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[0:00] take your Bibles and go into the book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy chapter 5. We're making our way through the Old Testament. We're just making our way through the Bible.

[0:12] So we are now at the point in Deuteronomy. Some of you may not be familiar with that. Most of you are. So we're just preaching through Scripture on Sunday nights, Wednesday nights, at least when it's preaching time.

[0:28] And we started almost six years ago now in Genesis 1-1. And we've made it this far. Whether or not we'll make it all the way to the end of the Bible, I don't know.

[0:38] It depends on if the Lord tarries and how long He leads us to be. But we are in the book of Deuteronomy. And we are going to finish up the fifth chapter this evening. So I'm going to go back and catch verse 6.

[0:50] We ended last time we were together, which would be Sunday night, with verse 6. But I'm going to pick it back up for context. And then we'll read to the end of the chapter, which gets us to verse 33.

[1:03] So Deuteronomy 5, verses 6 through 33 is where we will be at this evening. Let's open up with a word of prayer. And then we'll just get right to the text together. And we'll read it with one another.

[1:14] So let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much. Lord, just for allowing us this opportunity of being here. Lord, allowing us the great privilege it is, fellowshiping with brothers and sisters in Christ, of being renewed midweek.

[1:29] Lord, we thank you for the great opportunity we have now of opening up your word. And we pray, Lord, as we open it up, that we would stand ready to hear from you. Lord, that we would be prepared not to hear the thoughts or the interpretations or even the beliefs of man.

[1:46] Lord, we would hear the very word of God and that it would resonate within our hearts and minds. We pray that through reading it, we would get a better glimpse of who you are and what you called us to be. And we pray that it would draw us closer to you.

[1:58] And Lord, it would call us to be the church that you've appointed us to be for your glory and yours alone. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Deuteronomy chapter 5, starting in verse 6 and going to the end of the chapter.

[2:16] It says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.

[2:31] You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the third and fourth generations to those who hate me, but showing loving kindness to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments.

[2:44] You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes his name in vain. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy as the Lord your God commanded you.

[2:56] Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant or your ox or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you.

[3:16] You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you, that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you in the land which the Lord your God gives you.

[3:37] You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male servant or his female servant, his ox or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

[3:53] These words the Lord spoke to you, these words the Lord spoke to your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud, of the thick gloom, with a great voice, and he added no more. He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

[4:08] And when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire, you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders. You said, Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire.

[4:21] We have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives. Now then, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we will die.

[4:33] For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived? Go near and hear all that the Lord our God says. Then speak to us all that the Lord our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.

[4:47] The Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me, and the Lord said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken.

[4:58] Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever. Go say to them, Return to your tents.

[5:08] But as for you, stand here by me, that I may speak to you all the commandments and the statutes and the judgments, which you shall teach them, that they may observe them in the land which I give them to possess.

[5:20] You shall observe to do just as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right or to the left. You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you will possess.

[5:37] Deuteronomy 5, verses 6 through 33. If you remember, the book of Deuteronomy is Moses' final message to the nation of Israel immediately preceding their entrance into the promised land.

[5:49] This is literally the last thing that Moses says to them. He preaches this sermon at the end of the book of Deuteronomy. We find him ascending Mount Pisgah and it is there that he dies. He sees the promised land and then he dies and is buried by God.

[6:01] But what we understand is these are the teachings. This is what God wanted his messenger Moses to convey to his people, the nation of Israel, right before they went in to take possession of the very thing which God had promised them.

[6:15] That was the land. And the land was a symbol not only of God's faithfulness, but also of their favor in the sight of the Lord their God. And it was really part of the covenant.

[6:26] The covenant was that they would be his people, that he would multiply their seed and that they would inhabit a land. It was a people, a people that would grow and multiply and that they would be numerous and it would be a population and they would possess this land, this inheritance.

[6:42] And God is bringing all these things to pass. He's patiently waited for 38 years of sojourning or wandering in the wilderness because of their failure to enter in the first time in which they were on the brink of entrance and they failed to go in and now God has brought them around.

[6:58] And they are about to lay hold of that which God called them out of Egypt for. That great theme we have that God had brought them out of Egypt in order to bring them into the promised land.

[7:10] God's purpose was to bring them into the promised land and to set them apart inside that land for all the world to see. And we've been looking at that, how Moses is just reiterating everything that God had done in the past.

[7:25] The book of Deuteronomy, the literal translation of the word deuteros means second law. And it is because of this section of scripture is the second, not a second law given, but the second telling of the law which we have recorded for us in Exodus 20.

[7:41] We call them the Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue or Ten Great Sayings, the Ten Sayings of God. This really is the epitome of the covenant relationship in which they are to live.

[7:55] This is the premises on what their life would be resting upon as they lived in a relationship with a holy God. These laws or regulations were to be the governing bodies of their life.

[8:12] And it would be these that would set them apart. It would be these that would cause them to live differently. It would be these that would cause the world to look at them and go, what's different about those people?

[8:25] It would literally be this law or this covenant that would draw people to the Lord their God. If they could have done it.

[8:36] Now we know the reality is God sets the standard so high no man can attain to it. God sets the standard so high that no man on his own could ever attain.

[8:48] We don't have to go through all of the sundry laws, all the Levitical laws, and all the laws that we find in the book of Leviticus, and all the food laws, and all those really small laws.

[9:00] We don't want to call them small, but small to us. Because really we can't get past the Ten Commandments. When we look at the Decalogue, we say, well, I've fallen, I have fallen, I have fallen. And it's Jesus tells us that if we fall short in one of those, we are guilty of all of those.

[9:14] But yet we understand that this is the covenant relationship that God is making with his people. This is what they heard him say as he called them to himself.

[9:25] And I want you to see this evening the immediate impact of the covenant. That which took place immediately, as soon as God spoke it, as soon as the people heard it.

[9:37] Now the reality is, is that the majority of the people that Moses is declaring this to were not present. Okay? They weren't in Mount Sinai. Or if they were, they would have probably been very, very young.

[9:49] We know that everyone over the age of 20 has already perished in the wilderness. We know that a number of these people who are alive here were not even alive when they had this encounter 38 years prior to this.

[10:02] Or if they were, maybe it was just a vague memory. Yet we also understand that Moses speaks in the present tense as if they were there. Because God was making a covenant not with just individuals.

[10:14] God was making a covenant with the nation. And it was applicable to them all. And he puts them there. He puts them in the setting. And he reminds them of the immediate impact of this covenant.

[10:26] What it did right away. And what it continues to do. By the way, we also understand, just before we check out of this, right? Before we say, well, this is Old Testament.

[10:38] And this is the law. And I'm thankful we don't live under the law anymore. And, you know, I can't say amen enough. I'm thankful we don't live under the law, right? We live under grace and mercy and forgiveness.

[10:50] But nine out of the ten commandments are repeated in the New Testament. As applicable to believers. The only one that is not is the keeping of the Sabbath.

[11:04] It's the only one not repeated. Because the Sabbath keeping is a very Jewish national identity with the people that would specifically set them apart in the context of their land.

[11:19] And it was to be a day of rest and a day of worship and a day of celebration. And we're not here to really look at that. We want to stay true to the message. But I'll go ahead and close the gap in there. The reason that it's not repeated in the New Testament for believers is because they maintain the first day of the week, right?

[11:35] They worship on the Lord's Day, the Resurrection Day, Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. Sunday is not our Sabbath. Sunday is the Lord's Day. It is Resurrection Day. It is not a day of rest.

[11:46] But it is a day of worship and a day of celebration and a day of... Now, it should be a day of rest. But the principle of rest is applicable to all. So we can't even discount that because the principle is to take some time to stop what you're doing, to focus on the Lord, to worship Him, and to cease from all other activity.

[12:06] And we understand that's a really, really hard thing to do in the day and time in the world in which we live. And we admit that. But that principle is there and applicable today.

[12:18] So don't discount these and say, well, I don't really have to pay attention because that's Old Testament law. The Ten Commandments have great application to us. Some of them immediate because they are repeated with truth to us or with application to us in the New Testament.

[12:35] But we see the impact they have. The first thing we see, because these Ten Commandments not only reveal what the people should do, they reveal who God is. They reveal, and we kind of hinted to this last time we were together, one of the greatest things that they do is they reveal the character and the concern of God.

[12:52] And they reveal much about Him that we won't have time to get into. But number one, we see the prioritized genuine worship. The first thing it does is it prioritizes genuine worship.

[13:07] I almost said it prioritizes worship. That's not a true statement. Because all people everywhere worship.

[13:21] They're worshiping something. Either you're worshiping self or you're worshiping, you know, animistic worship, which is the animal kingdom, or nature worship, worshiping trees or the heavens and all these things.

[13:34] But worship is something that is common to all men. The Bible tells us that over and over again. It says in Ecclesiastes that God said, He turned it to the heart of all men. And because of that, men had this longing for something greater than them.

[13:48] So it's not prioritizing worship. It prioritizes genuine worship. True worship. Real worship. And it makes it a priority by declaring this.

[14:01] He says in verse 6, I am the Lord your God. I don't know if you caught that throughout this whole passage, but the emphasis here is on the covenant relationship which they possess.

[14:12] I am the Lord your God. The Lord your God. The Lord your God. God is prioritizing the fact that they are in a relationship with one another. He is prioritizing the fact that he is in a covenant agreement with them.

[14:24] That they are his people and he is their God. Their only God. He is not a Lord their God. He is the Lord their God.

[14:37] He is the only one. And he reminds them of what he has done in the past. Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. So there is this reminder again. That's why we look at this in verse 6.

[14:48] There is a reminder of God's power, his faithfulness, his work, his labor, and the things which he has done for them. Long before God called them into a covenant relationship, he moved and drew them to himself.

[14:58] Again, I know we kind of get lost in this and it's repeated so many times, but we need to understand this. If the Exodus event is the greatest picture of believer salvation, of true salvation that we have in the Bible, and I believe it is, then we understand that as believers, people who have trusted Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, we are in a covenant relationship with God through the blood of Jesus, his son.

[15:21] So we live in a covenant relationship as well. So if we want to see what that covenant relationship is like, we go back and see what God's covenant relationship with his people is like. Before they were seeking him, he sought them out.

[15:33] And he brought them out of slavery to the mountain. And there he entered into a covenant with them. And he reminds them of that. I brought you to myself.

[15:44] I chose you. I called you. I had the authority and the power to free you. When you couldn't do any of that yourself. And then he begins to make these declarations.

[15:58] And the very first thing this covenant does is that prioritizes genuine worship because he says, you shall have no other gods before me.

[16:08] Now, the word before is kind of misleading in the English. It literally means besides or other than or in front of my face. What God is saying is don't put any other God anywhere around me.

[16:19] There's only one. This will be repeated again. The Lord our God is one. In Deuteronomy chapter 6. What God is saying here is worship centers around one God.

[16:36] He says, I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods. It's just me. And because of that, we move into the second one. He said, you shall not make for yourself an idol.

[16:48] Now, he's already talked about this. Moses has already brought this up in Deuteronomy chapter 3. And he's spoken of this over and over again. But this reality that since there is but one God and since we have heard his voice, but we have never seen his form.

[17:01] And we know that we cannot have any other God before his face or don't put anything in front of him that we're worshiping. He says, don't make anything else. See, this is genuine worship, right? There is but one God.

[17:12] We're not going to put anything else in front of him or besides him or around him or anywhere near him. So we're not going to make for ourselves an idol. He says, and you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

[17:23] Just be careful how you use my name. Now, history has shown us the Jewish people's reverence and their awe of the name of God. Wouldn't even write it as a scribe.

[17:34] That's why we have the name Yahweh, because they would write the abbreviation for it. They would not write the actual name of God out of reverence for it.

[17:44] They would not even speak the name of God. When a scribe was copying scripture, they would put the quill down and get a brand new one and use it in case they made an ink blot as a result of a messed up quill while writing the name of God.

[18:01] They had such reverence and fear, and it was a corporal offense. It was punishable by death and stoning to use the name of the Lord your God in vain. Why?

[18:12] Because to declare his name was to declare his power and authority and his person. And to speak his name haphazardly is to not give him the right position he needs.

[18:31] Right? To know the name of. Remember the story with Balaam? Right? To know the name of a God was one would assume that I have authority or at least prestige over this God.

[18:48] And just like Balaam would do, they would declare a God's name as a curse or as a blessing. And they would say, I have the authority and I have the power over this God to tell him what to do.

[19:02] God says, don't you use my name that way. Because you can't declare to me what I must do.

[19:14] See, it's worship. It's prioritizing genuine worship. There is but one God. You're not going to put anything else in front of him.

[19:25] You're going to make sure that you revere his name. You're going to lift it on high. You're going to magnify it.

[19:36] By the way, these things are applicable today, right? You're going to lift it up in true worship. You're going to lift it up with holiness and fear and reverence.

[19:46] Because this is the Lord our God. And he says, you're going to keep the Sabbath day. Keep the Sabbath day.

[19:59] Set a whole day aside to reflect and to remind yourself of who I am. Because true Sabbath keeping has to take you all the way back to end on the seventh day God rested.

[20:15] So you have to ascribe his creator authority there. The fact that God did a work. He spoke it all into existence. He formed man.

[20:26] He fashioned a lady. And then he stopped. He rested, right? And you ascribe his worth. And it is prioritizing worship. Because the whole covenant God has with his people stands on the foundation of genuine worship.

[20:45] Because until worship is right, nothing's right. And that's equally, if not doubly, is true for us.

[21:00] They were worshiping what they did not know. We have, as the book of Hebrews says, in these last days, God has spoken to us in his son, Jesus Christ.

[21:13] We have the full revelation. They couldn't make an idol because they didn't know what God looks like. Jesus says, he who has seen me has seen the Father. We know what God would look like walking around in the flesh because of Emmanuel.

[21:27] You say, well, I've never seen him. But we have such a clear description. And we have the testifying power of the Spirit within us. We have the indwelling. They were worshiping a God who dwelt in a tabernacle in a Shekinah glory.

[21:38] Some people would be moved by the Spirit. We today worship a God who says he makes his tabernacle inside of us. Filled by the Holy Spirit. See, the covenant rests on that foundation of having worship right.

[21:55] Because if worship is not a priority and it is not central to everything else, nothing else really matters. You can do the second half of the Ten Commandments, but it has to start here.

[22:09] It has to start there. Because the immediate impact of entering into a covenant relationship with God is that it transforms worship. It transforms worship.

[22:22] Much of what God is alluding to here is going on in nations around them and tribes around them. And they have it all twisted up. God says, your worship is going to be different. It's not that they had never seen worship.

[22:34] I mean, the ten plagues in the nation of Egypt against the nation of Israel were an attack by God upon ten gods in the nation of Egypt.

[22:47] Right? He was intentionally attacking what the Egyptians were worshiping. So they were surrounded by worship. But this covenant immediately impacts that.

[22:57] He says, get rid of everything else. Get rid of everything else. To the believer today, it says, those living in the covenant, get rid of everything else. We don't construct our idols out of hands anymore.

[23:09] Now we construct them out of imagination. Right? We construct them out of convenience and thought patterns and commitments to things of that nature.

[23:25] God says worship is a priority. Number two, not only does it prioritize genuine worship. Number two, it leads to a personal concern for others. It leads to a personal concern for others.

[23:37] The fourth commandment is that you shall keep the Sabbath. And now, what's amazing is, is this fourth commandment literally ties it to the final six. Because it says, you shall keep the Sabbath because it is a Sabbath to the Lord your God.

[23:49] Right? So the first thing the Sabbath does is it reminds you that you are stopping for the sake of the Lord your God. And you are to set aside a day, he tells the nation here. Set aside a day for the Lord your God.

[24:00] But then he says, and also, your animals shouldn't do any work. Your servants shouldn't do any work. Nobody else around you should do any work.

[24:12] And the reason he is doing this, he says, the Sabbath is not just for you, but it's also for other people. You're going to give them a rest. It's not just that you're going to stop.

[24:23] You're going to allow everyone in your household to stop. And to be still. Because they need it as well. So now there's this bridge that is connecting us to this second thing that is a personal concern for others.

[24:36] And the remaining commandments here speak of an individual's growing concern. Because when worship is right, we begin to be rightfully concerned for those around us.

[24:50] Right? Until worship is not right, we will not be rightfully concerned for other people. And that is a principle that runs throughout Scripture.

[25:03] He says, honor your father and your mother. It starts in the home. He says, honor your father and mother as the Lord your God has commanded you. That your days may be prolonged. That you may go well with you in the land in which the Lord your God gives you.

[25:14] He says, you ought to have an honor and a respect and uphold and a care and a concern. You're not just to cast them away into the wayside. You ought to be there for them. He says, you should honor them. Because you'll have a growing concern that is rooted in your worship.

[25:28] And he goes on. You shall not murder. That is the sanctity of all life. It is the sanctity of all life. Because if we understand who God is, then we understand that it is only God's right to know when the day of death.

[25:45] It is only God's right to take life. And we get this. Now, we're not talking about... I know we can get into all kinds of discussions there, so I'm not going there. Right? We're not talking about... This is not judicial.

[25:56] Right? We're not talking about legal system here. We're talking about society. We're talking about how individuals interacting within society. Because we get the corporal punishment in the judicial system that God gives the nation of Israel.

[26:08] So he's not talking about that. He's talking about mal-response to another individual. That's the reflection there. You should not murder. He's not talking about self-defense there. Right?

[26:19] He's talking about murder. That is the intentional slaying of another individual solely for the purpose of killing it. That's what he's talking about. And he moves on. You should not commit adultery.

[26:30] That is, you ought to have a concern for the marriage relationship. It ought to be upheld. High in society. By the way, each of these speaking against things which will confront them.

[26:42] Because adultery was prolific in the land of Canaan. Along with so much other things that went on with their idol worship and their idolatrous worship. And the things that happened in the temples there.

[26:52] And their cult prostitutes. And male prostitutes and female prostitutes. And there's all these things going on. And it was part of their paganistic worship. And God says, you're not going to look at your marriage like that. You're going to hold it up high.

[27:04] You're going to have a concern for your vows. You're going to have a concern for the fact that you're in this relationship. You're going to have a growing concern rooted in genuine worship. You should not steal.

[27:16] Don't take anything that doesn't belong to you. Right? Not have a longing. Be content with what God has provided. You should not bear false witness against your neighbor. That's judicial. You can't wrongfully testify in court.

[27:27] But it's also, you shouldn't tell lies. You should live your life truthfully in all things. You should not covet. That's a high standard, right? Don't look and say, well, I wish I had that.

[27:39] And again, the first thing he said, don't covet your neighbor's wife. Don't covet his farm. Don't covet his house. Don't covet his servants. Don't covet anything he has. Don't covet. Be content. Why? Because genuine worship leads to a growing concern or a personal concern for others because we are now content with what we have been provided.

[27:58] And what we understand here is the immediate impact of this covenant is it gets worship right and it gets our interaction with others right. And it moves on.

[28:09] Because it doesn't stop there. We go on into verse 22 and we see the third thing. There is the prioritized genuine worship.

[28:20] There is a personal concern for others. Number three, there is a perceived holiness. These ten commandments reveal to us the character of God.

[28:30] It took God ten great saints to set a standard so high no man other than Jesus Christ has ever held up to it.

[28:42] God is so holy, so righteous, and so perfect. He set a standard in ten sayings that no society could ever exceed.

[28:57] No amount of rules, regulations, laws. As a matter of fact, every code or law or rule or regulation that has ever benefited man is found contained in these ten sayings.

[29:11] God revealed his concern for people's spiritual existence. He reveals his concern for people's physical existence.

[29:22] He wants them to rest. He revealed his concern for their marital existence, their family existence, their possessions, right? He is even concerned about their animals.

[29:32] He said, don't work your cattle. God shows his character in all of these things and declares who he is. It shows us his holiness. And they perceived it very clearly on the mountain because he goes on to describe me.

[29:48] And when you heard in verse 23, and when you heard the voice in the midst of the fire, or in the midst of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire, and you came near to me, all the heads of the tribes of the elders, you said to me, behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness.

[30:04] They begin to see how good he is, right? He has shown us his glory and his greatness. These are the same people, by the way, who are saying this here back in Exodus 20, who have been in Egypt when the ten plagues came down, who was there when the Red Sea was parted, who was there when the manna started falling.

[30:19] And now they're saying he has shown us his glory and his greatness. And we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire, and we have seen today that God speaks from a man, yet he lives. What do they do?

[30:30] They're perceiving his holiness. They're understanding his presence there, and they are overwhelmed with it. And they very rightfully declare, we're not worthy to stand here.

[30:43] We're not worthy to stand here. We don't belong here. Because God is too great. His glory is too awesome. His presence is too overwhelming.

[30:57] Moses, you go there. We're going to have to step away. It's the same reaction, accurate reaction, that we see throughout the Old Testament. Anytime someone is confronted by the presence of God, and they fall on their face, and they're just like Isaiah, woe is me.

[31:12] I don't belong here. Isaiah says, I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. Some people say, well, Isaiah had a cussing problem. We don't know that or not. All I know is, all it takes is one glimpse of God's glory, and every one of us fall down and go, woe is me.

[31:28] I don't belong here. I don't belong here. And when we read these, I mean, if we're completely honest with ourselves, when we read these, we say, we don't belong here either.

[31:42] We don't belong in the presence of that God. We don't belong there. Because God says, this is what it takes to live in fellowship with me. And I don't know how far we had to get through the list before you said, I don't belong here, but I guarantee none of us made it to number 10 feeling okay about ourselves.

[31:59] Because an honest self-evaluation says, we do not belong here. The standard's too high. God's too holy, and we can't make it. And that's the point.

[32:12] That's exactly what God's showing us. His holiness, right? Which leads us to the fourth and final thing. And I'll be done. I know we've got to get to the business meeting.

[32:22] We've got to get to the prayer meeting. But this fourth and final thing that is the provided intercessor. The provided intercessor. Because the people say, we don't belong here. We can't stand here.

[32:33] It is too awesome. It is too great. It is too much glory. We can't be on this mountain, Moses. You can't do that. And God responds. It says there in verse 28, The Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me.

[32:46] So they were speaking to Moses, but God was listening, right? And Moses says, The Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me. And the Lord said to me, look at what he says. I've heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken. They have done well in all that they have spoken.

[32:59] God says, it's good. They have done well in realizing they don't belong here. These are his people. He says, they're right. They are right. They are right to declare they can't stand here.

[33:14] God is showing us something here. Look at this. God's heart begins to reveal itself in verse 29. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all my commandments always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever.

[33:28] God is saying, I wish that the heart they have now, not that I wish. God's longing. We don't want to say wish. That's a poor word to use in describing God.

[33:40] God's heart here is that the heart they have now would remain in them, that they would be sensitive to my holiness. They'd be sensitive to my glory, that they would always be humbled in my presence.

[33:51] But we know they're not. Verse 30, Go and say to them, return to your tents. Now, here's the provided intercessor. Again, this is God's idea because God is declaring all this, right? The Lord their God is declaring this.

[34:02] But as for you, stand here by me, that I may speak to you all the commandments and statutes and the judgments, which you shall teach them, that they may observe in the land which I give them to possess.

[34:14] What does he say? Moses told them to go home. But as for you, you stand by me, and I will declare to you, and you go declare to them. What does Deuteronomy 18 tell us?

[34:26] Deuteronomy 18, Moses makes this declaration. For the Lord your God will raise up a prophet like unto me, that is one that will take my place. Moses was an intercessor on the human side.

[34:41] He could lay his hand on humanity. He stood near the Lord God on the mountain, but he could only lay his hand on humanity because even God declares, you shall only see the tail end of my glory, right?

[34:52] I'm going to cover you in the cleft of the rock, and you shall not behold my face and live. So he could not lay his hand upon God, but he could lay his hand on man. He could intercede for man, and he was there who would interact with God.

[35:03] But God says, the position of the intercessor is beside me. You will be beside me, and then you will go to the people. What is this showing us? That one from beside him would be sent to the people to declare to them how they shall live.

[35:17] Because man doesn't deserve to be there. Hope by now you're connecting the dots, and you understand that intercessor is Jesus Christ. He is the intercessor. He is the one who left from the side of the Father to go to the people, to declare to the people what it is they should do to live in a covenant relationship with God.

[35:42] And the first thing that we understand about this covenant, one of the first impacts it has, is there has to be someone between me and God. I need someone between me and God.

[35:56] And that someone is Jesus Christ. Jesus takes it even further. In that final passage, before he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, John chapter 15, he says that the paraclete, the Holy Spirit, would come.

[36:14] And he calls the Holy Spirit there, the paracletos. The paracletos is an intercessor, literally what it means. It is like a lawyer who stands between the judge and the one on trial and intercedes for his person.

[36:32] So we have the intercessory work of the Son who daily lives at the right hand of the Father, interceding on behalf of the saints. We have the intercessory work of the Spirit, as the Bible tells us in Romans chapter 8, who cries out with groanings when we don't know what to say or how to say it.

[36:50] We have been provided that intercessor that the covenant reveals we need. Because we rightfully declare, we don't belong here. We need someone to bridge the gap. And that gap has been bridged.

[37:02] And we stand forever. Just as Moses says, since I'm bridging the gap, he closes here. So you shall observe to do just as the Lord your God has commanded you. You should not turn aside to the right or to the left.

[37:13] You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess. He says, all these things have been met. Now go live in front of a watching world.

[37:27] Live it out for his glory. And live out that covenant relationship for all to see. Deuteronomy chapter 5, verses 6 through 33.

[37:38] Here we see the immediate impact of the covenant upon the people. And it is the impact it's going to have right before they go into the promised land as well. Thank you.

[38:02] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[38:34] Thank you.

[39:04] Thank you.

[39:34] Thank you.

[40:04] Thank you.

[40:34] Thank you.

[41:04] Thank you.

[41:34] Thank you.

[42:04] Thank you.

[42:34] Thank you.