Deuteronomy 6:10-25 - Watch Yourself
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Introduction
Introduction
[READING - Deuteronomy 6:10-25]
10 “Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, 12 then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 13 “You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. 14 “You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, 15 for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth. 16 “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested Him at Massah. 17 “You should diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and His testimonies and His statutes which He has commanded you. 18 “You shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which the Lord swore to give your fathers, 19 by driving out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has spoken. 20 “When your son asks you in time to come, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the Lord our God commanded you?’ 21 then you shall say to your son, ‘We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 ‘Moreover, the Lord showed great and distressing signs and wonders before our eyes against Egypt, Pharaoh and all his household; 23 He brought us out from there in order to bring us in, to give us the land which He had sworn to our fathers.’ 24 “So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today. 25 “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as He commanded us.
[PRAYER]
Well, it has been so long since we’ve been in Deuteronomy that we probably need to remind ourselves of its historical setting and literary construction.
As to its historical setting, the Joshua and Caleb generation of Israelites are on the cusp of entering the Promised Land.
The rebellious generation of Israelites who failed to obey God’s command to enter the Promised Land 40 years earlier perished in the wilderness.
By reminding this new generation of God’s Covenant with His people—God’s Covenant with them, Moses prepares this new generation not just to enter the Promised Land but to live faithfully before God in the Promised Land.
As to its literary construction, Deuteronomy is built as a series of sermons preached by Moses.
After the prologue of Deuteronomy 1:1-5, we have Moses’s first sermon—a historical sermon that recounts Israel’s failures and God’s faithfulness (1:6-4:43).
In Moses’s second sermon, he covered the general stipulations on God’s people as a people in covenant with Him (4:44-11:32).
So far we have seen that these stipulations include the Ten Commandments and the greatest commandment, which, as Jesus said, is to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (6:5).
But this might be difficult to do when Israel enters the Promised Land because of the material blessing it will receive. Look at Deuteronomy 6:10-12a…
10 “Then it shall come about when the Lord your God brings you into the land which He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you, great and splendid cities which you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things which you did not fill, and hewn cisterns which you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant, and you eat and are satisfied, 12 then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
In fulfillment of His promise, God will bless this nomadic people with cities, houses, possessions, wells, vineyards, olive trees! They are going to become instant land owners, and not land that they have to cultivate, but land that has already been cultivated! They won’t have to plant the vineyards, they’ll just get to eat the grapes! God will bless them with everything from the start!
But filled up on these material blessings, Israel may be so stuffed, it has no room for God— “watch yourself, that you do not forget the LORD…”
Israel must battle its blessings if it is going to stay faithful to God’s Covenant.
If it is going to love the Lord its God with all its heart, soul, mind, and strength, it must watch itself.
As born-again believers in Jesus Christ, we are not under the Old Covenant of Law but under the New Covenant in Christ’s blood. Nevertheless, we are told to watch ourselves as well.
In 2 Corinthians 13:5 we are told to test or examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.
When it comes to partaking of the Lord’s Supper, we are told that we must examine ourselves so as to not eat and drink God’s judgment on ourselves (1 Cor. 11:28-29).
In Galatians 6:4 we are told to examine our work in the Lord.
In 2 John 8 it says...
8 Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward.
Jesus says in Mark 14:38…
38 “Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
To examine ourselves is to watch ourselves, and this command to the new generation of Israelites will help us New Covenant Christians too because like these Israelites, we have received many material blessings.
We may not have what the richest people have, but we have comfortable homes, nice clothes, and plenty of food.
These are blessings from God, but we must battle our blessings because left unexamined, we will allow our blessings to fill us to the extent that we have no room for God.
[PROP] Blessed as we are, we won’t make very much progress in loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength unless we watch ourselves very closely.
[TS] Let’s notice two SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS about this command in Deuteronomy 6:10-15 that will helps us as we seek to watch ourselves as followers of Jesus…
We’ll notice two specific instructions tonight…
…and two more next Sunday night.
Major Ideas
Major Ideas
Specific Instruction #1: Watch yourself and don’t forget God (Deut. 6:12).
Specific Instruction #1: Watch yourself and don’t forget God (Deut. 6:12).
12 then watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
[EXP] Coming into the land flowing with milk and honey; flowing with material blessing, it would be easy for these Israelites to relish the gift and forget the Giver. As Moses said, they must watch themselves to ensure that this doesn’t happen.
One way they could fight against forgetting God would be to intentionally remember who He is.
In this verse (v. 12) He is called ‘the LORD” or the “I AM”. This is the personal name that God first gave to Moses in Exodus 3:14. Moses asked, “Who shall I say sent me to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian slavery?” And God said, “Tell them, I AM WHO I AM has sent you.” This is God’s name forever; His memorial-name to all generations (Exod. 3:15).
This name speaks to God eternality, His omnipresence, His independence, His unchangeableness, and more.
This is who God is; the one true God who rescued the Israelites from Egypt.
That’s another way they could fight against forgetting God —by remembering what He did for them in delivering them.
God always reminded the Israelites of this. Before the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, God said…
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
Before the Ten Commandments here in Deuteronomy 5, God said…
6 ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
God was always saying to them, “This is who I AM, and this is what I’ve done for you,” and based on these things, He called His people to obey.
[ILLUS] Perhaps you’ve seen the video of the man who underwent surgery and forgot who his wife was as he recovered from the anesthesia.
He was laying on the bed, and she was standing next to him. He looked up and asked excitedly, “Who are you?”
She said, “I’m your wife.”
In shock, he said, “You’re my wife!? I’m married to you!? You’re beautiful!”
If only all our forgetting went so well.
[APP] Even as New Covenant Christians who have been blessed with so much, there is the tendency to forget God—to forget who He is and what He has done for us.
Like these Israelites in Deuteronomy, we must fight to remember the I AM—and the I AM is Jesus!
In John 8:58 Jesus said…
58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
Blessed as we are, we must fight to remember Jesus.
We must fight to remember that Jesus rescued us—not from slavery in Egypt—but from slavery to sin and death.
Romans 6:6 says…
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.
Blessed as we are with so many material blessings, we must fight to remember what Jesus has done for us.
[TS] We must watch ourselves and refuse to forget Jesus.
Specific Instruction #2: Watch yourself and fear Him only (Deut. 6:13-15).
Specific Instruction #2: Watch yourself and fear Him only (Deut. 6:13-15).
13 “You shall fear only the Lord your God; and you shall worship Him and swear by His name. 14 “You shall not follow other gods, any of the gods of the peoples who surround you, 15 for the Lord your God in the midst of you is a jealous God; otherwise the anger of the Lord your God will be kindled against you, and He will wipe you off the face of the earth.
[EXP] The fear of the Lord is a confusing concept. Some people say it simple means that we need to have a healthy respect for God. Other people say that it means we need to be very afraid of God. The fear of the Lord actually means to understand who we are in light of who God is.
This of Isaiah 6. In a vision, Isaiah sees the train of God’s robe fill the temple. He sees the angel surrounding God with, “Holy! Holy! Holy!”
And he immediately knows that he is an unclean man dwelling amongst and unclean people.
He understood who God was (Holy! Holy! Holy!), then He understood who He was (Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips!).
That’s the fear of the Lord.
Israel was told to fear the Lord (to understand themselves in light of who God is) and if they did that, the fear of the Lord would demonstrate itself in a few different ways.
If they feared the Lord, they would worship Him alone.
If they feared the Lord, they would swear by Him alone.
If they feared the Lord, they would follow Him alone.
If they feared Him, they would do these things because they understood that He is a jealous God.
To worship God alone should’ve been easy for the Israelites.
They were to go into the Promised Land and drive out anyone who worshipped idols. When they were done taking over the land, only the worship of YHWH should’ve remained.
To swear by God alone—to make oaths in His Name alone—should’ve been easy for the Israelites.
Once they drove out the idol worshippers, the only God anyone in the Promised Land would respect would be YHWH or I AM.
To follow God alone should’ve been easy for the Israelites.
With not only wanna-be god in the land, the only God to follow—and indeed the only God worth following—would be YHWH.
But none of this would be easy for the Israelites because they did not drive out all those who worshipped idols as they were supposed to.
Soon enough they would be worshipping, swearing by, and following the gods of the people who surrounded them.
All of this because they did not fear God enough to obey Him.
God is a jealous God—jealous in the sense that He wants what is rightfully owed to Him.
He is jealous for the worship of His people.
He is jealous for the dependency of His people.
He is jealous for the following of His people.
He wants this—He demands this—because it belongs to Him!
Our worship, dependency, following—our obedience!—belongs to Him!
Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.
Understanding this is the beginning of knowledge.
Understanding this is the fear of the Lord.
[ILLUS] Recently I’ve been around a few different families with little children, and I can tell which of those families have parents who are jealous for the obedience of their children.
You can usually tell when a parent tells the child, “Come here.”
The parents who are jealous for the obedience of their children usually have children who come when they are commanded.
The parents who aren’t so jealous for the obedience of their children usually have children that don’t come when they are commanded.
But every now and again, a child of parents jealous for obedience will forget who his or her parents are.
The parent will command, “Come here,” and the child will not come.
The child may even look at the parent and take steps in the other direction or just freeze, but they don’t come.
The jealous parent will calmly approach their child with clenched teeth and seethe out the words similar to Deuteronomy 6:15, “My anger is kindled against you, and I am about to wipe you off the face of the earth.”
[APP] Mom or Dad is jealous for their child’s obedience because they are owed their child’s obedience.
But the child is not always obedient.
In the same way, God is jealous for our obedience because as our Creator He is owed our obedience.
But we are not always obedient.
Thanks be to God for Jesus!
When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Matthew 4:8-9 says…
8 Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.”
Jesus responded to Satan’s temptation by quoting Deuteronomy 6:13…
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’ ”
God is jealous for the obedience of His people, and He has that obedience perfectly in His Son Jesus.
In Jesus, we are perfectly obedient to God.
In Jesus, we perfectly worship God.
In Jesus, we perfectly depend on God.
In Jesus, we perfectly follow God.
In Jesus, perfect love casts out fear.
[TS] Are you in Jesus?
Conclusion
Conclusion
[PRAYER]