how God spelled out the covenant and the terms of it. “3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, (here it is again) that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey.” Now, there he's outlining some specifics. See, they multiplied greatly in Egypt, but it was in slavery. Now He says, I'm promising you that you will multiply greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey. In other words, in a land of great prosperity, in a land of great blessing.

So having laid out here in Deuteronomy 6, again, the terms of the covenant, he begins by saying. Verse 4 here, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” Stop there. This is called the Shema by Jews in the classic Hebrew confession of faith. It describes our duty toward God, it describes who God is. And this is really the first essential truth, about God that a Jew will learn, at least a religious Jew. And this is something that they will repeat in synagogue even to this day. “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” And this statement is full of meaning. First of all, “The LORD our God, the LORD is one” is one way to render that statement. It could also be rendered, the LORD our God, is one LORD. Still another option is the LORD is our God, the LORD alone. You might say, well, those sound awfully similar. And frankly, they are. They all bring you to the point of seeing here the uniqueness and the supremacy of Yahweh. In other words, He's basically saying, I am God and there is none like Me. There's none like Me. Now, this was an important statement to make to a people who are coming out of 400 years of paganism in Egypt. Because, they'd been living in the midst of that paganism and God is now saying, I am the LORD, your God, and I am unique. I am One. In other words, there is none like Me. Right. That was again, that was really an important thing for them to see. But the next thing that's interesting about this statement. The, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one” is that it raises certain questions for us as believers under the new covenant. And particularly it raises the question, we've been taught to believe that God is a Trinity. So does this statement actually contradict that? Well, the answer is no, because as Christians, we don't believe in two gods or three gods or 10 gods. We believe in one God. Let me show you this passage from 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verse 6. Paul writes,

…for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

What's Paul saying in this passage? He's saying, okay, it looks like it says, he says, we believe in one God and one Lord. Wait a minute. Is that two Gods? No, obviously not because we don't believe in two Gods, but you'll notice here in this passage, as we leave it up there just for a moment. Did you notice that God, the Father and God, the Son are given the same description. Did you catch that on there? Did you catch the fact that God is the one from whom are all things. And Jesus is the one through whom are all things. In other words, the creator of all things. God the Father and Jesus, and God, God, the Son are both credited with creating all things. And did you notice that it says both of them that for whom we exist. We exist for the Father, we exist for the Son. Why is he saying it this way? He's saying it because he's describing the unity of God, the Father, and God, the Son. Okay. That's what the Bible reveals that God is a unity. In fact, God is a tri-unity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or we call Trinity. Some people say, I object to the idea of the Trinity because it's not in the Bible. Yes, it is. The word Trinity is not in the Bible, but the idea that God is a unity of persons is very much in the Bible: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not three separate Gods. One God, three persons. It is very clearly taught in the Scripture. Now, I will grant you in the Old Testament, it is not explicitly taught. It is in the New. But there are also great clues in the Old Testament. In fact, the statement here in verse 4, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” That phrase, “The LORD our God,” actually helps to establish one of the clues. Did you know that the Hebrew word for “…one…,” “The LORD our God, the LORD is one,” speaks of a compound unity. That word, one, right? It is different from the Hebrew word for one that speaks of a singularity or an absolute unity. This is a compound unity: “The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” And then the word for God in verse 4 also suggests a plurality. Moses said, “the LORD our God…is one.” The word God here is the word, Elohim, and grammatically Elohim is plural. And yet it speaks of, it's being used as if it were singular. And yet the word itself is plural. Here's an example of some other clues in the Old Testament of the unity of God in plurality. Let me show you this from Genesis chapter 1. This is an interesting passage. This is creation. Look at this. It says,

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Now we'll leave that up for just a moment. You'll notice there's a conversation going on here and God says in this conversation, “Let us make man in our image.” Well here's the question you and I have to ask. Who's He talking to? Right? Well some people say, well obviously He's talking to the angels when He says, “Let us make man in our image.” But there's a problem with that conclusion. There are two problems, actually, with that conclusion. Number one, nowhere in Scripture does it say that man was made in the image of angels. So if God is saying, “Let us make man in our image,” He's inviting the angels also in on the process of the creation of man to say that, it also assumes that angels were made in the image of God. But the only references is that man is made in the image of God. The second problem with that conclusion that He's talking to the angels is the very end of this passage. Look what it says. So God created man in his own image.” It doesn't say He made man in the image of Himself and angels. It says He made man in His own image. Right? You can see that we have these clues in the Scripture. Here's a conversation in creation between the persons of the Godhead, as creating is being accomplished, as mankind is being created. Let us make man in our image and in our likeness. And so what did God do? He made him in the image of God. Then we come to verse 5. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Stop there. In Matthew 22, Jesus calls this the greatest commandment. And from it, we're given some insights into what God wants most from us. It's our love. It's so easy to start to think that God requires so many other things from us. God wants my money, God wants my time, God wants my effort, God wants my submission, or whatever the case might be. But what God really wants the most is our love. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart.” And when you do love the Lord your God, then the other things come freely. But there's something I need to make you aware of here. And this will helpfully give you some good understanding. Because I read this verse sometimes here in verse 5 and I have to tell you to be completely honest with you. It tweaks me a little bit when God would say to His people, “…love the LORD your God with all your heart.” Remember, this is the time when God is saying to his people, stay away, stay back, or you will die. I'm a holy God. I am a consuming fire, so stay back, don't come near. Only the high priest can come near. Once a year, he can come near. But that's the only time. And the rest of you guys, even you Levites, you can't even come near. You do, you'll die. The rest of the Israel, you Levites, keep the rest of those people back. Kind of difficult to love somebody who's constantly saying, stay away. Isn't it? I mean, do you ever have to think about that? Here's the greatest commandment given from a God who speaks to His people and says, don't come near. Alright? Now, we feel a little bit better about hearing. God say, “…love the LORD your God with all your heart” when we hear it from a New Testament perspective of the God who lays down His life for us on the cross. Who says, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, you will lack for nothing. I will never leave you nor forsake you. How much is a bird worth? And yet God, says you're worth more than many birds. And yet not one bird can fall from a tree without God knowing about it. And yet, you're worth way more. Oh, that's easy to love. I can understand that when He says, “…love the LORD your God.” Well, here's, what's interesting about that. Our way of speaking about the heart, loving God with all of your heart. When we think of heart, when I say to you heart. And I'm not talking about the thing that pumps blood. I'm talking about the figurative, thing that we speak of. I've given you my heart, right? And all that is within we sing, right? Well, what does that mean to you? That means emotions, right? It speaks of I've, it's—but that's a modern idea, and I want you to understand that. ---

In biblical Hebrew, the heart is considered somewhat differently than you and I would think of the heart. In biblical Hebrew, the heart involves more the intellect and the will. All right. That's one of the reasons why the Bible warns us about setting our heart to do evil. But that understanding kind of helps us to understand the command to “…love the LORD your God with all of your heart” is less a matter of feelings and more a matter of setting your will to consider the wonders of God's purpose, the majesty of the Lord, and to determine to give Him the focus and the attention that He deserves. You with me? So when God says to the nation of Israel, “…love the LORD …God with all of your heart,” He's not saying, I want you to have these romantic, warm feelings of intimacy for God. He's saying, I want you to set your will. I want you to purpose in your mind, and in your will, to focus on the Lord, and to give Him the attention that He deserves, right? Hopefully that helps maybe a little bit understand somewhat of the command that's going on here. And that understanding of the heart also influences how we see the following verses as well. Look at he says here in verse 8. “And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” You catch that? Again in biblical Hebrew, the heart is the intellect and the will. So he says, these words that I command you shall be in your mind and you shall set your will to follow them. That's what he's saying. “7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” And the command here is to pass along that same respect and determination to honor the Lord to your children, that you yourself have. Notice that God told Israel to teach their children diligently, which is defined as being very caring and very conscientious about the way you teach. Teach your children diligently. Israel rarely ever did that. After they came into the promised land, the Bible says that generation served the Lord and the next generation was raised up and knew not the Lord. (Judges 2:10) Did those parents diligently teach to their children what they learned? No, they didn't. And that's something we need to be very careful not to default on.

Furthermore, he says, look at verse 8, “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” And it appears that these, by the way, these suggestions, no, they're not suggestions. These statements by the Lord are meant to be taken figuratively. In the sense of making the law of the Lord constantly in front of your eyes. To put them on your hand is—boy, I tell you, I look at my hand a lot, don't you? I mean, when you're working on things, and, your hand is going to be in your visual area a lot. So he says, bind them on your hand. It means keep them before your eyes, right? He says, “…they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” In other words, the places you pass by regularly, every day, there's this reminder, of the Word of God. Now, the Jews, interestingly enough, took these very literally as you probably well know. And they made things that they wore on their head, and on their hand, and such things can very easily become meaningless decorations, can't they? I mean, to a lot of people, I think wearing a cross has become just a decoration. Right? And I don't think it really necessarily reminds them of what Jesus did. I mean, it might. But I see a lot of celebrities who live a lifestyle that seems very contrary to the word of God, wearing crosses. Some of them big gold ones. And you look at that and you think, hey, it doesn't fit. It's like, do you understand what the cross is all about? That sort of thing. “And when the LORD your God (look at this, verse 10) brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you— with great and good cities that you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, 12 then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Boy, right there. Isn't that the challenge for all of us? We've already talked about this. Do you know that prosperity and blessing is one of our biggest threats both as the church and as individuals. When we're going through a time that's prosperous, when we're going through a time that is just full of God's blessings, we tend to just back away from the things of the Lord. And we forget. And it's not until we're under some kind of distress again, that we return to the

Lord, and begin to seek His face again. Don't you hate that, when you see it in yourself? You see this tendency to just, when life gets easy, I just tend to back away. And that is why Moses reminds us what he does in verse 13.

And the reason he's saying all that is because, you see, in the days of prosperity, in the days of blessing, we tend to serve other gods, small g. We, we tend to follow other goals, other desires. And he warns them. Look at verse 14.

And again, these are people coming out of paganism and, where somebody telling a pagan to worship a god, that was a common thing because there were a lot of gods to worship. But what is God saying here? He's saying, worship Me and Me alone. He's calling them to an exclusive attitude of worship toward Him. He's the only God that ought to be in their hearts and in their practices, He says. Verse 16, he says,

Now, the command to not put the Lord to the test is given here with a reminder. Don't put the Lord your God to the test like you did at Massa. And Massa was a place Along the wilderness route where the people forgot the goodness of God, the provision of God, and because they were thirsty, and there wasn't any water in that area, they complained bitterly, spoke against Moses, spoke against God, and walked in their unbelief. And in so doing, the people put the Lord to the test. Okay? So God says, don't “put the LORD your God to the test.” Right? And So on and so forth. Don't follow that same mistake. Here's the summary. Verse 17 and following.

Again, reminding them of the terms of the covenant. Do this and here's what God will do. And then he says in verse 20,

Notice he says in verse 24, “to fear the LORD our God, for our good…” always. Isn't that important? Fear the Lord. Why does God give us the guidelines that He does? It's for our good, right? For our good. Verse—sometimes I think we think God gives us rules or whatever to just make life miserable for us. No, it's for your good. And then verse 25,

In other words, obedience to God, to His commands will be your right standing before Him. That's what he's saying. It will be your right standing. Unfortunately, Israel had to learn that no one could do it. No one could be in right standing before God by keeping the law. That's what, that's the conclusion that Paul comes to and lays out in Romans chapter 3. No one, he says, will be declared righteous in God's sight by keeping the law. You can't do it. It's not possible. But this is the path if it were possible, in your right standing before God.