Deuteronomy 02

Deuteronomy
Second Sermon

The Second Sermon (4:44-26:19)
• The Introduction to the Law of God (Deuteronomy 4:44–49)
o This introduction to the second section of Deuteronomy prefaces the rest of the sermon by telling the listeners (and the readers) what they are about to hear, and who it was originally said to.
• Teaching about the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:1 – 11:32)
o The Ten Commandments are repeated here. (Deuteronomy 5:1-33)
 In addition to all that we can learn about the Lord and His Character there is something about ourselves:
• Repetition – The Lord knows how fettered we are to time. We are always followed by the past and facing the future and while we sit in the present moment it is so hard to remember back. It is so easy to lose sight of the important things when we are rushed at by the unimportant things that so often fill up our days.
• We need to be constantly reminded of the Word, of the Truth, or the great wonder of the Gospel. We must keep the great reality of our relationship with the Lord, of the good advice, and the truths that we have learned from the word before us.
• Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Philippians 3:1
 Beyond this we learn a great deal about the Lord’s intent for our relationship with Him through the Ten Commandments. We find that God designed us to worship only Him. He designed us to love him and worship him only. That is the way we were made to be in a relationship with Him.
 In regards to others we were not designed to envy one another, we were not designed to live in jealousy of anyone else, but only be concerned with the Lord and what he is doing in our lives.
 We are designed to honor our parents, we are not designed for dishonesty. The reality, however, is the perfection is too high for us to attain. Because of our Sin Nature we, even as Christians are unable to attain to even the simplest law that we might set up for ourselves.
 Upon considering this problem Paul writes about how he had tried to live the Christian life by obeying the Law by himself, out of his flesh. In Romans 7:24-25 he writes of his failure:
• Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.
 The reality is that we, as Christians, are fully unable to live under law. That is not what the Lord wants from us. He wants us rather to be conformed to the image of his son, by resting and abiding in Him always, accepting and relying on what he has done on our behalf. (John 15; Romans 8; Eph. 1:3-14)
o The Command to Love the Lord (Deuteronomy 6:1-25)
 This chapter incites the Israelites to faithfulness and contains one of the most celebrated passages to Judiasm, often called the shema (from the Hebrew “hear”). The shema is found in verse four, but was later expanded all the way to verse nine, and finally added other scriptures to it (Deut. 11:13-21 and Numbers 15:37-41). Here, however, are verses four through nine:
• Hear, O Israel! The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bid them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
 One could continue to study this short passage for any amount of time and still not come to the end of the importance of this great passage. Here are some of the highlights:
• The Lord is unique: “The LORD is one!” Does not have so much to do with the fact that the Jews did not believe there were more than one God (although they DID believe in only one God). This is more talking about the uniqueness of the Lord. Another scholar would choose to translate it: “the LORD is alone!” There is none other like Him who is our God and our Lord.
• The Lord has designed us to be in a love relationship with Him. That love relationship is to manifest itself in every part of our lives. It is not just supposed to come out when we are at Church, or when we are at home having a quiet time, but our relationship with the Lord is meant to come out in every facet of our lives. Our thought lives, our working lives, our relationships, our desires, everything is meant to gather together in devotion to the Lord.
• A word about families: Much has been made of the Church, or a family devotion. As if the way to share the gospel, or raise a family is to make sure that they are in Church every Sunday. While being at Church is a great thing the Lord has designed us for so much more! Our days are to ring of the discussion about Him, our conversations as we go about our days and our weeks are to be about him.
• Sometimes we get embarrassed to talk about our relationship with the Lord, even around those whom we are closest to (our parents, brothers, sisters, husbands or wives) it is too vulnerable to talk about our relationship with God, it proves that we need him, that we are not enough, and that we need each other. We don’t like to recognize that very often, but it is very important to us to keep humble in pursuing the Lord, that we are sharing it with the people around us. It becomes most important when we are parents: it is the parent who sets the example for the children. How can the children be expected to follow their parents in a relationship with Christ if they never talk to their parents about the Lord?
o The Orders to take Cannan (Deuteronomy 7:1-26)
 This passage may sound very harsh to our modern ears but we must keep the verses in context of what was really going on. There are a handful of factors that need consideration, not that it makes this judgment any less harsh, but it does mean that the judgment is deserved.
 The people who lived in Canaan were doing horrible things. Things that were infinitely disgusting and evil. Firstly, they were worshiping false gods. In our polite “civilized” culture we would say that someone does not deserve death for that, and we would be right in saying that it is not our job to go around killing people because they don’t believe. However, it is quite different when the Lord decides that the time is up. The Lord knew that if they even kept the women alive then they would marry with the Israelites and drag them down this same pit of idolatry, and move their hearts away from the Lord. And moving away from the Lord is far worse than death in the true perspective of the universe!
 Upon further examination of the culture in Canaan we have found that they were sacrificing their infants to the false god “Molech.” They would take an iron statue which had its hands out, heat it to the hottest point it could get to without melting by lighting fires underneath it and then put a live child in the hands of the statue slowly burning it to death. This is just one of the heinous and wicked acts that God knew must not continue because He hated those kinds of acts so deeply.
 Finally, while they did not have CNN or cel phones with internet capability the reality is that news still got around. None of the tribes, cities or nations would have been fully unaware that there was a large band of nomads wandering around in the desert for the last forty years. Many would even know the story, and the testimony of the living and true God would have been spreading. If they had it in their hearts to repent, there was more than adequate warning. However, there is no record that anyone tried to repent and come to the true and living God. They chose instead to continue in their ways.
o REMEMBER REMEMBER REMEMBER! (Deuteronomy 8:1-20)
 The first reminder in this sermon was the reminder of God’s commands and the reminder of what God had revealed about himself.
 This reminder is focused on reminding the Israelites of what God has already done for them. It is the plague of humanity that we have the hardest times remembering the past successes when we are facing the current problems.
 We find it easy to praise God when things are going well, but when we get ourselves in a fix we so quickly forget that everything that the Lord has brought us through so far. We just turn a blind eye and forget everything! The Lord, knowing this, includes in Scripture these invitations to remember. When we get most down and most discouraged that is when we need to look back on the hard times that the Lord has brought us through, that is when we need to look back to the word and see what he brought other saints through throughout history. However, the way this faith is developed? By hearing the word, by studying the word, by being in the Bible every day. If we do not know the story of Joshua we cannot be encouraged by it! If we do not know what the Lord did in the life of David we cannot be comforted by it. If we do not know what our salvation is about we cannot rest in it!
 So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. Romans 10:17
o Humility is Found in a Good Memory (Deuteronomy 9:1-10:11)
 When you meet a truly prideful person the one thing you first realize is that the deeply prideful person must be an idiot. An idiot, of course, in the technical sense of having a profoundly low level of intelligence. If they were not idiots then they would be able to remember how many mistakes that they made, how many times they goofed up, and be humble. The reality is that we all stand in the shoes of the fool once in a while, but the word exhorts us to something more!
 In this section Moses reminds the Israelites of exactly what happened and exactly what is going to happen with a view to reminding them: “This is not about you! You didn’t do anything! God is the mover and the shaker here and we were blessed enough to be chosen!”
 Moses reminds them of all their past failures and their past faithlessness. He reminds them of the Lord’s great mercy in dealing with them and not simply destroying them all. He reminds them that the Lord chose them, not because they were better than anyone else, but because he loved them. They, just like we, have no reason to prideful. If anyone recognizes any goodness, any strength or any life and love in us it is our solemn duty to point them directly to the Lord and say, “It was not me, it was Christ in me!”
o Blessings and Curses (Deuteronomy 10:12 – 11:32)
 The counting of the blessings and the curses are an interesting part of Scripture and a difficult part of Scripture for people who don’t understand the clear distinctions of the Bible to explain away.
 Many people want to put the Christian under law, in spite of the clear warnings of Galatians, Romans and the rest of the New Testament. And this is where they get really tripped up. These passages (the blessing parts) are often used by people who want to teach prosperity doctrine. They will use passages like this to try to tell us that if we obey part of the law then part of the physical blessings will come to us.
 They have to cut and paste a lot! Most of those people will cut only certain parts of the Law out. Just the Ten Commandments, Just the Moral Parts of the Law, Just the Parts that have to do with giving, or the Sabbath. But they fail to realize that if you are putting yourself under part of the law you are putting yourself under all of it. Furthermore there is no reason to cut the scripture up like that, there is no indication in Scripture that any part of the law is elevated over any other part.
 If they don’t cut and paste there, they will do it over the blessings and curses. They will try to say that we are only open to the blessings and not the curses, so the Lord will simply give us lots of stuff.
 All of this is silly, of course. God made different promises to us in the Church than he did to the children of Israel. As we see throughout this book and the rest of the Old Testament: The Israelites are promised physical blessings in return for their obedience. The Church, however, is never promised physical prosperity, but rather we are promised tribulation and trouble! (James 1:2-3; Romans 5:3) We are promised unconditional spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3-14) and cannot try to highjack Israel’s promise of physical blessings anymore than you could call up the IRS and request your neighbors tax refund be sent to you rather than him!

• The Exposition of the Additional Laws (Deuteronomy 12:1–26:19)
o The Exposition of the Ceremonial Laws (Deuteronomy 12:1–16:17)
 Chapter 12 starts out with a stern warning: “These are the statures and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things.” (Deut. 12:1-4)
• These are not suggestions. The Lord is very clear that He will not be worshiped in the strange and foreign ways of the people that they are going to be kicking out. The Lord knows how wishy-washy people can get and immediately addresses the issue. He tells them in no certain terms that they are to destroy all of the implements of the religious practices of the people who lived in Canaan. They are not to adopt these practices and claim them as their own.
• This is very applicable to us here and now as we can very easily be seduced into practicing “alternate methods” to get close to God. We may try hypnosis, or strange forms of self hypnosis and meditation. The Lord has not hidden himself away in some strange form of mind altering mysticism. He desires us to be in a loving relationship with Him that involves (just like every other relationship in our lives) talking to Him (prayer) and listening to Him (Bible reading).
• This warning is so important to the Lord that he reiterates it in the last verses of this chapter (verses 29 – 32)
• In finishing this last exhortation the Lord says, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.” Deut. 12:32
 Dedication to God above all things! (Deuteronomy 13)
• Chapter 13 tells us about how every person is personally to be on guard against worshiping false gods. The people are warned of three different possible situations that may try to lead them astray:
o Prophets or Dreamers of Dreams (Deut. 13:1-5) – First they are to know the Bible well enough to know that if someone comes along claiming to be “spiritual” or “holy” and claims that they should worship false gods they people are not to listen to him, and he should put away.
o Family Members (Deut. 13:6-11) – The Lord also warns people that even their close family members may try to lead them away from the Lord. The Lord is clear that their dedication to the Lord must far surpass our dedication to our family members, or the human relationships that we may value the most! This is very consistent with what Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and is own life also, he cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:26.
 In this passage Jesus is not saying that we should hate our family members. He is, however, setting up priorities for us: God comes FIRST, everything else comes after!
o A Whole City (Deut. 13:12-18) – In this passage the Lord makes it clear that even if a WHOLE CITY were to turn to false gods the people should not be swayed. In fact, the Lord tells them that they are to investigate the issue and destroy the guilty people if this is true. The principle for us is to know that even if a whole church turns towards false doctrine we should not be swayed to support them, or follow along with them. We need to stand firm in our belief in the Lord and his word!
• Chapters 14 and 15 reiterate the various ordinances such as the tithe, the Sabbath year and the dietary laws.
• Chapter 16:1-17 covers the feasts that the people are to hold. It is truly amazing that we often picture God as being angry and wanting us to suffer or to punish. However, the Scriptures paint a very different picture of the Lord that wants His people, even the Jews who were under a law that they could never keep entirely, to celebrate, to rejoice and to have a meal enjoying Him and his love, goodness and provision.


o The Exposition of the Civil Laws Deuteronomy 16:18–20:20
 The Leadership (Deut 16:18-17:13) – The Lord doesn’t simply say, “Hey go for it! Every one for themselves!” But he puts forth a system of leadership that takes care of everything. For the town matters the Lord tells the people to appoint judges. These judges are given the strictest orders not to pervert justice, but rather to be fully just in all that they do.
• They are exhorted not to look to other gods or forms of divination.
• They are told that they are to pursue justice and only justice in order to remain in the land.
• They are told to execute the judgments based on the Law that the Lord had given, but there was a control set up that there must be two or three witnesses for this to happen.
• They were told to protect Israel and that these steps would keep the people from acting presumptuously!
 The Kings (Deut. 17:14-20) – This is an interesting passage because the Lord had already designed the nation of Israel to be a theocracy (the government is ruled by God, not by any person). This is not just a law, this passage is a prophecy. The Lord knew that even though their nation would work better when ruled by the Lord that they would eventually want to be like every other nation and have a king. In I Samuel 8:5 the people do this very thing and God says that they are rejecting Him.
• Is this a contradiction? If God made rules, and a prophecy of what a king should be like and doing, yet he doesn’t want a King, is he contradicting himself?
• Of course not! God knew the heart of the people. He knew that they would want to be just like everyone else, even though it was not best for them. It seems that there was even peer pressure then. So He offered them freedom to choose something, even something that is not the best for them. Do you think he still offers us this freedom?
• It is also important to see what the Lord required for a King: “Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes.” (Deut. 17:18-19)
 The Levites (Deut. 18:1-8) – The Lord reiterates a number of time that the Levites are not to inherit any land, but they are rather to be priests to the Lord and the Lord himself will be their inheritance. Thus they are to be provided for by the people. This sets a pattern in scripture that the people are to provide physically for those who minister to them.
 False Prophets (Deut. 18:9-14) – The Lord draws a hard line against witchcraft, divination and any other attempts by people to illegitimately grab hold of super natural power or knowledge of the future. The Lord is clear that He wants His people to rely upon him for everything. Trusting in Him for the future, as well as for protection against enemies and in tough situations. The Lord gives a zero tolerance policy for anyone who would try to go after that power on their own.
 The Prophet, the Messiah (Deut. 18:15-19) – This is a really cool passage of scripture. Here is a major prophecy about Jesus. This passage reads:
• “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’ “And the LORD said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.” Deuteronomy 18:15-19
• Certain parts of this prophecy can be applied to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the other prophets that the Lord sent to Israel in its greatest time of need. However, this is another not to Jesus, and Christ Himself claimed to be the fulfillment of this prophecy (John 15:46)
 Prophets (Deut. 18:20-22) – Here is one of the many instructions about prophets. Prophets were used by God to represent God to the people. Here as well as everywhere else in Scripture it is important to note that claiming to speak for the Lord is incredibly important. Prophets that speak presumptuously, here, are to be disregarded.
• Often times in the modern church we find those who claim to be “prophets” and say things like “The Lord told me…” or “The Lord said…” and use these terms very lightly. The Bible is clear that false prophets are not to be regarded and are to be stoned. If this standard for prophets were enforced we would find the people who claim to be prophets dwindling quickly. Yet it is a far more grave thing to speak falsely for the Lord than it is to die. Death has little effect on eternity, presuming to speak for the Lord is an offense against the eternal being.
 Chapter 19 reiterates the Laws that had been put in place regarding cities of refuge, boundary markers, and witnesses.
 The Laws of War (Deut. 20) – The Lord is preparing the people to go into battle and wants them to know a few things. There are a couple of key points that we will focus on:
• Trust in the Lord – before a battle the priests were to exhort the people to trust in God because it is the Lord who will be fighting for them.
o This is much the same with us in our daily situations. We never need to fear, never need to quake before any trial or situation, because we are in the hands of the Lord and we will live and die according to His will and not one of us can slip out of His hand.
• Exemptions – It is amazing that the Lord allowed a number of people to be exempt. If they were recently married, if they had just planted a vineyard, and even if someone was afraid or fainthearted! It is amazing that these exemptions were made as in the ancient world every man possible was always conscripted to go to war. But these exemptions made sure that everyone would know that victory goes to the Lord, and not to anyone else!
• Complete Destruction – It may seem harsh that the Lord told them to utterly destroy the nations whom they were displacing. However, we have to keep a full perspective.
o Life is the Lord’s – None of us can take credit for our own lives. Every breath is a gift from the Lord. We cannot guarantee the next second, nor can we say that we deserve to live another day.
o The Lord has a different perspective – The Lord is eternal, he created life, and thus it is safe to assume that he has a different perspective on death.
o Sin’s penalty is death – It is difficult for us to understand how horrible this people had become. It was beyond anything we would imagine. Diviners, witchcraft, demon worship, child sacrifice and forced bestiality. God had warned them and they chose not to heed his warnings.
o The Exposition of the Social Laws Deuteronomy 21:1–26:19
 The focus of the rest of this sermon is on various laws that the Lord gave for ordering society. There are a number of amazing points about these laws, but here we only have time to highlight a select few.
• If a murder was committed and the murderer could not be found there was a ritual to atone for the sin. There is no “out of sight, out of mind” with true holiness. Holiness isn’t something that can be attained by human doing, we find that it is an impossible height to reach. No sin, whether it was known or unknown, done on purpose or by accident, can go without being atoned for. It must be taken care of. The Lord’s holiness is TRUE Holiness, and true perfection. For us, and for anyone throughout history, this holiness, this perfection, could only be found in Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ is our righteousness.
• The Lord dedicates a great deal of time to family law. The family is a sacred and God ordained unit, and thus he gives instruction as to how it is to be run. When a spouse is selected it was important for the Israelites to always choose to marry another Jew. The reason for this is that marrying someone from outside the faith could eventually lead to compromise and following other Gods. A son who is continuously rebellious and would not be corrected was to be put to death. This may sound harsh but it is the way that the Lord designed the family to work. It was very important that people understood from a very young age that respecting their parents was something that God set in place, and a child who was unable to respect his parents and give them the honor due to them as his parents would be unable to worship God.
• God’s law extended to protecting the innocent. Even down to the animals. Deuteronomy 22:6 even teaches about not doing harm to a birds nest with a mother bird on her eggs. The Lord is concerned with the protection of the innocent all the way down to his smallest creatures.
• The law also teaches about right and wrong sexual relationships. No person was to take advantage of another, rape was prohibited. Extra marital sex was prohibited. The people were required to remain sexually pure and in right sexual relationships, respecting one another as God’s beloved creatures.
• The assembly was to be holy. When official religious ceremonies were held those who were emasculated or who was of illegitimate birth could join in the assembly. Furthermore, no foreigner could take part. Perfection and holiness were paramount, and the Lord’s standards can never be compromised.
• This section also teaches us about the protection of the weak, that someone who has a lot of money should not be able to take advantage of someone who is quite poor. It is also the case that the Lord put real expectation on the people to treat their slaves well.

Conclusion
As we have seen the Lord’s law is perfect, and His standard is too high for anyone to meet. There is simply no way that any could ever measure up. The Lord’s holiness is limitless, there is not the slightest flaw, nor is there the least error in Him, and therefore, if we are going to have the unity that He wants us to have with Him then we must also be perfect and sinless. This is impossible for us. As Romans 3:23 tells us: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” There is not one of us that can say that we fulfilled the perfect Law perfectly, and only one man throughout history could ever say that: Jesus Christ. Which is why we are placed in him, by his death on the cross, and by that identification, we are saved.

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.
Ephesians 1:7-8a