Intro to The Ten

Introduction

Many of you have had the pleasure of working for the government, and sadly I’m sure all of you have had to deal with some kind of red tape.

Possibly the least exciting thing in the world is learning bureaucracy. I say that a person who enjoys building systems often.

I was trained in protocol of how to fins documents to assist teachers and staff in finding out information about students when I worked for a Florida school district. I had to look up 3 different documents some computerized some only paper and each had different information.

I remember hearing the protocol and thinking this is dumb, why do we have these weird self imposed rules.

They didn’t help with the job, they didn’t help the teachers, they didn’t help the parents, they didn’t help the students. But I had to listen to how it was done. When we study the law of God there is a temptation to treat the law of God like learning law and rules at work. Have you ever had to set through a mandatory training? don’t import the feeling of that to the law of God.

This is crazy it’s like the school district didn’t like kids.

So often when we read the OT, especially the first 5 books we see these laws and regulations, list, and so on and we start to glaze in our eyes.

Tell me more about the ark not these very specific things about the size of the temple and so on and it’s has a place but why?

God as Father

So as we read through the law of God specifically the Moral law, the ten commandments I want to set up our North Star.

Deuteronomy 5:2–3 ESV

2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today.

This is the method that I am trying to stick to. Our Heavenly father, is really our father. He has given us only good things.

The law of God is different, when we read the law here it is our heavenly father who loves us and is sitting us down to tell us how to live. Your father in heaven is looking out for you. Maybe you didn’t have a great dad, maybe you did, but your perfect heavenly father is saying here is how to live.

God is our father laying the ground rules on how to live, just like how I lay the ground rules for my kids and how you’ve done the same.

So as we read and hear the text over the next few weeks this is God personally.

The Text

Deuteronomy 5:1–5 ESV

1 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, 5 while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain. He said:

Now I’m going to be covering a

The Background

The Hebrew expression, which occurs three times in the Old Testament (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 4:13; 10:4), literally means “ten words.” This is why Exodus 20 is often referred to as the Decalogue, deka being the Greek word for “ten” and logos meaning “word.” These are the Ten Words that God gave the Israelites at Mount Sinai—and, I’ll argue, the Ten Words that God wants all of us to follow.

DeYoung, Kevin. 2018. The 10 Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

Deuteronomy (Mentor Expository Commentary | MEC) The Preamble to Deuteronomy 1:1–8

First, the time was at the end of the forty years of wandering, just before the people of Israel would cross over Jordan into the Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 1:3 “3 In the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all that the Lord had given him in commandment to them,”

This happened after the death of the previous generation who had disobeyed God

Deuteronomy 1:34–40 ESV

34 “And the Lord heard your words and was angered, and he swore, 35 ‘Not one of these men of this evil generation shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, 36 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He shall see it, and to him and to his children I will give the land on which he has trodden, because he has wholly followed the Lord!’ 37 Even with me the Lord was angry on your account and said, ‘You also shall not go in there. 38 Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. 39 And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. 40 But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’

This Generation had saw What God has done, and yet didn’t obey.

Deuteronomy (Mentor Expository Commentary | MEC) The Preamble to Deuteronomy 1:1–8

Second, the place of the second reading of the law is, according to verse 5, what we call today Transjordan, east of the Jordan River in the ancient territory of Moab. Thus, the people of God were on the verge of the greatest movement they have made since they came out of slavery in Egypt and crossed over the Red Sea some forty years before. And while they were still God’s people, most of that generation which left Egypt had died out, and the group Moses is leading here is a new generation, with a few exceptions. Hence, they are preparing to cross into the Promised Land that God would give them!

However, to gain it, they would face a tremendous amount of fighting and risk their lives on the high places of the field. Naturally, any normal human, even those with faith, facing those kinds of battles would become quite sober, and probably have a bad feeling in the pit of their stomach. And so Moses is writing this book to encourage them, as Paul says, ‘that you might have hope through the Scriptures’ (Rom. 15:4). They need encouragement as they face an unknown, and warlike future. To do so, he gives them this encouragement by turning their hearts and minds to who God is, and to what His covenant promises are like for His people.

So on the background of this work God through Moses comes to speak to his people.

Moses was not allowed to Go with them, but this was his final message to them

Our Connection: Jesus is our Moses

Deuteronomy 5:3–4 ESV

3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. 4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire,

God sent Moses to deliver the people from the slavery of Egypt. But as you see our God came in person, face to face to deliver us from sin. The Law of God we had broken, we disobeyed our father, so he sent his son Jesus to restore us. JEsus sees us in the face, are you looking at him? (Give the gospel)

Application

Our God is before us.

Deuteronomy 1:30–31 ESV

30 The Lord your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place.’

You can replace Egypt and wilderness with so many different things.

10 Easy commands - Family

God gives us 10 simple rules, Moses in the rest of the book breaks down how those are applicable to us. Part of the ten commandments is teaching us how to live. Our father gives us a few rules that's a great example for parents to give consistent few rules. God's rules are all encompassing, they're not like a current modern government lists of which from last count no one knows how many laws are passed in this country this these days.

For a parent the best way forward is a few rules consistently applied your children will thank you for it and you won't run a foul of Paul's admonition of angering your children.

Ephesians 6:1–4 ESV

1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother” (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 “that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.” 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

These principles are timeless

The Book of Deuteronomy 2. The Decalog (5:6–21)

The principles embodied in the commandments are of abiding value, but the application of the principle changes, just as does the environment of the man who is within the covenant relationship. Thus the immediate significance of some of the commandments might differ from one environment to another. The meaning of the commandments to the Israelites in the newly formed theocracy may assume a different shape for modern man living under a form of technocracy. But the principles remain the same. Hence the commandments continue to be valid in the NT (e.g., Matt. 19:16–20) and are still considered to be of vital importance to the contemporary Christian.

That quotation of Scripture is the rich young ruler,

English Standard Version Chapter 5

O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them.

This is God’s command to us even as a nation today, we take the priniciples and do them, this is the foundation of common law, which is foundational of the Anglo-American legal system. All that to say is this, these laws are given not to collect dust, but to be done. Jesus Said

John 10:10 (ESV)I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

When you don’t keep God’s commands as a culture you don’t have life. It’s no coincidence, that in cities that don’t enforce the laws places like Walmart and Target are leaving. If you have any influence you must enact God’s law for the common good. The Abudant good.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

8 And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so erighteous as all this law that I set before you today?

You can trust God with the future

Deuteronomy 1:7–8 ESV

7 Turn and take your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negeb and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. 8 See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them.’

Here is the point. Our Father is giving us his teachings out of love for us because in our human-ness we are going into the future and we can’t see what’s around the corner. Our Father is telling you and I today to go and take possession of what is ahead of us. Remember God is filling the whole world with his glory. All the nations are his we’re to just go in and obey. HE gave the people that land, he is giving us the future that he is building right now for us. We have but to trust that He goes before us and not be like the Hebrew children who feared the Giants in the land.

God is your father

The 10 Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them Reason 4: Where We Are

The biblical definition of freedom is not “doing whatever you want.” Freedom is enjoying the benefits of doing what we should. We too often think of the Ten Commandments as constraining us—as if God’s ways will keep us in servitude and from realizing our dreams and reaching our potential. We forget that God means to give us abundant life (John 10:10) and true freedom (John 8:32). His laws, 1 John 5:3 tells us, are not burdensome.

You think it’s burdensome to have Ten Commandments? Do you know how many laws there are in the United States? It’s a trick question, because no one knows! There are twenty thousand laws on the books regulating gun ownership alone. In 2010 an estimated forty thousand new laws were added at various levels throughout the country. The United States Code, which is just one accounting of federal laws and does not include regulatory statutes, has more than fifty volumes. In 2008 a House committee asked the Congressional Research Service to calculate the number of criminal offenses in federal law. They responded, five years later, that they lacked the manpower and resources to answer such a question.5

Deuteronomy 5:4 “4 The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire,”

The OT is for your teaching

God in these ten words is teaching us Paul would say this Romans 15:4 “4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

Deuteronomy (Mentor Expository Commentary | MEC) The Old Testament Was Written for Our Learning

Studying the Old Testament strengthens us in hope—and who needs anything more than hope?

What Moses is doing here is explaining the spirit behind the Ten Commandments, and also providing illustrations of how you carry them out in normal, everyday life. We must understand that Deuteronomy is not a new giving of the law, as though it is adding something different. It’s the same law as Exodus 20, given on Mt. Sinai, but it’s the second reading. In this second reading, Moses gives careful explication of what it means, thereby showing its spiritual depths, and its practical p 19 ramifications. This is similar to what Jesus does in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount. He expounds the law by showing the spiritual depth and inner connectedness it requires, and how it goes into the deep places of human life and daily living. It would be safe to say that in some ways, Deuteronomy is similar in spirit to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount—though of course it’s not exactly the same.

The Law reminds us of God keeping his promises

Deuteronomy 1:10 (ESV)

10 The LORD your God has multiplied you, and behold, you are today as numerous as the stars of heaven.

Genesis 15:4–5 ESV

4 And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

In like we need to be men and women who keep their word. Nothing rubs the wrong way like a man who intentionally breaks his promise. Be a man like God our father who keeps his word across generations

Make God’s promises known to those around us

Deuteronomy 4:9–10 ESV

9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children— 10 how on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.’

Teaching Children, Giving the Gospel, remind yourself what God has done

A note for the seniors among us.

Deuteronomy 34:1–5 ESV

1 Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, 2 all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, 3 the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. 4 And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” 5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord,

You can trust God for your children and Grandchildren, you can trust God as things change. You maybe in his blessing seeing something supernatural like Moses did. Do you trust God in your later days as you did in the former?

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