August 23, 2009/ Deuteronomy 6 (ESV 1 )

Transcription

1 August 23, 2009/ Deuteronomy 6 (ESV 1 ) we've got the 6th chapter of Deuteronomy this morning... "Deuteronomy" means "the second law"... it consists largely of a reiteration and amplification of the Law of God given in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers... chronologically and geographically we are still on the east side of the Jordan river, listening to Moses before the entrance into the promised land under the leadership of Joshua... Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy includes a verbatim review of the 10 Commandments and an exhortation to obey... we then come to the 6 th chapter Deu 6:1 " ow 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, this is a review of how the God of the Universe expects His people to live, if He is going to live among them... it only makes sense that God would lay out the parameters, parameters that are in accord with who He is... how else is man to know?... and how could man expect God to dwell with him unless he acts in ways consistent with the nature of God?... so, when you go into the land, these laws declare how you are to live... Deu 6:2 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. we have talked repeatedly over the years about the fact that it only makes sense that life lived consistent with what is, with the nature of the God of creation, would be one that is full and sane... and that life lived in opposition to the very foundation of what is must be crazy and fragmented and in lack... that's not meanness on the part of God, that's just the obvious consequence of man putting himself at odds with his Creator... that you may fear/ reverence/have a holy awe for Yahweh/the I AM... Deu 6:3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, 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. Deu 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. your various translations will give this verse various slants... literally, the verse reads Hear, O Israel: Yahweh our God, Yahweh one.... there is a purposeful ambiguity in the original wording of the 4 word statement about God... the verse says a number of things, depending upon where you might decide the verb "is" should be inserted... you could have Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one or you could have Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one or you could have Yahweh is our God, Yahweh alone... the phrase teaches that it is Yahweh who is Israel's God, it teaches the essential unity of God (to the exclusion of the possibility of any other real "gods"), and it teaches the exclusive nature of Israel's relationship with God... there's no room there for anyone or anything else in God's place... 1 Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright 2000; 2001, by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 1

2 Deu 6:5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Jesus calls this "the first and great commandment"... it's at the heart of the matter... God is God, and the great duty and privilege of man is to love and obey Him with absolutely everything one is... with absolutely every ounce of strength man has... get this right and all else falls into place... get it wrong and all else is chaos... and it is only the God of the Bible, not any of the other so-called "gods" of man's imagination, that expects or is worthy of love from humans there is no dichotomy between Biblical belief/love and Biblical belief/action the evidence of our undivided love for Him is our obedience Jesus said: Joh 14:21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Deu 6:6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. God isn't looking for a people who will "go through the motions" of formally keeping the commands... He's looking for a people who embrace them, take them into the very fiber of their being, and allow them to form and govern not only every action they take, but every thought that they think, and every one of their fundamental desires... and to the extent that it's possible to do so, they are to pass that passion from generation to generation... how? Deu 6:7 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. Deu 6:8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. Deu 6:9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. what's the point here?... it's not that we all go out and purchase some Jesus junk to wear around and hang on our walls... it's instead that the Scriptures form the consistent framework of all of our speaking, thinking and acting in our families... it's that the people of Israel (and us in their line) are to have a Biblical mind... to start from God in all our thinking, talking, and doing... to consistently ask ourselves and our kids, "Does that square with Scripture?"... "Can you hear those words coming out of the mouth of Moses, the Apostle Paul, or Jesus?"... "Does that bring honor to Christ?"... there is none of the standard post-modern silliness that says we'll let our children stumble around and find their own way in the matter of faith in God we are to teach them, talk with them, constantly recognize the real presence of the real God in our homes, in our church, in all of daily life there is to be none of the crazy public/private dichotomy that says that we are to pretend in public that God is somehow not in the room Deu 6:10 "And when the LORD your God 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, 2

3 Deu 6:11 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, Deu 6:12 then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. the Israelites are to see themselves as standing in a long line of faith and God's great mercy He swore to their fathers and He was good to His word much of the foolishness of (post-) modern socalled "christianity" flows from an arrogance that fails to see us in this wonderful place as only part of the long line they and we are to look back and see God's great mercy and provision in history and it's part of fallen human nature that our tendency is to not remain constantly grateful for the gracious provisions of God, but instead to soon take them for granted and to forget Him... that was true with the people of Israel, it's true with us as well... we've got the Biblical record to remind and warn us... here Moses tries to warn the people... be careful and do not forget... don't be ungrateful gratitude to our gracious and merciful God is at the very heart of real Christianity ingratitude ultimately produces blasphemy and apostasy be careful and do not forget, do not become ungrateful Deu 6:13 It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. fear/reverence/respect Yahweh your God... serve Him only... and take your oaths in His name... it is Israel's respect for God that should guarantee personal integrity and the veracity of a person's word... it is the fact that we live before God that should allow others to know we'll be straight in action and in speech... it's that God knows what we do and say (not that people will know) that is the main issue... this is presumably the philosophical origin of our public swearing to tell the truth "so help me God" the problem with that practice is that unless one truly honors and reveres God, those words mean nothing, and if one DOES truly honor and revere God it's at the very least questionable whether that person has any business taking such an oath our "yea" is to be "yea" and our "nay" is to be "nay" notice that real freedom here, the contrast between "slavery" in verse 12 and "service" verse 13 is the nature of the Master we finite creatures are never free in these sense of being the ones that really call the shots we either serve sin in horrible bondage and misery, or we serve the real and gracious King of the universe in brilliance and light Deu 6:14 You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you-- Deu 6:15 for the LORD your God in your midst is a jealous God--lest the anger of the LORD your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. Moses is talking here about the possibility of high treason... he's already said that there really are no other gods, and that it's Yahweh, the very definition of all that is good and right, that Israel is called to serve... if that is true, there is no way that God could possibly wink at apostasy and remain just and holy... Deu 6:16 "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. 3

4 Massah means "testing" or "proving"... there, in Exodus 17:1-7, the Israelites essentially said to God "OK, here's the miracle we demand that you perform in order to show us that you are to be trusted and are really among us"... that kind of thing is gross impertinence... it shows that we have forgotten who is who... it makes our Creator out to be a trained dog who does tricks... it makes us out to be the ones calling the shots... it purposely forgets all that has gone before, the gracious provision of God to this point, and demands a sign of our choosing... it impugns the character of a loving Father who has repeatedly shown His care for His children... it says "if you really loved me, you'd XYZ..."... do not test... of course it's forbidden here, and of course Jesus refused the demand of the Pharisees for a sign... Deu 6:17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. Deu 6:18 And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the LORD, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers Deu 6:19 by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the LORD has promised. again, we can choose... we can choose right and good, and be in line with the purposes of the God of the Universe... the consequences of that, both temporal and eternal, are that life will be sane and wholesome and good... Deu 6:20 "When your son asks you in time to come, 'What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the LORD our God has commanded you?' Moses now looks forward to a time when those living would be asked by their kids why it is that they live the way they do... literally it's something like "what these stipulations, decrees and laws...?"... he tells them they need to be ready with an answer... and note that he doesn't give them liberty to ad lib!... this is not the mush-headed 21st century AD, and this is not about "What does this mean to me? What's my perspective on this, my testimony?"... instead it's about "What does this mean?" and "What is the right perspective on all this?"... the right perspective is that they had been redeemed by their gracious God from a world of hurt... Deu 6:21 then you shall say to your son, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. And the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Deu 6:22 And the LORD showed signs and wonders, great and grievous, against Egypt and against Pharaoh and all his household, before our eyes. Deu 6:23 And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in and give us the land that he swore to give to our fathers. it was all God's doing!!!... we were slaves and in misery, but God intervened and redeemed us!... He brought us out... it was His doing, nothing on our part... and having done so, He expects that we then live consistent with His nature... 4

5 Deu 6:24 And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are this day. He gives us His commands as gifts from a benevolent Sovereign, as a guide to good living and what will make sense in His world... these aren't a burden to be borne, but further evidence of His goodness towards us, a revelation of what is in tune with reality... a statement of how life is to be lived if it is to be sane... Deu 6:25 And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us.' and obedience "will be our righteousness"... the Hebrew word translated "righteousness" here, "sedeq," involves normality, whatever is straight and upright... it involves justice and moral rectitude... the point here is that the Law of God reveals the standard of conduct that God holds... this is not a contradiction of the book of Romans that says right standing with God comes about through faith alone... right conduct once in a while in a life of rebellion doesn't produce right standing with God... that standing comes only by throwing ourselves on His mercy and trusting in His gracious provision... but then, right conduct proceeds from a love of God, a desire to please Him and being informed by His Word as to what goodness and right conduct really is 5