It is a distinctive of the American persona to especially value independence and to exalt the “can-do” spirit. That is a good thing, isn’t it?  Well, generally speaking, it is. We should be responsible with the abilities and strengths we’ve been given by God’s grace. Such is certainly affirmed in 2 Thessalonians 3 where it says, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.’ We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies.”  And likewise, throughout all of Scripture, generosity toward those with genuine needs is applauded.

But there is a tendency when one has achieved success to self-indulge in the idea that one really made that happen all by oneself. And surely, discipline and fortitude have their rewards. But we need to remember that even our ability to have the capacity to reap the rewards of hard work is as well a gift from God. We need to remember this, even as the Israelites were reminded in the key verses of today’s passage: You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth…

One of my militant midgets who always thinks herself to be sooo strong

This reminds me of my recently-ended coaching career. I am very proud of my teams and their many successes – particularly the three state championships. But by way of full disclosure, I had the wonderful good fortune of just happening upon five of the fastest runners to ever wear Williamsport blue and white – who just happened to be in the same graduating class. I think I made them better and made it fun, but frankly, God made them skinny and fast.

The second paragraph in today’s reading gives us some insight upon the condition of the nations surrounding Israel. These were people who had previously made their decisions to not follow God, but to rather build idols and replacement objects of worship. For that, they were judged by God – many of them being wiped out by the Israelite conquest of the land. But notice that, again, Israel would not be exempt from the same treatment if they were to reject these repeated admonitions to obey God’s commands.

It really is pretty dumb to not obey God, isn’t it? That’s a very clear reason to be revived!

Deuteronomy 8:10-20

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. ¹¹ Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. ¹² Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ¹⁵ He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. ¹⁶ He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. ¹⁷ You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” ¹⁸ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

¹⁹ If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. ²⁰ Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

Look at the four commands given in today’s reading:

1. Be careful to follow the Lord’s commands (verse 1), because following them will yield blessing and success. This is a theme repeated by Moses that we have already commented upon.

2. Remember God’s leading (verse 2) over the past 40 years – how God had indeed supplied. The way that God supplied for their physical needs taught them that there was more to life than just eating and surviving – that God’s word and his truth was even more essential. The instruction for the Israelites was to desire God himself more than the appetites of life itself. Of course, the phrase that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God is one that Christ would use to counterpunch Satan on the occasion of his temptation.

3. In verse 5, Moses encourages the people to know that there is a pattern to the way God works with his people. God disciplines his own as a good father would correct his son or daughter. The goal is the moral development of the child – a discipline with a view toward corrective love rather than punitive wrath. It is good for us to learn over time how God works in our lives. This is the value of a long walk with the Lord over extended years. One is able to see patterns and to hear the recognizable voice of a faithful father.

4. Observe the Lord’s commands (verse 6) – here it is again. Do you think this is the main idea of Moses’ exhortations? Over and over! Moses is saying again that the land they are entering is just so fantastic, so full of rich blessing, that it would be a travesty to blow it all by something so stupid as not obeying God.

If you want to know how to have a good future, look to the past and to those who have been blessed. They are those who obeyed and who learned, even at times through discipline, that trusting fully in God is the way to go. Yet this always proves to be mankind’s most difficult lesson, of course, due to the sin nature within.

There is a character of Roman mythology named “Janus” – who was the god of gates and doors. He was depicted as a two-headed creature – looking both to the past and to the future (and is the name of an investment firm with obvious implications). Of course there was no such God, and my point is not to exalt Janus, but to speak of the timeless wisdom of considering both the past and the future. We should neither live exclusively in one or the other, though we are obviously heading in one direction, like it or not. Our well-being in the future should be well-informed by the past – particularly by the truth that the same God who granted successes to the obedient of the past will grant the same to those obedient in the future.  That should revive us in terms of our faith and deeds.

Deuteronomy 8:1-9

8:1  Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. ² Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. ³ He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. ⁴ Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. ⁵ Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

⁶ Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. ⁷ For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; ⁸ a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; ⁹ a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.

I was never a big card game player. It was more than just a bit frowned upon by my parents at home, my church, and at my Bible College in the 70s – where traditional playing cards were in fact disallowed! That may seem a bit odd to some of you reading this, but it was certainly not an unusual view in the fundamentalist Christian world in which I grew up. Traditional playing cards were viewed as having an occult background with attendant satanic overtones – particularly related to the face cards. Nobody was ever able to explain exactly what they meant, but it was seen as something in the category of stuff to not touch or get involved with. A passage – not unlike today’s where it talks about not letting the images of false worship to become a life snare – would be often used to promote avoiding it altogether. I think the evidence for all of this is a bit sketchy, but this is not really my point today anyhow …

There was a card game at our college that everyone played: Rook! I warn you now, don’t ever challenge me in Rook, because I will bury you and you will end up crying on the floor in a fetal position!

There are a variety of ways of playing the game, which features all number cards of four colors, along with a single card called the “rook card.” This card counted for the most points in the game, but by rule it could be used as either the highest trump card or the lowest in trump value. It was never settled in college rules as to which it should always be … so that had to be established at the outset of every game. I hated playing the game with the “rook” as the highest trump, because it gave so much power to one card that fell by chance into one person’s hand that it took away from the skill nature of the game.

Here is the point of today’s passage: God is the ultimate high trump! He trumps every other power all the time. In fact, he trumps all the powers combined into one power. For success in life, you want to be aligned with the ultimate trump – God!

But here is the challenge to accepting and trusting in this fact all the time – the high trump power is not always visible. At times, it seems that other things have the power – the allure of the natural world, the accumulation of the objects of value in this temporal world, and the shine of silver and gold. But all of this gets trumped sooner or later.

Like the title of our previous sermon series called “What Endures” … that which endures is our relationship to God through Christ. That is where our investments need to be. The interest upon them is eternal, bearing dividends not only for eternity, but for this world as well.

May our values be revived!

Deuteronomy 7:12-26

¹² If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. ¹³ He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and olive oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. ¹⁴ You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor will any of your livestock be without young.  ¹⁵ The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. ¹⁶ You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.

¹⁷ You may say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?”¹⁸ But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. ¹⁹ You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. ²⁰ Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. ²¹ Do not be terrified by them, for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God.  ²² The Lord your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. ²³ But the Lord your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. ²⁴ He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. ²⁵ The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the Lord your God. ²⁶ Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Regard it as vile and utterly detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.

Today’s passage is a difficult one to grasp and accept for the natural mind of the world, or for those who have a view of God that He is just all love, love, love. He is a God of love, but the fact remains that He is also a God of justice.

This Scripture details the directives of Moses to the Israelites to completely defeat the nations possessing the land – down to the last person. They were not to let any escape, nor were they to intermarry, as this would surely lead to a declension of commitment to the Lord and an inevitable drift toward idolatry. As it would play out over time, the Israelites obeyed this completely on many occasions, though not thoroughly … and sure enough, as time went by, the very things Moses warned against did indeed eventuate in Israel.

Why would the God of love and mercy be so … so … unmerciful? God was using the nation of Israel on these occasions to execute His judgment on peoples who had long before rejected God and rebelled against Him. God’s mercy was actually evident in the centuries of delayed judgment. Beyond that, it is not like the Israelites had an especially better deal, as they too were told that they would likewise face judgment for turning against the Lord.

God had chosen the nation of Israel among all the nations of the earth. This dates back to Genesis 11 and 12, and to the calling of Abraham and God’s covenant promises with him. God simply chose them, and as this passage reveals, there was nothing in them as a nation to distinguish them from anyone else as better or more worthy. God is God, and He does what He wants to do. He did not need to choose anyone, but in love He chose them. That should engender a response of love in return. That is fair; that is reasonable.

The Bible says that God has chosen us unto salvation. This is a very hairy, deep weeds, highly-debated piece of the theological world. The issue is not if God chose; the Bible says He did. The controversy is centered upon what is the basis of God’s choosing. If you disagree with me on this, I’ll just smile at you and say, “I love you my friend.”  But as I read it and believe it, our choosing in Christ was just like it says here about the Israelites, not because of anything in us, but rather because of His loving mercy according to the good pleasure of His will.

Whatever it is, it is grace, mercy, and love at work; and the more we understand it, the more we find that it revives our lives and our service for Him.

Deuteronomy 7:1-11

7 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you— ² and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally.  Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. ³ Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they will turn your children away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. ⁵ This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. ⁶ For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

⁷ The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. ⁸ But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. ⁹ Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. ¹⁰ But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.

¹¹ Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

“Lest We Forget”

President Obama took a lot of heat in the last campaign for a speech he made  in Roanoke, Virginia where he said, “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Of course, for those who have taken the risks associated with business entrepreneurship, this seemed condescending. Having watched (and to some extent participated with) family who have built businesses, I understand the offense, even as there is a point to be made about those who have gone before us and created the infrastructure upon which we all stand. One commentator wryly remarked, “Yes, we are all ultimately indebted in some measure to the inventor of the wheel, but as anyone who has built his own successful business knows, it was good to him because he was first good to it.”

But if there was ever a group who legitimately needed to be told “you didn’t build that” it was the Israelites … if there was ever a group who might get a false notion of personal excellence … if there was ever a group who might forget that their abundance came not from their own strength and construction, it was the Israelites. They were going to inherit a land with houses and wells and vineyards all in place. Yes, they would fight the battles, but they could not have prevailed apart from the Lord removing the defenses of their enemies from them.

Time is not only the great healer, it is the great “forgetter-maker.”  It is easy to forget the sacrifices of someone in the past who you do not personally remember. Most of us do not even remember anything about our own ancestors more than about four generations before us. Forgetting is easy – hence the appropriate abundance of memorials in stone built to commemorate great moments of sacrifice to achieve victories and abundance. There is no greater sacrifice than of one life laid down for another. And Christ’s death is the ultimate example, which we commemorate regularly in the communion … “in remembrance.”

“Lest we forget” is a phrase that is oft found on memorials, shrines, and graves. It comes from the final line in the five-stanza Rudyard Kipling poem of 1897 upon the Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria … here are the first and fourth stanzas:

God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line—
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Deuteronomy 6:10-25

¹⁰ When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, ¹¹ houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, ¹² be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

¹³ Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name. ¹⁴ Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; ¹⁵ for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. ¹⁶ Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah. ¹⁷ Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you. ¹⁸ Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors, ¹⁹ thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.

²⁰ In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?” ²¹ tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²² Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. ²³ But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors. ²⁴ The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. ²⁵ And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”

The fans of the Baltimore Ravens are crazy! Now honestly, I don’t mean that in a bad way … quite the opposite really. They are true “fans.”  Think about that word “fan” and what it means and from where it comes. It is a shortened version of the word “fanatic,” which describes someone who is sold out in support of a team or cause.

During the 2011 football season, one of my sons had suffered a very serious chainsaw accident and was in the University of Maryland Hospital in Baltimore. The second of his reconstructive surgeries took place on the Sunday morning of a Ravens home football game. We were close enough to the stadium that you could likely open the windows and hear the cheering!  But what was interesting to me was how every TV set in every room was tuned in to the game. The doctors and nurses were making their rounds, but they appeared honestly more focused on watching the game themselves (as they moved room to room) than providing focused medical care. That is passion, fandom, and support!

We need to be that way for God. I’m not saying we need to wear #7 purple and black jerseys with “Yahweh” across the shoulders (although, truth be told, those jerseys would need to be blue and silver). But we need to have that defining internal passion that goes with us all the time – 24 / 7 / 365 … you know what I mean.

The human tendency is to make God and His commandments a compartmental component of life… something we drag out on Sundays and perhaps for an observance here and there. What is needed is constant definition. It needs to be THE value that defines every moment of life, informing whatever we are doing.

Beyond that, it becomes the daily intentional responsibility to pass this value along to rising generations. Though it is certainly appropriate to have specific times and classes where this most prominently occurs, the greatest success is for it to be absorbed from everything about the everyday moments of life. The old phrase applies here: more is honestly caught than taught. Teaching is great, but truth is really caught by children when they see it truly modeled in the lives of those older generation people who they respect.

It is not enough for our faith to be about us and our interests; it has to also be about the generations behind us.  God said it, Moses said it, Randy said it … Boom!  Do it. Revive!

Deuteronomy 6:1-9

Love the Lord Your God

6 These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, ² so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. ³ Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Carefully Walking the Straight Line (Deuteronomy 5:23-33)

The word picture that Moses gives the Israelites in today’s reading is of a person walking a straight line of obedience through life – undistracted to the left or the right by those side shows that might cause one to drift from the proper path and into disobedience.

As a classic Attention Deficit Disorder person, this sort of word picture especially grabs my imagination as descriptive of one of life’s great difficulties – focus! That is what it takes for genuine life success – a focus on the goal at the end … upon the big prize.

It is not that we A.D.D. types cannot focus on something; in fact, if we are REALLY interested in an activity, we can super-focus on one thing and forget everything else.

I honestly was a rather compliant child and did not rebel much against authorities (people pleasing was likely a very early value with me!). I remember being in 2^nd grade, and the teacher told us to quietly read at our desks while she did something else … so I did as instructed. I must have really liked what I was reading, because the next thing I remember was the teacher pounding on my desk to get my attention. As I looked up and saw everyone in the room laughing at me, I realized that the rest of the class were several words into a verbal spelling test … but I never heard the instructions to put things away and get out a piece of paper!

If we are going to be focused on the big goal of obeying God, we have to be compliant by valuing this as the greatest truth in life; and beyond that, we must also set upon it as that which captures our greatest interest. Moses will especially make that second point the theme of tomorrow’s reading.

OK Randy… focus on today …

OK … notice from today’s reading this wonderful 29^th verse where it says, “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!”  This is God speaking, and it tells about his desires for us. He is not there to frustrate us or trick us or anything of the sort. He so deeply desires our success, and it is stated throughout all of these passages in repeated ways as to wanting to see “that it may go well” etc.  God is for us! That is a thought to “revive” us!

Deuteronomy 5:23-33

²³ When you heard the voice out of the darkness, while the mountain was ablaze with fire, all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me. ²⁴ And you said, “The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks with them. ²⁵ But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. ²⁶ For what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? ²⁷ Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”

²⁸ The Lord heard you when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good. ²⁹ Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!

³⁰ “Go, tell them to return to their tents. ³¹ But you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, decrees and laws you are to teach them to follow in the land I am giving them to possess.”

³² So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. ³³ Walk in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.

The 10 Suggestions Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:1-22)

Imagine if we were playing basketball together, and suddenly I put the ball under my arm like a football running back and bullied my way to the basket for a layup. You would say, “What are you doing? That is against the rules – that is travelling with the ball!”  And imagine if I said, “Well, I never liked that rule and I think it is stupid and out of date for the modern game!”  So, the game begins again, when suddenly one of my teammates dribbles and stops, then dribbles some more and stops, and then for a third time dribbles quickly to the basket for a score. And again you ask, “What’s he doing? You can’t do that – that is double dribbling.”  And once more I answer, “Well, he really hates that rule and finds it to be too restrictive of his creative style of playing the game, so he ignores it when he sees fit.”

Ridiculous?  Of course!  What happens to any game when the written rules are not followed? It becomes bedlam; it ruins everything, and before long it is no fun for anyone! The rules, the boundaries – they bring health and order and vitality … not just with games, but with life.

The passage today is the beginning of Moses’ second “sermon” to the new generation that is poised to enter the Promised Land. This is essentially the second giving of the Ten Commandments – which are elaborated upon in more details in chapters 12-26 (which will not be a part of our reading/devotional schedule). Moses reminds these Israelites of the health-giving benefits of obedience to the wonderful covenant that God made with His people, their ancestors.

There is a timeless truth: obedience to God’s ways leads to God’s blessings of our ways. His commandments are more than mere suggestions!

One of the great and increasingly common problems in our world today is the disintegration of the concept of timeless, objective truth. In the world of those outside any allegiance to faith and truth, it is often total bedlam, as there no longer exists any moral anchor. But even in the faith community – even the evangelical church – there is too much of a comfort with picking and choosing what Scripture teachings to obey. It has become like a buffet line – you pick what you want and leave behind whatever you want to reject.

But there is only one way to be blessed ultimately, and that is to obey God’s Word. It would serve to revive the Joshua generation conquering the land, and it serves to revive us as well.

Deuteronomy 5:1-22

5 Moses summoned all Israel and said:

Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them. ² The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. ³ It was not with our ancestors <the meaning is that it was not ONLY with the ancestors> that the Lord made this covenant, but with us, with all of us who are alive here today. ⁴ The Lord spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. ⁵ (At that time I stood between the Lord and you to declare to you the word of the Lord, because you were afraid of the fire and did not go up the mountain.) And he said:

⁶ “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

⁷ “You shall have no other gods before^[b] me.

⁸ “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁹ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, ¹⁰ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

¹¹ “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

¹² “Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. ¹⁵ Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.

¹⁶ “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

¹⁷ “You shall not murder.

¹⁸ “You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁹ “You shall not steal.

²⁰ “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

²¹ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

²² These are the commandments the Lord proclaimed in a loud voice to your whole assembly there on the mountain from out of the fire, the cloud and the deep darkness; and he added nothing more. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets and gave them to me.

The book entitled Rich Dad Poor Dad is one that my business-loving family has read. Written by a fellow named Robert Kiyosaki, it contains advice he received from his two different fathers – a wealthy entrepreneurial dad, and a father who was more traditionally a money saving employee. Written in a sort of storytelling style of parables, it challenges a good bit of traditional thinking about money and financial strategy. Though popular with many, one well-known economic critic has said that it “contains much wrong advice, much bad advice, some dangerous advice, and virtually no good advice … and is one of the dumbest financial advice books I have ever read.” The debate in on!

But there is no debate about what father we should follow if we want to have success in life – and that is the essential message of today’s reading. We could follow Satan who is called the big daddy of lies, as Jesus said of him, “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”  Or we can follow our Father God.

When you think about it logically, it is crazy not to follow the Lord.

Moses, in his sermon to this new generation of Israelites, asks them to think about all of human history and consider when there was ever a time where anything so great and awesome has happened like what God caused to happen for Israel’s good. Where was there ever a nation so chosen and redeemed and rescued as was this people of God’s choosing? Most nations who were enslaved, as was Israel in Egypt, simply ceased to exist – being lost and swallowed up by the more powerful people group. But it was by God’s power that they were delivered.

The Israelites had seen God’s great power. Those who could remember the incident at the mountain where the Law was given (detailed story coming in two days) should certainly stand in awe and obedience to such a powerful God. And the others who had come along more recently were not devoid of seeing miracles – of God’s provision in the wilderness wanderings, and of God’s miraculous empowerment to defeat the kings in this Transjordan area.

All of this was extraordinary … nothing like it could be found anywhere in the world, ever! So the Rich Dad advice?… He is in heaven, you are on earth, obey him gratefully in the land he has given you, and by this you will find success that can be passed on to successive generations.

That same principle and timeless truth can revive us today, and tomorrow, and forever.

The Lord Is God

³² Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? ³³ Has any other people heard the voice of God^[a] speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? ³⁴ Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?

³⁵ You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. ³⁶ From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words from out of the fire. ³⁷ Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, ³⁸ to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today.

³⁹ Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other. ⁴⁰ Keep his decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time.

Cities of Refuge

⁴¹ Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan, ⁴² to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if they had unintentionally killed a neighbor without malice aforethought. They could flee into one of these cities and save their life. ⁴³ The cities were these: Bezer in the wilderness plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.

Introduction to the Law (specifically coming in the next chapter)

⁴⁴ This is the law Moses set before the Israelites. ⁴⁵ These are the stipulations, decrees and laws Moses gave them when they came out of Egypt ⁴⁶ and were in the valley near Beth Peor east of the Jordan, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon and was defeated by Moses and the Israelites as they came out of Egypt. ⁴⁷ They took possession of his land and the land of Og king of Bashan, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan. ⁴⁸ This land extended from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge to Mount Sirion^[b] (that is, Hermon), ⁴⁹ and included all the Arabah east of the Jordan, as far as the Dead Sea,^[c] below the slopes of Pisgah.

An inheritance is a very special thing to receive. Though we most often think of an inheritance as comprising material things like land, houses, money, stocks and bonds … there are immaterial things that may be passed down through the generations as well. Having been the executor of a will once in my life, there was the great blessing of being the custodian of varied material treasures being passed along with all it represented of my parents’ lives; yet it was also very sad and painful to be the bearer of news to family elements of what was not going to happen – all because of a lack of faithfulness to common duties by those members not materially remembered.

In the passage today, the Israelites are being reminded that they are being given an awesome inheritance by the Lord – the Promised Land, along with God’s active provision for their lives as they trusted in him. Yet they are being warned as well of the horrific consequences that will befall them if they do not remember – expressing their departure from the Lord through the silly means of making idols of wood and stone. In that event – fully anticipated by God – they would be disinherited essentially, even scattered to the nations who would be allowed to come and overpower them. This did indeed happen in Israel’s future, yet in the passage it is interesting to see God’s grace and mercy by saying there would be a remnant always preserved and saved. By this, God would keep his covenant word to the nation.

As an example of the serious nature of God’s anger if the nation put idols before the Lord, Moses again uses himself as the example. He reminds them that God is not going to allow him to cross the Jordan with them. And again, I admit that this seems very harsh. The reason is because Moses hit the rock in anger rather than speak to it in obedience as God instructed. Whenever Moses does recount this, he does share the culpability with the people – saying something like, “You people were so frustratingly miserable in your moaning and complaining that YOU brought me to the place of hitting that dumb rock that got me into trouble with God!” But God is holy; he will not share his glory with any … and if not with Moses, then certainly he is going to bring judgment on those who worship idols made by hands.

Today’s passage calls God a “consuming fire,” yet later says that he is “a merciful God.” Of course, both are true. But here’s the great truth for us – for those who have trusted in Christ for salvation:  God’s wrath against sin has been poured out in judgment upon Christ at his substitutionary sacrifice for us. Therefore God’s mercy is able to be lavished upon us in abundant grace through the promise of an eternal inheritance that will not fade away. It says in 1 Peter 1:3-5 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Deuteronomy 4:15-31

Idolatry Forbidden

¹⁵ You saw no form of any kind the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire. Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, ¹⁶ so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, ¹⁷ or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, ¹⁸ or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. ¹⁹ And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping  things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. ²⁰ But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

²¹ The Lord was angry with me because of you, and he solemnly swore that I would not cross the Jordan and enter the good land the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance. ²² I will die in this land; I will not cross the Jordan; but you are about to cross over and take possession of that good land. ²³ Be careful not to forget the covenant of the Lord your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the Lord your God has forbidden. ²⁴ For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

²⁵ After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, ²⁶ I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. ²⁷ The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. ²⁸ There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. ²⁹ But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. ³⁰ When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. ³¹ For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.