Sermon Tone Analysis
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*The Command to Love God*
*Deuteronomy 6:4,5*
LaearsiY amhS
Dache ianodA unieholE ianodA
As a child I was taught to “Stop, Look and Listen” when crossing train tracks.
I recall seeing the train crossing sign and the three words written one below the other everywhere I looked – in books, on billboards, in the school classroom, on the television.
The educational campaign was very thorough.
I was about 20, it was in the spring, I was riding the train back home to Kitchener from Strathroy and friends from our youth group were going to meet me at the train station.
As usual the sounds and motion of the speeding train had lulled me into a state of semi numbness when suddenly I lurched forward as the brakes hissed us to a screeching halt.
What I learned later was diesel fuel sprayed along the one side of the train covering the windows with their sludge.
During the two hours the train sat crippled on the tracks we learned that yes, the train had been involved in an accident with a car.
The car had hit the locomotive and ripped open the diesel tank.
It was confirmed later that the lone occupant had been killed in the accident.
She was a school teacher – a friend of a friend of mine.
The law is for your own good; when approaching a train crossing: STOP – LOOK – LISTEN!
Hear, O Israel
· Listen to me > this is important for your own well being
· Listen with a mind to obey
“Hear, O Israel…”
Listen – verb is in the imperative.
It is a command.
Hear with the ears so that you will obey with your mind and respond with a glad heart.
Can you hear a parent trying to get a young child to listen:
“Look at me…
Look me in the eyes…
Stop what you are doing…
I want to see your eyes so I know you are listening…
Now this is what I want you to do.
Tell me what I just said…”
What do the Israelites do with this command?
They memorize it.
They repeat it every day.
But do they understand it?
With their mind?
With their heart?
Do they obey?
Whenwe first moved to the city of Montreal we lived in Jewish community of Cote St Luc.
I chose to go to a Jewish barber near where I lived.
Over the visits we struck up a conversation and he told me of relatives in Jerusalem – one a rabbi.
He showed me a poster on his bulletin board of a specific Psalm that had tremendous meaning to him.
It was written in Hebrew and he was able to recite it flawlessly.
It gave him great comfort.
I asked him to translate it for me; to tell me the meaning of the words.
He had no idea!
In high school Latin class I learned the ‘Pater Noster’.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, \\ sanctificetur Nomen tuum.
\\ Adveniat regnum tuum.
\\ Fiat voluntas tua, \\ sicut in caelo et in terra.
\\ Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, \\ et dimitte nobis debita nostra \\ sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
\\ Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, \\ sed libera nos a malo.
“Our Father who are in heaven; hallowed be Thy name.”
We monotone our memorized phrases without any thought for their meaning much less with a desire towards obedience.
God never intended The Lord’s Prayer to become a meaningless repetition of sounds on the lips that never reach even the mind much less the heart.
God never intended the law, summed up in two commands, to become mere sounds in the original Hebrew language recited religiously every day.
Look at the context.
Deut. 1 > The date was: Year 40, Month 11 day 1 of the wilderness wanderings.
The Israelites were camped on the east side of the Jordan River.
They had already defeated enemy armies and the land given to two tribes of Israel.
It was about time to cross the Jordan and begin the conquest of the Promised Land.
Before they broke camp, God spoke to them through Moses.
The book of Deuteronomy is basically that teaching.
And the teaching can be divided into two categories:
1) Remember all that God has done for us.
2) Remember to obey all that He has commanded us.
What has God done?
Last week Anson brought us to the burning bush to that pivotal, commanding encounter of Moses with God.
Last week we read the sign that God gave to prove He was the One providing the miraculous deliverance from Egypt and the certain fulfillment of the promised gift of the Promised Land;
The sign that would tell them with certainty that this deliverance was God in action
- would be the Israelite people as a whole worshiping God on this same mountain.
Here they are in Deuteronomy, Moses reminds them of that day when yes, indeed they Israelites in their entirety had left Egypt and met with God on – Mt Horeb.
There they had listened to God and heard His 10 Commandments and worshipped Him.
God has done all this for you – when you go into the Promised Land and receive houses you did not build and lands you did not work, do not forget who gave this to you.
And do not forget how to remain within that blessing.
And so the two pronged speech of Deuteronomy was to remind Israel how to live within the blessings of God.
And the principles are still the same today.
*1) **Remember all that God has done for you.
*
His works demonstrate His true love towards you.
I will never leave you.
I will only do what is best for you.
My plans (Jer.
29:11-14) are to prosper you, not to harm you.
I love you with a jealous love.
/“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”/
(Joh 3:16 AV)
2) *Remember to show your love for God through obedience to all that He has commanded you*.
If you do this you will continue to live within in that love relationship with the One who has provided such blessings.
Therefore obedience on the part of the Israelites demonstrated that they loved *God.*
Jesus laid down a similar principle for Christians.
John 14:21 /Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."/
How quickly we – like the story of the Israelites in the Old Testament stories – reduce God’s love from a relationship, to a fact, to a demand for obedience, to a restriction to be chaffed against.
What is in the ‘shema’?
this command to hear with a willingness to obey?
Hear O Israel – the Lord your God is one.
*Monotheistic**:*
The verse means that *the* *Lord* (Yahweh) is totally unique.
He alone is *God.*
The Israelites could therefore have a sense of security that was totally impossible for their polytheistic neighbors.
The “gods” of the ancient Near East rarely were thought of as acting in harmony.
Each god was unpredictable and morally capricious.
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