[0:00] I was going with me to the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 6, Deuteronomy chapter 6. We're going to be finishing up the sixth chapter, picking up where we left off. We'll kind of set it in this proper context here in just a few moments, but we'll be picking up Deuteronomy 6, verses 10 through 25, so bringing the sixth chapter to a conclusion in the book of Deuteronomy this evening.
[0:24] I trust that things have went well for you today, and you've had a good day, and I pray that you've had a day of opportunity before you, either of rest or in service, and doing all that the Lord has called you to do in those areas.
[0:38] Let's open up with a word of prayer, and then we'll get right into the text together, so let's pray. Lord, I thank you so much just for allowing us to be here this evening, and we thank you, God, for your faithfulness.
[0:50] Thank you for your goodness and your kindness towards us. Thank you for every opportunity we have of fellowship and opening up your word, of opportunity of praise, and Lord, rejoicing in who you are.
[1:02] And Lord, we pray that this evening that all that takes place and all that happens in this place would bring glory and honor to your name. And Lord, we pray that it would be to magnify Christ, not to exalt self, but Lord, to lift up the Savior, to show us who we are in you, to strengthen our faith, to cause us to walk in a greater display of obedience for your glory.
[1:28] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. The book of Deuteronomy is such a powerful book. It is a book in which Moses is expounding the law according to his own testimony in Deuteronomy chapter 1, where he seeks to expound the law, that is, to clarify the law, to speak clearly of the requirements of the Lord their God to the nation of Israel.
[1:50] It is, as we sang that first hymn, a message that is delivered on the banks of the Jordan River. It is literally in the plains of Moab. Immediately before God calls his people to purify and cleanse themselves and go in and take possession of the promised land.
[2:05] It is 40 years after the deliverance of the nation of Israel from the captivity and slavery of Egypt. God set his people free. If you remember when we went through the book of Exodus, or maybe you weren't with us when we went through the book of Exodus, you need to understand there's this great theme.
[2:21] God sets them free in order to bring them in. This is just a theme that we run through with the whole Exodus event. God didn't just set his people free so that they could be free.
[2:32] He had a purpose and a plan and a reason behind it, right? He set them free in order to bring them in. That means the fulfillment of all God's purposes and plans were not completed until they were inhabitants in the promised land.
[2:47] It's good news. It's great news. Because God doesn't save us, forgive us, and redeem us just so we can be free. Right? He saves us, redeems us, and forgives us so that we can be in his presence.
[2:58] He sets us free to bring us in. And therefore, when we go into the New Testament, we realize that we were saved in the past. We are being saved presently, but we will be saved when we see him as he is, as Paul says, face to face with him.
[3:11] And we are, therefore, brought into his presence. And it's this great picture, this great type we have that resonates through the Old Testament. Moses is not going to be able to go into the promised land because of his rebellion against the holiness of God.
[3:28] I know that's hard for us to wrap our minds around because Moses is a humble man who sees the Lord face to face, as the Bible says, speaks with the Lord as one face to face. Not that he actually saw the Lord, but the Shekinah glory of God's presence literally resonated off his face.
[3:43] It is he that cried out after so much activity he had seen, God, dude, show me your glory, O God. And then God passes by him, hides him in the cleft of the rock, and then passes by him, and he sees the tail end of the glory of God.
[3:56] It is he that writes the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and sets a standard that God has called man to live to. It is he that was so utilized of God.
[4:07] But in that moment of weakness and in that moment of anger, he failed to treat God holy. He struck the rock when he was supposed to speak to the rock. He said, should I bring forth from you water from this rock rather than giving God his prominence and his place because, as is the case, Moses wanted to speak more in judgment than he did in gracious provision.
[4:28] And therefore, he's not going to be allowed to go in. Again, we have said that in biblical history and said that that is absolutely fitting because the law can never bring you into the promised land. Moses is a representative of the law, and the law never brings us in because by the standard of God, by the standard of the law, no man enters the promised land.
[4:46] And we know that Joshua, by the way, the Old Testament equivalent of the name Jesus, Yahweh saves, is going to bring them in to the promised land. And we know that he's going to lead them.
[4:57] And we see these types in these pictures. But before they go, God moves Moses to preach this final sermon. This is probably the longest discourse we have of any man's last words.
[5:11] Right? We have what Moses wants to say right before he departs. And he knows he's going to depart. He knows he's going to leave. At the end of the book, God calls him up to Mount Pisgah, and he dies and is buried. No man knows where.
[5:22] Nobody knows. But this is what he has to say. And it's all about this high expectation that God who delivered them and set them free has for his people and how he's called them to live differently.
[5:34] He introduced it in the first four chapters of the Bible. Actually, the first three chapters of Deuteronomy. He introduces it historically. We want to set this thing right. He doesn't go back to slavery.
[5:45] He goes back to Mount Pisgah because the standard they're called to live to is based upon a covenant, not a past. The expectation that God has for us in Christ is based upon a covenant we have with him in Christ, not with the past of who we were in Satan.
[6:00] And that's comforting, right? He goes back to the covenant, the agreement that they entered into with one another. And he says, now, because of this covenant, because you are God's people, because he has chosen you, because he has redeemed you, this is his expectation.
[6:17] Deuteronomy 4 kind of opens the door. Deuteronomy 5 declares to us the Ten Commandments. This is where we get the word Deuteronomy because it comes from Deuteromos, which means second law, the second telling of the law.
[6:29] This is where the law, the Ten Commandments is repeated for us again. And then Deuteronomy 6 goes right into this expounding. Now, I know that's a lot to say in order to get to this.
[6:41] The very first thing that Moses does when he wants to make the law or the requirements or the expectation of a holy God clear is he speaks of the love that they are to have towards the Lord their God.
[6:54] Because obedience is a result of a loving relationship, not as a result of a fearful anticipation. We don't scare anybody into hell. God doesn't scare anybody into salvation, right?
[7:04] He woos them, calls them, loves them unconditionally. While we were yet sinners, he died for us. He displays his love on the cross and he calls us to respond to him out of love. And we began to see that response of love in Deuteronomy 6 verses 1 through 9.
[7:21] Last time we were together and they have this shema that they repeat over and over again. Deuteronomy 6 verses 4 and 5. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might.
[7:35] And last week we looked at living and loving obedience. This week, I want you to see, starting in verse 10, going to verse 25, love on display. What does that look like on display?
[7:46] For people to see, what does it look like when we have such a love for him and it's on display? So Deuteronomy chapter 6, starting in verse 10 says, Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you.
[8:00] Great and splendid cities which you did not build and houses full of all good things which you did not fill and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant and you eat and are satisfied.
[8:11] Then watch yourself that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery. You shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by his name. You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God.
[8:28] Otherwise, the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you and he will wipe you off the face of the earth. You shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massa.
[8:39] You shall diligently seek the command or keep the commandments of the Lord your God and his testimonies and his statutes which he commanded you. You should do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to give your fathers by driving out all your enemies from before you as the Lord has spoken.
[8:57] When your son asks you in time to come saying, what do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you? Then you shall say to your son, we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand.
[9:12] Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. Here's this repeated theme. He brought us out from there in order to bring us in to give us the land which he had sworn to our fathers.
[9:26] So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival as it is today. It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God just as he commanded us.
[9:41] Deuteronomy 6 verses 10 through 25. I want you to see this evening what it looks like to have this type of love on display. This love that lives in obedience and to put it on display.
[9:52] And we are moved by this as Moses is encouraging the people just to love the Lord their God with all their being, with all their soul, with all their might, with all their strength, to the very core of their being, to have such a love for him that obedience is a natural outcome and to put it on display.
[10:07] As we have seen, one of the grand themes in all of Scripture, not just in the Old Testament, not just in the first five books of the Old Testament, but in all of Scripture is that God calls his people to be people of display, right?
[10:20] He calls his people to be people that others look at. He calls his people to be people that others take notice of. He calls his people to be people who stand out. He calls his people to be people who look differently.
[10:32] He calls his people to be those people who are constantly on display. We don't like that so much. Our desire is that we want to blend in. We want to fit in with the wall. Even those of us that have a very outgoing personality, I'm definitely more extrovert than I am.
[10:46] An introvert, you know, I don't mind being around a lot of people. I'm okay with that. I don't mind being in big crowds. It doesn't bother me, at least, you know, how I am. But even then, being an extrovert person, it's not that I necessarily want to go stand out because some of the most extrovert people, I don't even know how to say that grammatically, some of the most extrovert people who seem to be those people who just want to stand out in all actuality are overreacting to a desire to want to fit in because that's our natural tendency.
[11:18] Every one of our tendencies is to blend in. Even if we do stand out and even if we are different, we want to find other people who want to be different with us, right? We want to find other people who will stand out with us so that we don't stand out alone.
[11:30] But God has called His people to live differently, to live their lives on display. And He does it not just to the nation of Israel, He does it for the church and He does it for us. And He calls us to live out this loving relationship and to put it on display.
[11:43] And the first thing we notice, we notice from this passage before us, the favor of the Lord shows His people because love on display never ever starts with the people of God, it always starts with the God of the people.
[11:58] Don't ever get that confused. God's people do not display love first. The love that is displayed by the Lord's people is a love that is displayed in response to the love that has already been shown to them.
[12:12] Now that's a good and long way of saying, you don't love God first. Before you ever loved Him, He loved you. Before you ever made a decision to live in obedience, before you ever made a decision to sacrifice any means, before you ever made a decision to seek to follow Him, before you ever make a decision to try to be pleasing to Him, before you ever make a decision to do something for the kingdom, listen, He loved you before the foundation of the world was laid.
[12:39] And He puts that on display. And the beauty of that is that the Lord puts on display His love towards His people through the favor He rains down upon them.
[12:50] And these are not just common grace favors. We find this resonating for us. Jesus Himself says, the rain pours down on the righteous and the wicked. The sun shines on the good and the bad, right?
[13:02] They're the common grace. We call it the common grace. All men get to enjoy the ability to experience oxygen, right? The breathing, to take that in. The righteous and the wicked like. And we say, well, what difference does that matter?
[13:13] Because the Bible tells us in the book of Job that if God was to call His Spirit back to Himself, that all men would perish. This means that the breath in every lung is a gift from the Lord God Almighty.
[13:26] And if He was to call His Spirit back to Himself, that all men would perish. All men get to experience that, but not all men know that, right? The sun shines upon the good and the bad. The rain falls upon the good and the bad.
[13:37] Creation testifies to the good and the bad. When we walk outside, I remember just the other morning, it's that time of year where I go to drive the bus and it's dark and it's right before the sun comes up so I see the sunrise when I start my bus route.
[13:54] Not necessarily something I like to brag about. I'd rather see my sunrise sitting on my front porch, but, you know, when I start the bus route. But, you know, even Charles, as Spurgeon used to say, many people say, the darkest moments of the night is right before the daylight breaks.
[14:06] Right? So the darkest moments are always right before the breaking of the brightest light. But there was the other morning I was driving and the moon was just like right there. You could almost touch it. Those bus windshields are so big, you know, maybe it was that.
[14:19] But it was just like, I felt like I was going to drive into it. And I was like, man, he who just said, man, let there be a moon. You know, it was just right there. Everybody woke up that morning to that thing. Right?
[14:29] Everybody did. But what we're talking about is the love that God puts on display when he shows favor to his people. He is asking them to live a life of love on display for him and towards him among the people who do not know him.
[14:45] And he's going to give them a reason to do it. Look at what it says. Then it shall come about when the Lord. I love the accuracy and the definitiveness of scripture.
[14:57] Moses does not say if the Lord does these things. Okay? We're reading it past tense. They're hearing it future tense. Right? They're hearing it before it happens.
[15:08] We're reading it and going, yeah, it happened just like that. But what Moses says is when the Lord does these things. It's amazing. I'm studying the book of Isaiah or I was studying the book of Isaiah this past week and one of the passages in Isaiah that messes with individuals is when God calls Cyrus by name.
[15:26] Right? He says that he would raise up a king named Cyrus and Cyrus would issue a decree for the repopulating of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the temple. And then when we go to the book of Ezra, we see that there's a king who comes up named Cyrus who issues a decree that they repopulate Jerusalem and rebuild the temple and all this stuff.
[15:42] And a lot of Bible scholars who are not believers, okay, non-believer Bible scholars, which is a thing, by the way, they say, well, that's absolutely, it cannot be Isaiah who wrote that because how could Isaiah write that so many, so many years before Cyrus was even born?
[15:59] How could he write him by name? It has to be, they refer to it as Deutero-Isaiah or a second Isaiah, someone who wrote it after Isaiah, I mean, after Cyrus was born. But what you're doing is you're removing the fact that God knows everything and therefore, what he decrees he can bring about, right?
[16:15] He can name a guy and then lead the parents to name that guy what he named him so many hundreds of years prior to that. And this is just what Moses is saying, when he does these things and he will, that's important because, you know, there are a lot of when passages is directed to believers today.
[16:38] When you open up the New Testament, you see promises of God, you see promises toward the people of God, you see promises towards the church of God and they are spoken as when these things come about.
[16:51] When they come about. We understand that the certainty that God decrees things is one of the favors that he shows his people. He tells us what's going to happen before it happens.
[17:03] People all the time are asking me what about the end times and all these troubles about the end times and what about the world. I don't really have to worry so much about it because in the end he wins.
[17:14] Right? He comes back on a white horse. We're behind him in the righteous white robes of the saints. He wins. He slays the enemy with the sword which proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord which I think is the word of God.
[17:25] These things are going to happen and he displays his love towards his people by decreeing to them what is going to happen so that they can live in confident assertion. So Moses says here then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you.
[17:38] Now look at how he's going to show his favor to them. He's just not going to give them a land. Right? We say all was connected to the land the land the land the land the land well land raw land is a lot of work right?
[17:52] Raw land is a lot of work it's a great gift but it's a lot of work we don't get to relish in like when Adam worked the land and he didn't break a sweat right?
[18:03] Can you imagine that before the fall? Adam and Eve in the garden and the job that Adam gives from God gets from God as God says you know keep my land rule over my creation and Adam was out there enjoying it and I'm not saying we don't enjoy work but he was not sweating he wasn't because later on the curse is a result of the sweat of the brow and the hard work and the thorns and the thistles I mean Adam's just tending perfect creation it was a gift but raw land I mean that's a great gift but it also has a lot of work but God shows his favor in a greater way look at what he says he says when the Lord your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give to you look at this great and splendid cities which you did not build houses full of all good things which you did not fill and hewn cisterns which you did not dig vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant and you eat and are satisfied God displays his favor because he doesn't just give them a land he gives them everything they need to enjoy the land great and splendid cities they did not build houses full of all good things that they did not fill wells they have abundant water which they did not dig vineyards and olive groves they did not plant everything they needed to enjoy fellowship with God was provided freely he displays his favor now look at this the favor he displays rest upon the covenant he had made according to the promise he made with your fathers right
[19:40] Abraham Isaac and Jacob it was a covenantal promise that came with the favor of God on display we live too in a covenantal promise through Jesus Christ the covenant of the blood and the favor of God is on display all I want you to see in this passage I know you know I said well you're really hammering home the point here all I want you to see is that everything that fills them came to them freely they were not filled with anything they worked for they were filled up with things that were given to them graciously and freely by the Lord their God how does God show his favor to his people he meets their every needs and he does all the work he does all of it and then he says now show your love towards me put your love on display towards me when we consider the favor he has shown us and the fullness of our needs met in the Savior when we consider what he has given us that we too will inhabit a land someday and we're not doing any work on that land right because Jesus says
[20:58] I go to prepare a place for you even those who are asleep in Christ now those believers who have died and are asleep in Christ now it's not like they went and joined the Lord's labor force and are now helping prepare they're in what the Bible says a place of rest paradise that's what Jesus called it on the cross in my understanding we won't have time to really get into it that's not the new heavens and new earth that's paradise that's a place of spiritual fellowship Jesus is doing all the work what favor what favor being displayed towards God's people number two we see the fear of the Lord that moves them because a God who displays such favor should move us to fear and adoration now this fear does not mean trembling and being terrified and being scared this is fear that is reverence and awe I think one of the things that is missing from our society today is a genuine honest fear of the Lord our God a reverence we take him lightly we dispel his splendor but look at what he says when you are full when you are full verse 12 or satisfied he says when you are satisfied verse 12 then watch yourself then watch yourself because here's the danger when we realize
[22:25] God has met every need the temptation comes to slack off watch yourself he says to look to yourself Paul would say it this way to examine yourselves to make sure you don't fall short of the gospel you proclaim to examine yourselves and to search your own heart and to try your own mind as the psalmist cries out in Psalm 119 he says then watch yourself that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery he says when every need is met when things are satisfied when you understand his favor upon you the temptation is to come that you forget in New Testament terms don't ever get over your salvation don't ever get over the fact that he redeemed you he saved you that grace called you to himself watch yourself he says to be careful verse 13 you shall fear only the Lord your God and you shall worship him and swear by his name you shall not follow other gods any of the gods of the people who surround you for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you and he will wipe you off the face of the earth what does he say fear is a legitimate motivation now not terrified not trembling not shaking but adoration and reverence a genuine true fear of the Lord is an absolute motivation for displaying our love towards him we have such a reverence for him we lift him on high
[23:54] I would dare say that we would probably have a greater reverence for some men who hold position if they were to come into our assembly than we would have for the God who holds the earth in the palm of his hands who has always told us he would be in our midst and that is a disgraceful thing among the people of God I don't just mean us I mean worldwide the greatest one that could ever be among us has already promised us that we're two or more gathered together I am there as well and this is why we find in the New Testament that we are not to hold those who have money or those who don't have money or those who can do us harm or those who can't do us harm we are not to hold these people in any kind of greater scale of honor or respect because the greatest one who could ever be among us is already there he's already there and we ought to have such an adoration and a reverence for him that it motivates us and not to put anything else above him you shall not put the Lord your God to the test by the way this is the verse that
[25:00] Jesus quotes when he is put on in temptation and the wilderness right and the devil says just cast yourselves because he said he would give his angels charge of you and you wouldn't fall he also says don't put the Lord how do we do this with a true genuine holy fear of who he is God held in a right position is always always right rightfully served by his people it's only when we dethrone him or displace him from his rightful position in our life do we begin to live lives of our own accord and not love lives of loving obedience number three we see this one and we'll be through just a little bit early tonight not only the favor the
[26:07] Lord shows his people and the fear of the Lord that moves them number three there is the future generations encouraged by them the future generations encouraged by them because God always calls his people to equip and to proclaim him to those who come after them right he has called us to be proclaimers of the gospel to those who follow us this is one of the greatest things that we must understand and we say this carefully with all reverence and respect as well but one of the great arguments that people have that God is not loving and kind is that there are people who do not know the gospel that have never heard the gospel and they'll point quite often to times and locations where people have not heard the gospel then when we go into the Bible and we read in the book of Romans that it says that all men everywhere heard the gospel and people say well I wonder what happened there but then we could also trace history and find out that there were people who heard the gospel and failed to proclaim it to the generation that followed them and therefore the blood is not on the hands of God the blood is on the hands of the people because the call and the command has always been to be ready to display your love to the generation that follows look at what verse 20 says when again not if not if by chance or it could happen
[27:28] God has so ordained it when we live in loving obedience these things will happen right this is why it says always be ready to give a defense for those who ask the joy that you have always be ready to give a defense for the hope that you have to those who ask always be ready because the expectation is that people will ask the expectation is that people are going to question the expectation is that your life is going to be on such display that people are going to want to know what sets you apart and here Moses is even consistent with this New Testament theme and it says this when your son asks you in time to come what is it saying like you should live your son will ask you why you're living that way the generation to follow right they will want to know and then the responsibility is when he asks now you have the opportunity to give now you have the opportunity to proclaim and now you have this chance to raise up the generation it's not this promise name it and claim it thing that is going to happen it's just the responsibility that you bear to equip the future generations and to encourage them it says when your son asks you in time to come sing what do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean that the
[28:40] Lord our God has commanded you essentially dad why are we living in such a way why do we do these things why do we look so different than the people around us why is it okay for all those people over there to do this and do this and eat this food and we don't eat that food why do we have to break a vessel if a rodent runs across it why do we have all these crazy laws why do we have this such high standard why do we do this he says this is what you should say you should tell them we were slaves now all of a sudden we can talk about our past right because when we want to talk about why we live the way we do presently we always have to go back to where we were when he found us when we were slaves we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand moreover the Lord showed great distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt Pharaoh and all his household he brought us out from there in order to bring us in to give us the land which he has sworn to our fathers so the Lord commanded us to observe all these statues to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival as it is today what is he saying the reason we do this is because he has done so much for us and he told us this is what's good for us because of all that he has done for us and the things he's provided for us he has accomplished everything he has promised us everything he has declared to us has come about and therefore it is for our good that we obey him it is for our good that we follow him it is for our good it's not because it's restricting it's because it's freeing look at all that he has done and then he says not only do you inform them you encourage them he says so it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the
[30:21] Lord our God just as he commanded us he says didn't you tell your son you want to be in a right stand with God then do all that he commanded you to do what is he doing he is equipping and he is encouraging them to equip future generations the same way they have been equipped to remind them of all that God has done to remind them of the favor God has shown them to remind them of the love that reached them when they were unlovable and then to remind them that and it is for their good that they would be in a standing of righteousness with him and he says we're going to put our love on display and we're going to let the people see it around us we know that God displayed love first and that love will be displayed in us through our fear and reverence and holy admiration of him and in the!
[31:16] we equip the generations that for the people who are watching so that the name of the Lord our God may be magnified and glorified let's pray Lord I thank you I thank you so much for this evening I thank you for your faithfulness to us thank you for your goodness and your kindness Lord may we always be those who follow you completely love you absolutely and serve you willingly for your glory and we ask it in Christ's name Amen Amen