Now, let me just for a little while
engage in a piece of revision as we
come to our fourth study from this magnificent
book in the Old Testament, and I use
that word not indiscriminately.
I'm absolutely filled with amazement as I constantly
am reading this book in preparation for these
studies to discover within it so many aspects
of the Gospel of Jesus which stand out
very, very clearly in the New Testament.
The Old Testament has a great deal that
points away to the future books, the second
part of the Bible, and though I've recommended
the New International Version on many occasions, I
don't apologize for doing exactly the same again
this evening.
I found that this version has brought Deuteronomy,
for me, really to life, and I can
think of nothing more helpful than just spending
an hour or so reading that book all
the way through from chapter one right through
to the end of this volume.
Now, Deuteronomy, as you know, is the fifth
book in the Old Testament, and it comes
at the end of that little group of
books which were in the main written by
Moses.
The word Deuteronomy itself, you may recall, I
think I alluded to this, actually means second
law, but really it's not a very good
title.
It's a title that's been put to this
book, and whether it was the choicest one
or not I think is up for debate,
because it gives the impression that God having
given a first law, then gives a second
law, whereas actually what you find within Deuteronomy
is a repetition of some of the teaching
in Exodus and also in Leviticus, but the
title means second law, the repetition and the
extension of certain teaching that is found in
earlier books.
One other thing that you may remember, and
that is that this book was really the
preaching matter of Moses just before the Hebrews
went into the Promised Land, and because of
sinfulness on his part he was prohibited from
entering Canaan.
He got the thousands of Hebrews in front
of him in Moab on one of the
plains.
Only a few miles away was the land
of the forefathers of the Hebrews, the land
of Abraham and of Jacob and so on,
the land of the patriarchs, and Moses knew
that when these people went back to the
Promised Land there were certain dangers and temptations
which would confront them.
He'd had experience of their waywardness and of
the manner in which they would become disagreeable
in the years that had passed, and so
aged Moses, the meek man, the loving man,
sets down certain teachings which will help the
Hebrews so that when they go into the
Promised Land they might live to the glory
of God and use the land as the
Lord wants its various aspects to be employed.
And you will also remember, as we engage
in this piece of revision, that one word
which is dominant to the book of Deuteronomy,
which is a key word for understanding it,
is the word contract or covenant.
God is in a covenant with his people.
This covenant indicates that they are a special
people, a chosen people, not as Deuteronomy makes
clear because they were the mightiest people in
the world at that time.
That was far from the case, but God
in his grace had set his mark upon
the Hebrews and they entered into a covenant.
They would live for God and God would
bless them in ways that other nations would
not know, but they were to keep the
various aspects of the covenant, the various regulations.
Well, all these are matters that you're so
conversant with that anyone could get up and
give us a resume of the point, I'm
sure, but let's push on.
And you will recall that in introducing our
topic last week, I said to you that
there were three or four specific things which
God gave the Hebrews which really were superb.
He gave them, for instance, a leader, Moses,
a unique man, and we'll have a study
on Moses later on in this series.
Not only did he give them Moses, he
gave them priests, pastors if you like, a
specific group of people who are called Levites,
and it was their responsibility to teach the
Hebrews.
But as we pointed out specially in our
study seven days back, he gave them the
land, the land of Canaan, a special land,
a land on which the eyes of God,
or to which the eyes of God, were
always directed.
And fourthly, on top of these three super
gifts was the law that God bequeathed to
the Hebrews, a set of rules, regulations, which
would govern their lifestyle in the land.
And it's that topic that I focus your
attention on right now, and we'll come to
it again next week.
I wonder what the word law conjures up
in your mind.
When I taught in Tottenham, if you said
the word law to any of our boys,
they would think in terms of what in
Tottenham slang they would describe as the fuzz,
a rather derogatory term for the police.
And unfortunately, and by no means in a
justified fashion, some of my boys would feel
that the police were always against them, and
very often they would warrant the attention of
the police for some of the things that
they got up to at night.
They would feel that the law, and all
that the law represented was against them, and
would rob them of certain privileges, would interfere
with some of the pranks that they got
up to.
And in other parts of the world, as
I point out in the notes that I
give you, the very word law itself is
associated not always with pleasant things which are
for the benefit of mankind.
Now that misunderstanding of law is not only
found socially in Tottenham, or in Northern Ireland,
or in Southern Africa, it's sometimes wrongly grasped
by Christian people.
And there are those who come along and
they tell us, well you know, we live
in the New Testament dispensation, and as a
result of this, the law has got nothing
to do with us.
We are freed from the law.
I remember reading a book produced by some
brother in the charismatic movement some while ago,
and this book, which ran to about 40
or 50 odd pages, had as its main
thesis the fact that the law has been
perfectly fulfilled in Jesus, and now we're not
under its obligations at all.
And I say from the teaching of Scripture,
both the Old Testament and the New Testament,
that that is a completely inaccurate conclusion.
The Lord Jesus Christ indeed kept the law,
and fulfilled the law.
But listen to what Jesus has to say
about the law in Matthew's Gospel, the fifth
chapter, and the seventeenth verse.
Think not that I am come to destroy
the law, or the prophets.
I am not come to destroy, but to
fulfill.
For verily I say unto you, till heaven
and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law,
till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least
commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall
be called the least in the kingdom of
heaven.
Now that doesn't seem to suggest that the
law, the ten commandments, and all the other
regulations, about two hundred of in the book
of Deuteronomy, and the earlier books of the
Bible, have now passed away, and have got
no relevance at all to you and to
me.
Far from the law being done away with,
Jesus says that not one jot, not one
tittle, those are the two smallest letters in
the Hebrew alphabet, or rather the two smallest
characteristics, not one of those shall pass away.
So far from the law being thrown on
one side, because it's been completed in Jesus,
the law stands as something that you and
I as Christians have to face up to.
You're not convinced?
Well, you remember a young fellow came to
Jesus one day, and he'd got a problem.
He wanted to be a disciple of Jesus,
and he also wanted eternal life.
And Jesus said, you know the law, you
know the commandments, why don't you keep them?
Because in the keeping of the commandments, at
the end, if they're perfectly fulfilled in your
life, then you'll enter into salvation and eternal
life.
In no way did Jesus say to that
young fellow, don't look to the law of
Moses, don't look to the Ten Commandments, they've
all been completed now, they've all been pushed
on one side, I'm bringing in something that
is so infinitely better, that no longer are
the Ten Commandments required.
Jesus didn't say that at all.
So, far from the teaching of Deuteronomy, and
the teaching contained within the Ten Commandments in
particular, far from this being tossed aside by
the New Testament, the importance of these commandments
stands out even more.
But before I develop this further, let me
put up another question.
What's your approach to the law of God?
You know there are a class of people
in church history, and they were nicknamed the
Puritans.
And if you see a picture of them,
particularly if it's a sort of cartoon representation,
as it really has to be, because obviously
there's no photography available in those days, you
see stern men with beards almost a yard
long, and faces in a characteristic, in an
expression that fits in with the style of
the beard.
And the idea is that these men were
so stern, so rigid, so unbending, they were
legalists.
And there are some people who believe that
the law of God has been given to
robbers of really enjoying life.
So you've got these Ten Commandments, and all
the other developments of those commandments, not only
in the Old Testament, but the Sermon on
the Mount, and the Beatitudes, and the ethics
that are contained within there.
And the popular idea is that all these
have been produced by some Puritanical God, who
wants to rob you and me of real
happiness.
And nothing could be further from the truth.
You see, the law is essentially a good
thing.
Let me give you an understanding, an analogy
to help you comprehend the reason for law.
It's an illustration that perhaps you've heard me
used before.
Let's suggest that you're so well off that
you feel the time has come for you
to buy a coloured television set.
So you go down to the shop, and
you decide whether Curry's have got the best
buy, or Rayford's, and you give out the
money.
And you get it home.
And as you're undoing the packet, let's assume
that it's a portable one, you take out
the instructions, and you think to yourself, the
cheek of the manufacturer, why's he giving me
these instructions?
Why should I wire the plug up in
the way that he says I should wire
the plug up?
Why should I ensure that attached to my
roof is the type of aerial that he
determines should be attached to my roof?
I'm not going to do it like that.
I'm going to wire it up the way
that I want.
I'm going to select the aerial that I
want.
And so because you feel that you don't
want your liberty curtailing at all, you're mad
enough to go along with your own notion
of how to set the electrics of your
TV, and how to fix your aerial.
Now what will probably happen?
Well, possibly the whole thing could blow up.
Or if it didn't blow up, you wouldn't
get a very good picture.
And as a result of not getting the
best out of the set, if you then
write a letter to the manufacturer and complain,
obviously you would have no justifiable reason for
the argument that you put forward.
Why do I use such a ridiculous notion?
Well you see, because it teaches us this,
and sometimes we have to teach by shocking
people.
The reason why the manufacturer gave those instructions
was because he wanted you to get the
best out of your television.
It was essential that the wires go into
the plug, and the plug into the socket
in the way that they were designed to
go in.
And that the right aerial is placed up
on the roof, and it's angled at the
correct level, so that it's picking up the
signal, and you're getting the best picture.
In that illustration, law is definitely for your
good.
Similarly, the law of the Ten Commandments, and
the developments of those commandments in the New
Testament, and the whole ethical code of Christianity.
I wish those who perhaps, and I doubt
whether there's anyone here this evening who would
argue at this point in my meditation, but
I wish that those who would argue against
the necessity of the law of God could
come and deal with some of the pastoral
situations that I have to try, in my
lack of experience, to cope with.
People who've broken God's law all the way
down, and have made an absolute mess of
their lives.
Just been dealing with a seventeen-year-old,
and a nineteen-year-old, both young women,
and what they've gone through, and what they've
experienced, and the way their lives are breaking
up, simply because they refuse to accept the
law of God.
Well, it's beyond understanding.
And place alongside them a seventeen-year-old,
or a nineteen-year-old, here from the
tab, who's confessed the Lord Jesus as Savior,
and it's endeavoring to live their life by
the ethics of the gospel, by the law
that there is within the gospel.
Well, you see such a contrast.
You see, one who's concerned to live up
to the manufacturer's instructions, so to speak, and
is beginning to get the best out of
life, and others who are violating the manufacturer's
instructions, and as a result, are really in
a terrible, terrible mess.
Well, that's the way to understand law.
It's given not by some stern God who
wants to rob you of happiness.
It's given you by a loving Heavenly Father
who wants to build controls into your life,
so that you will enjoy the best that
life, which is His gift, has to offer.
Now, why did we engage upon that particular
meander from this study?
Well, we weren't just being sidetracked, but rather
I wanted to underpin this, that when Moses,
through God, was given the law to the
Hebrews, he was given it to them for
their good.
And you will find time and time again
in the book of Deuteronomy, the words, the
law and the statute, so whatever is the
modern terminology of the Bible that you might
be reading, you'll find these words employed.
For instance, in the first chapter, or rather
the fourth chapter, and the first verse of
the book, Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto
the statutes and unto the judgments which I
teach you.
Turn on to the next chapter, stay with
the first verse.
Moses calls all Israel and says unto them,
Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which
I speak in your ears.
Go on to the eleventh chapter, and again,
still with the first verse, a similar phrase.
Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God
and keep his charge and his statutes and
his judgments and his commandments always.
Just three examples, and there are a couple
of dozen that could be cited.
Why am I giving them to you?
Well, because here you see, when Moses refers
to law, he uses two or three other
nouns, which seems to suggest that the law
in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy does
not quite accord with, does not quite agree
with, the way that in the legal profession
we would use the term law today.
When Moses was giving these commandments by God,
through God, to the, or on behalf of
God rather, to the Hebrews, he was telling
them about things which were going to embrace
so many areas of their life.
I mean, our law today, it will set
up regulations concerning the way that I drive
down the road, the speed that I go
at, and we would accept that as being
a reasonable thing about which the law ought
to legislate.
But as far as the Hebrews are concerned,
the law of God goes much, much further,
and is not only to be called, not
only to be understood in terms of the
legal law that a judge might use for
him to make a decision, if two people
who've got an argument come in front of
him, but it will touch on such thing
as a style of dress.
It will touch on how a person ought
to treat his neighbour in certain situations.
Many, many things that the law of God
will touch on are discovered in the book
of Deuteronomy, and so you get this wide
description of law, not just in terms of
law, but the law and the statutes and
the judgments and the commandments.
And God wants His people to implement, to
live out that law in their lives.
Turn, for instance, to the 29th verse of
the 5th chapter, and here we've got the
Lord speaking through Moses, and He's saying that
all these laws that He's giving, all these
regulations are so much to the benefit of
His people, and you get a cry from
God's heart because He wants them to apply
these laws in every area of lifestyle.
Oh, that there were such an heart in
them, that they would fear Me and keep
all My commandments always, that it might be
well with them and with their children forever.
God is really concerned that the law is
maintained and His regulations are practiced.
Now, why is God so concerned?
Well, because of the reason that I argued
the manufacturer who makes His modern television set
is concerned that you agree and practice His
regulations so that you get the best value
for money.
And God is concerned that when the Hebrew
people live lives by His laws and regulations,
as they touch even the small issues of
daily relationships, man-wife relationship, mother-father-children
relationship, that they will get blessing as a
result.
So, stay with the 5th chapter and come
right down to the end of that chapter
and what you discover.
You shall walk in all the ways which
the Lord your God has commanded you, that
ye may live and that it may be
well with you and that you may prolong
your days in the land which you shall
possess.
God's purposes, you see, are for the benefit
of those who receive His law.
Turn to the 6th chapter and the 24th
verse and you get the same thing.
And the Lord commanded us to do all
these statutes, to fear the Lord our God
for our good always, that He might preserve
us alive as it is at this day.
And it shall be our righteousness if we
observe to do all these commandments before the
Lord our God, as He hath commanded us.
So, these laws, they're designed for the general
health, for the general well-being of the
people.
It's not so much that they're going to
be blessed as a prize because they've kept
these laws, but through keeping these laws, they
will find blessing will come their way.
If, for instance, to give you an analogy
in case you didn't understand me there, if
you discipline your body, you go jogging every
night or every other night, you go for
a swim, if you go for a nice
brisk walk, well the outworking of looking after
your body is the blessing of health, is
it not?
It's not a sort of prize which is
superimposed on you because you have looked after
your body, it's something that's basic to physical
discipline.
Similarly in God's law.
If a nation will live by His law,
then those blessings which are innate within the
law, they shall be outworked.
And never was the Hebrew community better off
than when the laws of God were implemented.
You think of the balmiest days, the best
days in Hebrew history, the time when King
David and King Solomon were reigning.
In the early years of Solomon in particular,
the empire of Israel was just expanding, and
the laws of God were maintained, and the
blessings that were innate within those laws, they
were being used, they were being benefited by,
the people benefited by them.
So then, within the law is the graciousness
of God.
He gives law for the benefit of people.
And as I mentioned a little while ago,
the sphere of law, it touches many, many
things that ordinary law today doesn't touch.
Such things as, excuse me, such things as
sexual relationships, how to bring up your children,
parental responsibility, dress.
It tells you also that if a man's
in debt to you, and if he earns
his living by grinding on a millstone, you're
not to take his millstone from him, because
he's in debt to you.
If you did that, then he'd lose his
livelihood, and that would be a very bad
thing indeed.
So many things that the laws of God
touch on, and there are two or three
in particular, which I mentioned from the book
of Deuteronomy in your notes.
The laws of God touch on health.
Now, the law of our land, not generally
speaking at any rate, touches on health, does
it?
But here, there's legislation given about the leper,
and if someone gets an infectious skin disease,
then according to the law, they've got to
be put out of the village, put out
of the town.
You say, well, that sounds a very harsh
thing for a gracious God to legislate upon.
But it wasn't so long ago, and indeed
I think we still have some hospitals called,
we certainly did in the north of England,
isolation hospitals.
If people have got something that's infectious, they're
taken away from the community.
And in those days, the law was to
apply, that the leper, the one with an
infectious disease, would have to be moved out
from his particular village or encampment because of
the threat that his disease might have on
someone else.
There's concern, you see, in the law of
God, in Deuteronomy, for the physical health and
well-being of men and women.
But that concern is also reflected in the
New Testament, isn't it?
Is it not in the Gospels?
In Romans, for instance, we're told to present
our bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord.
We're told that we're not our own.
Our bodies are a temple of the Holy
Spirit and we are to take care.
Well, these very principles are innate within the
Old Testament.
The law of God touches on such things
as commerce and business transactions.
You remember Mr. Heath made reference some two
years ago, three years ago, was it?
Perhaps a little longer, to the ugly face
of capitalism.
Well, that's censured too in the book of
Deuteronomy.
It was wrong for a person in the
redeemed community to lend money to his brother
and extract interest.
He wasn't to do this.
If his brother was in a predicament, then
he was to loan what he could afford
without interest being required.
The dealings of commerce between nations and the
principles there, they were to apply, that was
all right.
But amongst God's own people, there was a
different standard.
And so in the New Testament, we find
that amongst the disciples of Jesus, the followers
of the Lord Jesus, there's a different sort
of lifestyle which is to be cultivated.
I make reference also in the notes to
the fact that these laws of God defined
in terms of the statutes and the commandments,
they touch on marriage too.
The Old Testament has got a lot to
say about marriage.
Some people think that its teaching is not
quite what it was or what it has
become in the New Testament.
And that observation is correct.
The Lord Jesus lifts the whole idea of
marriage and puts it on a much higher
plane.
And He qualifies the ease with which divorce
was allowed among certain classes of Jews.
But even in the book of Deuteronomy, you
find that at a time when women were
very much the playthings of men and secondary
citizens, that there are regulations built in by
which the rights of a woman are preserved
in Hebrew society.
The 24th chapter and the first verses of
that chapter are the ones to look at
if you want more information.
So, what have we discovered so far this
evening?
Let's just go back in case you've lost
the thread of the argument.
The idea of law in Deuteronomy goes far
beyond just the Ten Commandments.
It's developed into areas where human relationships are
involved.
It affects personal standards of hygiene.
There are some very explicit commands as to
how a person is to look after his
body and his bodily functions.
There is a law laid down about the
burying of corpses, because if human flesh decays,
then the possibility is that disease and plague
might break out.
The law of God embraces far more than
the law, as we use that word, does
in the 20th century.
And the reason why the law was given
was for the benefits of the people, so
that within the Hebrew community, as they applied
the laws of God, they should know blessings
untold.
Well, what final conclusions can we make from
our study this evening?
Well, that there is an authority in law,
in the law of God, which is to
be recognized.
Look at the second verse of the fourth
chapter.
You shall not add unto the word which
I command you, neither shall you diminish aught
from it, that you may keep the commandments
of the Lord your God which I command
you.
In other words, this law is so important,
and it's got such authority behind it, that
you're not to tamper with it, says God
through Moses.
And does not that apply to the whole
canon of Scripture?
Scripture is God's revelation, that's not to be
tampered with.
It's a holy revelation, by which men and
women are to live their lives.
So important, I work out in your notes,
is the law of God in Deuteronomy, that
this special class of people, the Levites, have
as their professional calling in life, to remind
the people constantly of the law of God.
So in the 33rd chapter and the 10th
verse, referring to these Levites, we're told, they
shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy
law, they shall put incense before thee, and
so on.
The people were constantly to be reminded of
the legislation which God gave to Moses.
And the Levites were the folks who would
help.
But not just the Levites, parents, they had
a responsibility to their children.
And parents were told, on many occasions, that
when a child asked why the Hebrews did
such and such, that they responded, because this
is the law of God, and this is
what He has told us to do.
So in the 6th chapter and the 7th
verse, we get an instance of that cited.
And thou shalt teach your children diligently, thou
shalt teach these laws diligently unto thy children,
and shalt talk of them, when you sit
in your house, when you walk by your
way, and when you lie down, and when
you rise up.
The laws of God are of infinite value.
So great is the legislation which God gives
the Hebrews, that when Moses sums it all
up, in the 32nd chapter of this book,
he makes one of the most startling pronouncements
in the 46th and 47th verses.
And Moses said unto the Hebrews, set your
hearts unto all the words which I testify
among you this day, which you shall command
your children to observe, to do all the
words of this law.
For it is not a vain thing for
you, because it is your life.
And through this thing ye shall prolong your
days in the land whither you go over
Jordan to possess it.
That's perhaps the most significant statement in the
whole of this book.
Why did God give the Ten Commandments?
Why were there other regulations deduced from those
Ten Commandments?
Because this was basic for the well-being
of the people.
And they were to be able to say
to other tribesmen and to people from other
countries in the centuries that were yet to
be, when they asked, why are you so
blessed?
Why is it that such remarkable things are
happening in your land?
They will say, well, we've got a law,
a law which God has given us, and
we're living by that law.
In fact, that law has become so basic
to us, it is our life.
And of course it would have been.
But, but what?
But the Hebrews didn't keep the law.
And the Ten Commandments and all the commands
which are derived from those Ten have been
broken by men and women alas down the
centuries.
And the story of what happened to the
Hebrews is, in capital letters, the story of
what's happened to each one of us.
And this, you see, is the reason why
we went to Galatians right at the beginning
of our study this evening.
You see, the law is a good thing
basically, but it's got its limitations.
You go back to our television set.
All right, so you made a mess of
the manufacturer's instructions.
Maybe you weren't so pig-headed as to
do it deliberately, but you got the green
wire mixed up with the brown wire as
you were wiring everything up, and it exploded.
Well, the law, the regulations, told you that
it would explode.
But they can't help you at this moment.
It's no use going to the law and
saying, or to those regulations and placing them
alongside the plug and say, can you sort
something out?
The law can tell you what to do,
and it can tell you what not to
do.
But when you've done what you shouldn't do,
then you've got a problem.
And the law can't help you.
And you see, this was the reason, my
friend, for the gospel and for the coming
into the world of the Lord Jesus.
Because men and women, including the Hebrew community,
them in particular, have broken God's law.
And as a result, they're in a mess.
And what is necessary is for someone to
come in to this world and fulfill God's
law and do repair work amongst those who
are suffering because they've broken the very principles
of God's law.
And that's, in a word, what Jesus does.
Only it's not to be restricted to repair
work, it's utter and complete renewal.
And you see, a Christian is a person
who comes to Jesus and says, Lord, I've
broken the Ten Commandments.
I've broken the ethical code of the Sermon
on the Mount.
And I'm in a mess.
I'm fused.
I'm confused.
I'm really in an awful state.
What does Jesus then do?
Well, as we confess our sins, the Bible
says Jesus is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to rid us of
all unrighteousness.
But what else does He do?
Because if your gospel stops there, it's an
inadequate understanding of the gospel.
Jesus then places within our hearts the Holy
Spirit.
Well, what does that do?
Give us some exciting emotional experience.
Well, that may be part of it, but
that was never the final objective of the
impartation of the Spirit.
He gives us power.
Power to do what?
Power to live up to the requirements of
the law.
So far from the Ten Commandments being rescinded
by Jesus, they're fulfilled in Jesus, and He
makes men and women new so that they
can start again to fulfill, by the power
which Jesus gives them, the very law which
they have broken on previous occasions.
So, you see the reason why the Apostle
Paul speaks of the law in terms of
a schoolmaster.
He's not being disrespectful to a schoolmaster, a
very wonderful profession, but he's saying that the
law disciplines you.
The law, it aggravates you, it convicts you,
it exposes you, it shows your areas of
not just weakness, it shows your areas of
sinfulness, shows you how condemned you are in
the sight of God.
But thank God for the law, which makes
you feel such an absolute heal, because when
you feel so convicted, because you've broken this
law, which was there for your benefit, then
you go to the Lord God, and you
fling yourself at the foot of the cross,
and you ask for forgiveness.
And God, by His grace, implants the Holy
Spirit within your life.
And He doesn't say, now go and live
just how you want to live.
He says, now go and live how the
Spirit tells you to live.
And the amazing thing is this, my friend.
The Spirit of God, when He is within
the heart of a man or a woman,
tells him to live in according, in accordance
with the teaching of the Ten Commandments.
So, far from the Gospel pushing law onto
one side, it grants the ability of men
and women to be able to live up
to the law.
Ah, but you say, that's rather a problem
then, for people who lived before Jesus.
Well, it is and it isn't.
Because even people who lived before the Lord
Jesus Christ came on earth, people who were
listening to Moses preach, got some understanding, if
they listened carefully, that even though in the
days to come they broke the law, they
could nevertheless fling themselves upon the mercy of
God.
And if they were truly repentant, God, in
a way outside the law, would give them
an opportunity to have sins forgiven, and to
start afresh.
So, in the 29th verse of the fourth
chapter, if from thence, from the land of
exile to which you've been sent, because you've
broken the law, thou shalt seek the Lord
thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou
shalt seek Him with all thy heart and
with all thy soul.
And again, on to the 30th chapter, Moses
anticipating that people alas, will break the law
of God, goes on to say, but if
you confess your sins, verse 5, the Lord
thy God will bring thee back into the
land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt
possess it, and He will do thee good,
and multiply thee above thy fathers, and the
Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and
the heart of thy seed, to love the
Lord thy God with all thine heart, and
with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
Why was the law given?
To stop people from enjoying themselves, not a
bit.
It was given by a loving heavenly Father
for the benefit of His children, and even
when they broke the law, out of the
graciousness of His heart, He made a way
possible, and made it absolute in Jesus, so
that sins could be forgiven, and broken personalities
could be remade and renewed, and through the
fullness of the Spirit, the law of God
could be once again lived up to.
Now, Fathers, we've looked into one aspect of
your Word, which may be difficult for some
to grasp, but it's so important for us
to comprehend.
We ask for an even greater growth in
grace, and in the knowledge of God, as
a result of the time that we spent
together, and help us, Father, not only to
be men who meticulously try to keep regulations,
but men through whom the Spirit of God
flows, men who abound in the love and
in the joy that Jesus brings.
Father, we pray that to the faithfulness that
we offer to your law, there may also
be the jubilation of personalities that have been
transformed by the Holy Spirit of God, for
Jesus' sake.
Amen.