Deuteronomy 6:6-12
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Intro:
Intro:
-how many of you are “why” kind of people?
-Something happens, or someone explains something to you, and your question is: why?
My older brother Ben was a lot more that way growing up than I was
-Ben is pretty smart, pretty logical, and so he’d want to know why?
-I didn’t really care, and sometimes I was just frustrated that we now had to sit there an listen to an explanation when I didn’t really care
The reason I ask this is because Moses gives the Israelites an important command
-But there’s a reason for it
-There’s a why to it, and I want you to be thinking about the question “why” as we work our way through this passage tonight
Background:
Background:
Remember, when we interpret the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Bible), it’s important that we keep it within the context of the metanarrative (the storyline) that occurs within these 5 books
-So God creates the world and everything is good
-He creates man and woman in perfect fellowship with Himself
-And yet, the man and woman are tempted by Satan, choose to sin, and the whole human race is plunged into sin
-But, in their moment of greatest failure, God promises the man and the woman a Descendant
-This Descendant would crush the Adversary
So the whole over-arching storyline of the Pentateuch is that of tracing this line of descendants from the woman, looking in hope for the Promised Descendant
And so many times in the Pentateuch, this line of descendants is on the brink of ruin
-But God always steps in and preserves this line of descendants
-So when God destroys the earth with a flood, He steps in a graciously preserves Noah and his family
-God singles out Abram as the one that this descendant will come from
-But Abraham is a coward, and allows his wife to be taken by a foreign king twice!
-But God steps in each time to preserve this line of descendants
-When a famine ravages the known world, God sovereignly places Joseph as second in command in Egypt to preserve this line of descendants and give them a safe place to multiply
-When Pharaoh enslaves this line of descendants, now known as the Israelites, God steps in and frees them with a mighty arm
-When Pharaoh changes his mind and wants them back, God opens up the Sea to let His people through, while drowning the Egyptian army
God leads His people to Mount Sinai and there makes a covenant with them
-God will give them the land that He promised to their fathers and will be their God
-And they, in turn, will be obedient to Him and worship Him alone
God desires a special, marked-off people
-This doesn’t get off to a very good start, as God’s people quickly show themselves to be an idolatrous, stiff-necked people
-Yet God graciously brings them to the Promised Land despite their wickedness
-But the people rebel against God, desiring instead to return to the slavery of Egypt instead of the bountiful land God has provided
-God does not allow this, but instead sentences them to wandering around in the wilderness until all of the Israelites over 20 years old are dead
This is exactly what happens, as God’s people languish in the wilderness for 40 years until all the people over 40 die
-Now once again, the people are at the brink of the Promised Land
Deuteronomy then, is a collection of sermons by Moses to the Israelites as they prepare to go into the Land
Last week we looked at the Shema, which is Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord 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 strength.
-We noted that really, all of Deuteronomy is a commentary on Vs. 5, which Jesus Himself calls the greatest command
-To love God with all your heart, soul and strength is the greatest of all God’s commandments
-That brings us to our text today, which we’ll start with verse 4 and go through verse 9, then we’ll get the verses 10-12 in a few minutes
**READ PASSAGE**
Vs. 6-9
Vs. 6-9
Vs. 6
“These words” refer to really all of the commands of God found in the Law
-These are found in the 10 Commandments in the previous chapter
-These are many of the other laws given in chapters 12-26
-And they are especially encapsulated in the Shema of 6:4-5
-God’s words, His revelation to His people, are to be in their hearts
-Now remember, in our culture and language, when we refer to the heart, we are referring to the emotions
-When someone says “I love you with all my heart” or “follow your heart” (bad advice, by the way), we understand that to be the emotional side of us
-But that’s why it’s important when we seek to understand the Bible, we go across the bridge, so to speak, and understand the Bible how the original audience would have understood it
-For the Hebrews, the heart wasn’t about the emotions, but about the mind
-So this command to have the words of God in their heart was a command for them to be thinking about His words constantly!
-They ought always to be in their consciousness
Let me ask you, when you put your mind in neutral, so to speak, what does it go to?
-What is it you’re constantly thinking about?
-Is it sports?
-Is it your favorite TV show?
-Is it your kids?
-Is it how angry the other political party makes you?
What is it?
-I remember as a young teenager, I was so into football!
-I daydreamed about football
-I played football video games
-Every chance I got, I went outside and played football with my friends
-When the Panthers played on Sundays, it took me about 3 days to get over the game
-I’m serious! it took me from Sunday till about Wednesday to really move on after a game
-If they won, I was ecstatic! I would think about their victory, the awesome plays, I would read sports articles about it
-And when they lost, I was so disappointed, and all week I dissected what it was that went wrong, what they should have done differently
What is it you think about when you let your mind wander?
-What do you love to dwell on?
And for the Israelites, they were to constantly dwell on God’s Words, His commandments
Now, you might be saying, “that doesn’t sound like an easy task! How could someone make sure that they are thinking on God’s Words, His Commandments, constantly like that?
-That’s a legitimate question
-How would the Israelites be able to train themselves to do this?
I think it’s this line of reasoning that leads Moses to give these instructions in verses 7-9
Vs. 7
One of the ways that the Israelites could ensure that they were constantly keeping God’s commands at the forefront of their mind and heart was to teach them to their children
-As their kids were growing up, the parents were to faithfully teach their children God’s Words
-This probably involved a lot of memorization
-Helping their children memorize the Words of God
-but more than just that, this probably also involved talking through the Words of God and their implications
-You can imagine a little 9 year old Jewish girl asking her father why they celebrated Passover, or why they had to bring the tithes, her father explaining these things to her
As a matter of fact, verses 20-25 seem to indicate this very thing:
“When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son: ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; and the Lord showed signs and wonders before our eyes, great and severe, against Egypt, Pharaoh, and all his household. Then He brought us out from there, that He might bring us in, to give us the land of which He swore to our fathers. And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day. Then it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to observe all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He has commanded us.’
You can see that the Israelite parents were responsible to make sure that God’s Words were learned, but also that they were understood by their children
As a matter of fact, this task was to be so consuming that they were to talk of God’s Words when they sat down in the house or when they walked by the way
-Now, what does that mean?
-sitting in your house and walking by the way really encompasses all aspects of life
-Whether the Israelite parents were trying to entertain their kids on a rainy day
-Or whether they were taking them to the local market for food shopping
-Whether they were at home making clothes
-Or whether they were out helping to take care of the livestock
-In all kinds of daily and normal routines of life, they were to talk of God’s Words and teach them to their children
-They were to do this when they lay down and when they rose up
-In other words, from sun-up to sun-down, the Israelites were to teach their children God’s Words and His commands
Now, as we think about us today, what are things that children in our culture are learning all the time?
-Video games, movies, TV shows, YouTube, sports
-These things aren’t inherently bad
-Many of us enjoy these kinds of things
-What are some of the messages that go with these kinds of things?
-Probably not always the best messages if we’re being honest in some of these forms of entertainment
-Do you think God wants us to teach our children His Words today?
-Do you think that’s important to God?
Let me give you a couple of verses to consider:
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Does God want this for His people today, for them to teach their children God’s Words?
Absolutely!
-How often do you speak of the Lord with your kids and grandkids?
-How often do we make that a point?
Now, how will this help keep God’s Words at the forefront of the hearts and minds of God’s people, both for the Israelites back then, and us today?
-It not only helps the children to grow up thinking on God’s Words
-It helps us as adults when we are seeking to speak of the Lord and teach His ways to our kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc.
-It’s good for us to be seeking to teach God’s Words to others, because this helps keep it in our own minds as well
In verse 8
-Moses instructs the Israelites to bind God’s Words on their hands and between their eyes
-There are many in the Jewish community who have taken these verses literally
-They have what are called “phylacteries”
-And a phylactery is a small box that they would tie around their head or around their arm in which they would keep passages of Scripture
-and they get that from these verses
-Now, it doesn’t seem that was probably the intention that Moses had
-These things are not very practical for everyday living, and nowhere in the OT do we have an example of anyone actually doing this
I believe that verse 8 is teaching the Israelites that the Words of God need to be always in the minds and affecting their every action
-God’s Word would need to constantly be before their eyes
-And all that they sought to perform should be affected by these Words
God’s Words were to be their very way of life
Vs. 9
-These verses may not have been intended to be taken literally either, although they certainly were at certain times in Judaism
-but the idea seems to be here that the Words of God were to be the center of the home (the doorposts of the house) and the center of the community (on your gates)
Maybe to bring these verses together a little, I want to illustrate from a famous Disney movie
-Now, this might not be the best illustration, but maybe it will help us at least think in the right direction
There is a famous animated Disney movie called “The Lion King”
-The lion king follows the life of a young lion named Simba whose father is the King Lion (Moufassa)
-Simba’s uncle Scar is an evil lion who ambitiously wants the throne
-So he executes a plan where he kills Moufassa
-Simba thinks that he is responsible for his father’s death, so he runs away
And every person who has seen this movie knows that the best two characters of the movie are introduced at the halfway point
-the names of these two characters are . . . Timon and Pumba
-Timon and Pumba are an unlikely pair of friends
-Timon is a merecat, and Pumba is a warthog
-They are both loners and outcasts from society and like it that way
-They find Simba and take him in as their friend
-And as Simba grows up, Timon and Pumba teach him their life motto, which is “hakuna matata”
-Hakuna matata means “no worries”
-And as Simba grows up, they teach him the importance of living worry free!
-Don’t worry about your past!
-Don’t worry about others
-They teach him this as he sits at home or as he walks in the way
-They teach him this as he lies down and as he rises up
-They bind this as a sign to his hand and as frontlets to his eyes
-They write this on the doorposts of the house and on the gates (figuratively, obviously)
And everything that they do, they do in accordance with their motto
-So whenever a decision is presented, they go about their decision in line with this motto, this philosophy of life
-They don’t make decisions apart from this motto, because it dictates how they run their lives
And similarly, God’s Words were to be what dominated the lives of His people!
-Every single thing they did was to be in line with God’s Words
-Far from being some dusty old scroll that they opened up from time to time, these Words of Gods, these commands of God’s were to affect EVERY part of their lives!
-It was to be their meditation all the days of their lives!
-It was to be their delight
-It was to be what governed every single action they took!
The attitude is reflected in some of the Psalms of the Israelites that we have that came later
Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes;
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover by them Your servant is warned,
And in keeping them there is great reward.
These reflect the very heart of what God desired for His people!
So the question we come to, or at least I come to, is this:
-Why is it so important that these things stay central in the thoughts and actions of the Israelites?
-Why was Moses so serious about the Israelites constantly thinking about God’s Words and having their whole lives saturated by it
-I mean, it’s like a house that has experienced a fire
-When there’s a house-fire, even if most of the structure endures, every area of the house is affected by the smoke and the damage
-It permeates every part of it
-And that’s the way that God’s Words were to affect His people
-It’s like God wanted every single aspect of their lives to be permeated and affected by His Words
-Why?
Well, Moses gives us at least one big reason for it in verses 10-12
Vs. 10-12
That’s it!
-That’s one of the huge reasons Moses gives for all of the emphasis on knowing God’s Words, meditating on His commands, speaking of them, teaching them
-It’s this!: “lest you forget Yahweh”
God is faithful, and He is going to give them the land
-He promised this to the Patriarchs
-The impossible task of defeating all of these strong nations will happen
And not only is God going to give them the land, look at what else He’s going to give them!
Moses inserts here 4 clauses which describe the things God will give them
-Large and beautiful cities
-Back then, living in a city was a place of community and safety
-And God would give these kinds of cities to them
-Walls and structures already in place
-Houses full of good things!
-God would give them houses that already had furnishings and food
-Isn’t that nice?
-Wouldn’t it be nice to get a house that already was furnished and full of food and nice stuff like that?
And God was going to give them these kinds of houses that already had stuff in them
-They were filled with good things!
God was going to give them dug-out wells!
-This was a big deal back in this kind culture
-They didn’t have the kind of machinery we have
-They didn’t even have shovels as nice as the ones we have
-And God was going to give them these wells!
And God was going to given them vineyards and olive trees!
-Do you know how long it probably took to make good vineyards?
-I don’t know as much about vineyards, growing grapes, but I do know that trees take a long time to grow
-If you wanted to plant an orchard of olive trees back then, it would take 5-12 years for it to grow from a seed to a tree that could bear fruit
-That’s not fun to have to wait that long for your olive tree orchard
And yet, God was giving them vineyards and olive trees
And what is the last phrase of each of these clauses?
-What is noted about each of these blessings?
-The Israelites didn’t do any work for these things
-They didn’t build the cities
-They didn’t fill the houses
-They didn’t dig the wells
-And they didn’t plant the vineyards or trees
It was purely God’s gracious gift
Look at the end of verses 11
-They are going to eat and be full!
And when that happens:
beware
-why?
“lest you forget Yahweh”
-there’s a reality that when people “make it” . . . they have a tendency to forget how they got there
-Don’t we hear that in our own culture
-We tell celebrities or politicians “don’t forget where you came from”
-There’s a tendency as human beings to forget
-And more specifically, there’s a tendency among us as fallen sinners to forget God
-Even if we’re His children
Let me ask you, did Israel forget Yahweh when they came into the land?
“For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,
And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Can a virgin forget her ornaments,
Or a bride her attire?
Yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also will reject you from being priest for Me;
Because you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children.
And you know why this is doubly sad?
-Because God would never forget them
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,
And my Lord has forgotten me.”
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
And not have compassion on the son of her womb?
Surely they may forget,
Yet I will not forget you.
And Moses’ whole point is this: for the Israelites to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and strength means to keep God’s Words at the forefront of our attention so that we don’t forget!
-especially in times of prosperity and blessing
Application
Application
So let’s cross the bridge back over into 2022 at Kingsway Baptist Church
-Remember, there are many things that are not similar for us
-We are not promised any specific piece of land here over in the Middle East
-We are not called to go into battle and destroy pagan people
-We are not under the threat of God expelling us from our homes if we do not obey Him
So what are the principles we can bring over here with us?
-Remember, the whole context theme of the book of Deuteronomy is loving God with all our heart, soul and strength
-that’s the same goal for us today as it was for the Israelites back then
-So let’s start with this principle:
-There is a danger of forgetting God and His ways when things are easy in our lives
-Are they not?
-Do you think that’s still a temptation today?
-Sometimes we can get lulled into spiritual apathy because of comfort and ease
I mean think about it, what are some of the blessings we enjoy?
-money
-jobs
-health
-A good family (for the most part)
-TV
-Internet
-Sports
-social media
-toys and trinkets
-And the thing is: none of those things I just mentioned are inherently bad!
-They’re not!
-Prosperity and blessing are not evil
-They weren’t for Israel, because God was giving them these things!
-But the temptation with these things is that we can work our jobs, come home, turn on the TV or our phones, and waste our lives away amusing ourselves
-Isn’t this a tempation?
You know what often drives us to God? Hardship
-waiting
-disappointment
-Loss
And yet when God loves us enough to prompt us out of our ease, or give us a thorn in the flesh, we have the audacity to think that He doesn’t love us
-He doesn’t care
-He ought to give me more comfort
-Don’t we?
-Brothers and sisters, each and every hardship, difficulty, disappointment, and annoyance in our lives is a gift from the Lord to remind us not to forget Him
-Why? Because prosperity and blessing can be (doesn’t have to be), but can be a temptation to forget the Lord our God who has so richly given us all things
And what truly is the greatest blessing God has given us?
-It’s His Son, Jesus Christ
-Who left His comforts to come down and pay for our sins
-I’m not preaching against blessings and comfort
-I thank God for all the good gifts He’s given me
-but I want to echo what Moses said, and say to you and me tonight: “beware, lest you forget the Lord”
So then, how can we not forget God?
-We need to keep God’s commands on our hearts at all times
-We need to work to keep God’s Word and His deeds at the forefront constantly
-You know what’s hard?
-It’s easy to watch TV
-It’s easy to watch YouTube
-It’s easy to mindlessly scroll through social media
What’s hard is to study God’s Word
-to spend time in it each day
-to go to our three services on Sundays
-to go to prayer meeting on Wednesday
-to go to Bible study
-to listen to God’s Word read and preached on your own
-But it’s so necessary!
-We live in many ways in an intellectually lazy society that’s driven by instant entertainment
-We want to sit back and be amused
-and I’m not against entertainment
-But as God’s people, we need to be disciplined in our time in God’s Word
-We need to talk about God’s Word and about His Son, like Mr. Vowels preached to us on Sunday
-We need to be teaching our children, grandchildren, and fellow church members
And lastly, we can be assured that even in our moments of failure in these areas, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus
-God has demonstrated His love in sending His Son while we were still sinners
-That’s why Peter says
casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
He never forgets us! We’re His very own children through Christ.
-So when we fail to keep Him and His word in the forefront of our hearts and minds, He never fails to keep us at the forefront of His mind
Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.
So we don’t have to do this out of guilt, or trying to earn God’s love
-We can love Him and rest in Him, even in our failures, because He first loved us