God's Holy Commands

Deuteronomy 4:1–14 ESV

“And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor, for the Lord your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? “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— 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.’ And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.

We’re in the Old Testament today. We are back to the days of Moses speaking to the Israelites, instructing them how they and their descendants were to live as they entered and lived in Canaan. We’re going to repeatedly hear them being called to obedience to God. This morning we want to consider what that was all about, and we’ll be thinking about the relationship that their obedience was a part of. Then we’ll also look at the relationship and expectations for us living on the New Testament side of history—have things changed?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we don’t have to look far to find actions and behaviors, values and ideas that have become normal, acceptable, and even considered moral in our culture today that many Christians throughout history would’ve had nothing to do with. That doesn’t mean past Christians have always been or done right or that most Christians who lived before us were without flaws or sins of their own. No, but it’s easy to see swings in the culture around us.

One of those swings is that people look at the Bible, whether as Christians or not, and they’re asking, “Does the Bible really say this?” They ask that question having in mind, “It seems like there are a lot of rules and laws and commands across these pages. I’ve heard something—is that really in there?” Some things that might fit that bill are: Does the Bible really speak against divorce? Does it really say that people of the same gender can’t get married or have romantic relationships like heterosexual couples? Does it really say we can’t have sex before marriage or apart from our spouse? Does it really say we can’t use God’s name in a flippant way? Does the Bible really say people will go to hell? When people lead with those kinds of questions, usually they’re not asking to learn. Maybe some are, but more often than not their goal is to find a loophole—a way to frame their life situation as outside of the commands. “The Bible” or “God can’t possibly be talking about me.” Or the person wants to paint Christians or the Bible or even God as judgmental or irrelevant or out of touch.  

Another swing in our culture, though maybe some of us don’t notice it as much in our circles, is that less and less people know what’s in the Bible. This book might function more as a visible knick-knack sitting on a shelf collecting dust. Some who go to church are fine with listening to it read here, but they don’t see it as an essential piece of their daily lives. If we need a little boost or some moral support, maybe we’ll look up a verse online or check out an inspirational Facebook post. That’s not to say if you’ve switched over to electronic Bible reading compared to a physical copy that you’re necessarily worse off. No, I’m talking about when regular Bible reading is given up. When we don’t know what books are where or how things unfold or whether all this matters.

I’m not saying all this to be judgmental. These are things that I ‘ve observed throughout my lifetime in various places. I know for myself how hard it is to develop routines of Bible reading and study. I know what it’s like to ignore certain sins in my own life as well as to feel shame for them. But the Bible is the inspired word of God. It’s his truth, written by people, aided by the Holy Spirit. The reality is there are a lot of do’s and do not’s in here. The Bible says a lot about obedience and disobedience, about blessings and curses, about punishment and about grace.

So, our first point this morning is God expected full obedience from his Old Testament people. That’s what we find in Deuteronomy 4. As Moses spoke to the Israelites, he starts out by calling them to “hear.” Why do they need to hear? Because he was going to teach them. They weren’t just to learn, though, to memorize just so they could repeat Moses’ words. No, he says in the very next sentence, “Follow them,” and we could say follow only them. Verse 2, “Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but the keep the commands of the Lord…” Follow them, keep them, jumping down to verse 6, “Observe [the decrees and laws commanded by God] carefully…” Verse 9, “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.”

God had spoken to his Old Testament people, and he had spoken to Moses for them. He called for them to honor his decrees. This wasn’t new for them. In Exodus 19, God had already brought them out of Egypt and was leading them. They arrived at Mt. Sinai, where God officially gave them the opportunity to be his people, to receive his covenant in the Ten Commandments. Exodus 19:5, God says, “‘Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant,’” we’ll have this relationship. That “obey me fully” phrase in Hebrew is a repetition of the same word—God telling them twice to obey him. The people responded in verse 8, “‘We will do everything the Lord has said.’” In Exodus 24:3, after the Ten Commandments had been presented, we read, “[The people] responded with one voice, ‘Everything the Lord has said we will do.’” So, the next day, Moses read the Book of the Covenant and they gave the same commitment, even adding, “’…We will obey.’” They made sure that God heard they were completely on board.

Perhaps there are times when we read the Old Testament, and we wonder if God was too harsh on the Israelites as individuals or as tribes or as a whole nation. Yet these were the standards that were agreed to as long as the covenant was in place. God said, “Listen to and obey what I put before you,” and the people said, “We’ll do it.” God said, “Do it completely,” and the people said, “You got it.” Meredith Kline, a Reformed theologian, wrote in his commentary on Deuteronomy, “Man’s whole obligation is to heed, and to the obedient Israelite was given the promise of life and rich inheritance. The fact that ultimately piety and prosperity will be united was foreshadowed in the history of the Israelite theocracy, for it symbolized the consummate kingdom of God.”

We have to understand that when God created humanity and when he chose Israel, he was looking for their obedience. He was looking for these people, who are the crown of his creation to listen to him, to trust that he knows what is good and true and how things should be. God’s way is the right way always. Because that is true, he expected, and he deserves to be obeyed.  

Relationships matter, though. If you’re a manager or boss or leader and you want your crew, your team, your employees to follow you, to carry out your business in a profitable way, in the way you’ve taught them, you’re more likely to be successful if there’s a proper understanding of the relationship and an acceptance of the roles. Those of you who follow sports probably heard this week how basketball coach John Beilein stepped down from coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers in the middle of his first season with them. He’s quitting in the middle of his first season as an NBA coach after being a successful college coach. How could that be? Well, everything seems to point to the relationship between him and the Cavs’ players just not working.

Maybe thinking about obedience, the relationships that most come to mind are families. Every family has different dynamics, and even within families, the relationships can differ. Some children enjoy and find it easy to be obedient to their parents, while other children can be extremely rebellious. Sometimes a young person or an adult will show the utmost respect in many relationships in their life, but not to their parents.

All of this to say that relationships that are understood and desired tend to work out well. So, in thinking about God’s expectation of obedience, who was he to his Old Testament people? What was his relationship with them? If we go back to Genesis 1 and 2, he was the maker and giver of life to Adam and Eve. If we go to Noah, God was his preserver. If we go to Abraham and the Patriarchs, he’s the promiser. Throughout all their history, he is the Lord their God.

But God also relates in unique ways. Deuteronomy 4 verses 11 through 12, Moses reminded the Israelites how they, through the generation before them, “came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice.” He’s talking about what happened at Mount Sinai. Exodus 19 adds to that picture, “There was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled.” Not only were they trembling, “The whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.” Exodus 24:17 says, “To the Israelites the glory of the Lord looked like a consuming fire on top of the mountain.”

This wasn’t the type of thing that you go “Ohh” and “Ahh” at from a safe distance; this was terrifying! Why would God show up like that? What does this say about their relationship? God had a reason, Exodus 20:20, “Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.’” Fear has a place in the relationship of God and his people. Sin is something that he takes so seriously. Fire can destroy and fire can purify. Sin and sinners require both of those. God’s people need to know he’s serious.

But the relationship we find in the Old Testament wasn’t all doom and gloom. As God was giving his commands in Exodus 34, he commanded his people not to take any other gods. He said, “‘Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.’” In their relationship, he alone is worthy of being called “God;” that name, that title, that word belongs to him. If they were his people, he wanted them to only identify that with him.

In their relationship, God knew the sinfulness of his people, though. He knew their lack of obedience. So we find this in Deuteronomy 9, “After the Lord your God has driven [the Canaanite nations] out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity…[God will] accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

That was the reality. God knew they would fall away from him. Yet if they would follow God, observe his commands, be obedient, we also heard in Deuteronomy 4, “This will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations…What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?” Looking back on Israel, the relationship seems destined for failure from the get-go, and because of sin it was. Yet for those who would turn to God, who would repent of sin and seek to walk in his ways, God would be near.

That’s what we see looking back. What about us, though? With all the shifts in culture, with people claiming to be Christians, claiming to love Jesus, and yet living differently than we do, doing things that seem to fit into the categories of sin and disobedience, how do we make sense of it? What is our relationship with God and what does he expect of us?  

The New Testament continues to talk about sin; it continues to show that we are corrupted, we are depraved. We are to flee from sin. The New Testament, though, brings in this new character, who is like us and yet different from us—that is Jesus. Jesus is fully God and fully man, yet without sin. Because of that, he was able to take on the sins of those in the past who trusted God for salvation and he’s able to take the sins of all into the future, including us, who cling to him, and forgive us and wash us clean and give us eternal life. He alone can reconcile us to God, he changes the relationship for our benefit, because there’s no way we can do that ourselves.

If you are a believer God looks on you, through Jesus, as his child, his friend, his bride. Faithless and disobedient as we may often be, if you are in Christ, the relationship has been fully covered by the blood of Jesus. The understanding of that being the relationship offered by grace through faith, presents two roads for those claiming Jesus.

The first is what’s told in Hebrews 10, the road of those who claim Christ but whose lives lack godly sorrow and repentance. “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God…How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge his people.’ It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” The God who strikes fear in the unrepentant sinner’s heart is still the same.

But there is glorious hope for those who have believed, repented, been saved, and whose lives are changed. Hebrews 12 tells us this: “You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire; to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear what was commanded…But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant…See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks…Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God, acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’”

As we come to the table in a few moments and as we go forth having been reminded of the grace of God, what does God expect to be true in our lives? Our God is still calling us to obedience to his commands. Belgic Confession Article 25 takes up the doctrine of the fulfillment of the law: “We believe that the ceremonies and symbols of the law have ended with the coming of Christ…Yet the truth and substance of these things remain for us in Jesus Christ, in whom they have been fulfilled. Nevertheless, we continue to use the witnesses drawn from the law and prophets to confirm us in the gospel and to regulate our lives with full integrity for the glory of God, according to the will of God.” We’re still called to integrity to God’s will.

How can we, sinners, do that? It requires God’s sanctification. Article 24. “We believe that this true faith…regenerates us and makes us new creatures, causing us to live a new life and freeing us from the slavery of sin…It is impossible for this holy faith to be unfruitful in a human being, seeing that we do not speak of an empty faith but of what Scripture calls ‘faith working through love,’ which moves people to do by themselves the works that God has commanded in the Word. These works, proceeding from the good root of faith, are good and acceptable to God, since they are all sanctified by God’s grace…We are indebted to God for the good works we do, and not God to us, since God ‘is at work in [us], enabling [us] both to will and to work for his good pleasure.’”

When you hear those questions, “Does the Bible really say?” Search God’s Word and know what it says. When you’re caught thinking, “Does God really expect me to do this and not do that?” His expectations are for you to follow him, to listen and to heed, to obey. If you fail, though, when you sin, do not fear if you are in Christ. His perfection, his obedience has covered you. But remember God’s Spirit lives inside of you enabling you more and more to do God’s will. Amen.