Dennis Tuuri

Sermon text today is Deuteronomy 4 beginning at verse 44 through the end of chapter 5. Deuteronomy 4:44 through chapter 5. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Now this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which Moses spoke to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt. On this side of the Jordan, in the valley opposite Bethor, in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel defeated after they came out of Egypt, and they took possession of his land, and the land of Og, king of the Amorites—two kings of the Amorites who are on this side of the Jordan toward the rising of the sun from Aroer which is on the bank of the river Arnon even to Mount Sion that is Hermon and all the plain of the east side of the Jordan as far as the sea of the Arabah below the slopes of Pisgah.

And Moses called all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today that you may learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. The Lord talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire.

I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up the mountain. He said, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work. You nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey. I am missing a page. Please be patient with me. Well, all right. Plan two. Could someone with the Bible come up and read from this text on to the end of the chapter?

Thank you. Or your donkey or any of your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt. And the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. Honor your father and your mother as the Lord your God has commanded you that your days may be prolonged and that it may go well with you on the land which the Lord your God gives you.

You shall not commit murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain from the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick gloom, with a great voice, and he added no more.

And you wrote them on two tablets of stone, and gave them to me. And it came about when you heard the voice from the midst of the darkness, while the mountain was burning with fire, that you came near to me, all the heads of your tribes and your elders, and you said, “Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice from the midst of the fire. We have seen today that God speaks with man, yet he lives.

Now then, why should we die? For this great fire will consume us if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. Then we shall die. For who is there of all flesh who has heard the voice of the living God speaking from the midst of the fire as we have and lived? Go near and hear all that the Lord our God says. Then speak to us all that the Lord our God will speak to you and we will hear and do it.

And the Lord heard the voice of your words when you spoke to me and the Lord said to me, I have heard the voice of the words of this people which they have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have spoken. Oh that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and keep all of my commandments always that it may be well with them and with their sons forever. Go say to them, “Return to your tents.

But as for you, stand here by me that I may speak to you all the commandments and the statutes and the judgments which you shall teach them that they may observe them in the land which I gave them to possess. So you shall observe to do just as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right or to the left. You shall walk in all the way which the Lord your God has commanded you that you may live and that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you for your love for us. We thank you that you’ve called us today before you and we thank you that you deal with us through the mediation of Jesus Christ, our savior. Help us to be properly fearful of you, Lord God. Help us to receive your word today. Help us to do this so that your spirit might use the words of your law to cause us to walk in beauty and in holiness, in obedience, submission, and in joyful conquest in all that we do and say.

Bless us, Father, this day through the power of your spirit in Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

That has never happened before. Toward the very center of the section that is Moses’ part of his sermon on chapters where we see the death of Aaron and the taking of the place of Aaron by his son. So this transition from one man to another man can be thought of as an example because of course Aaron is a picture of the greater Aaron—the Lord Jesus Christ—who died and was raised up.

It’s interesting this morning that the Lord our God causes us to begin our worship service, those of you that were here in time, by hearing a wonderful demonstration of law-keeping and you might not have thought of it that way, but it was beautiful. Katherine Erland, who will probably never sing to us again as Katherine Erland (those of you that are visiting, she’s going to be married soon), but to hear her beautifully sing, I praise God for the musicians, for Carolyn Hartner, who oversees the prelude music, and for Katherine’s beautiful singing.

Katherine didn’t get there by just ignoring rules and laws—by ignoring what you’re supposed to do. She got to the place of beautiful singing by knowing the laws, the order, the way of music and then conforming herself to those laws. She’s an example of law-keeping to us and the end result of that law-keeping is beautiful and it’s wonderful. As we begin this probably long series on the ten words, Katherine’s song is a good illustration for us to keep in mind.

What we’re dealing with here are the ways that God tells us to live. And he wants us to live lives that are beautiful, gracious, lovely, praising him in all that we do and say. And if we attend to the way of God as given to us in all sixty-six books of the Bible and in a summary form to a particular people in Deuteronomy 5, that’s how we’re going to get to that wonderful place of singing wonderful songs to him.

So today is the beginning of this series. I hope you got outlines. I know they’re very long today. The first two pages are introductory material. And then pages 3 through I don’t know 9 or so is the text of Deuteronomy 6 through 11, broken into sections that are chiastic. So 6 through 11 according to this outline comes to a central turning point, a transition and we’ll talk about that in a few minutes. And then beyond that is the blank page to take notes on the preamble to the law that we just heard beginning in Deuteronomy 4:33 and following, or 4:44 and following rather.

And then the last two pages, kids are for you. The last page is a picture of Moses with the two tablets. And then there is a young children’s handout that adults sometimes like to do too. So that’s what you have by way of handout today.

What we’re going to try to do is sort of talk generally about what’s happening with God’s law and some important truths about it. And we’ll talk hopefully about the preamble and then begin to discuss the first word. On your outlines I point out that what we just read in case you didn’t know it was Deuteronomy 5, not Exodus 20. Exodus 20 is what we read responsively with New Testament responses. That is what most people think of and memorize as the ten words. But they’re repeated—not exactly, but with changes—in Deuteronomy 5.

You know, there’s a span of time between the giving of the law and then forty years in the wilderness and the giving of the ten words again as they’re entering into the land and the situation has changed. The law changes somewhat. There are some changes and we’ll talk about those changes as we work our way through Deuteronomy 5 and its commentary on Deuteronomy 5. For most of the rest of the book of Deuteronomy, it’s Moses’ sermon on the ten words.

So there are two listings of the ten words and we’ll be talking about those changes as we move along in this series. And I’ll also be talking, I’ll be bringing in hopefully chapters from Daniel. You’ll remember that if you’ve heard me preach through Daniel or looked at other notes from our Sunday school curriculum, you’ll remember that Daniel is actually structured apparently along the lines of the ten commandments. Chapter one deals with the first word, chapter two the second word, et cetera. And then chapters 10 to 12 deal with the tenth commandment. So we’ll be bringing in illustrations—this is the plan here—from the book of Daniel as we work our way through the ten words in Deuteronomy 5, noting the changes from Exodus 20.

Now I’ve said already several times I’ve used the phrase “ten words” as opposed to “ten commandments.” And this should cause you to be curious about why I say that. The very phrase “ten commandments” is found in English translations of the Bible. In Deuteronomy 4:13, we read this in the New King James Version. “So he declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform: the ten commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone.”

Now we have a translation problem here. The word “commanded” is a word for commanding—it’s like our word and sounds the same and has the same kind of meaning to it. The Hebrew term, but the word that’s translated “commandments” in this text is actually the Hebrew word for “word.” It’s a completely different word than “commandment.” It’s “word.” And so the text of scripture itself tells us “ten words,” not “ten commandments.”

Now we can by inference—and this is what the translators have done by inference—say, “Well, they’re commandments because he’s commanding us,” and okay, that’s by inference. The problem is that when we restrict the term “word” to “commandment”—to an inference because of the command nature of it—we don’t first of all deal honestly with the translation of the Hebrew word which is supposed to be “word,” and it causes us to miss the nuances of the word being used for the ten words.

When we hear about “ten words” it’s a different thing than hearing “ten commandments” to us, right? And so that difference actually flows from the Hebrew text. And that’s why we’re going to try as much as possible to remember to say “ten words” usually and not “ten commandments.” And if we say “ten commandments,” that’s okay because by implication, they’re commandments. But it does bring up a question.

What do we have in the ten words and then in the rest of the book of Deuteronomy that’s structured according to these ten words? Most of the rest of the book of Deuteronomy—is it a law code? Is it like a statute book that we would find in the Oregon Revised Statutes? Or is it more sermonic? And what I’m suggesting is because we actually have the word “word” instead of “commandment” or “statute,” God wants us to think of them as more sermonic—as a word spoken that has various implications and nuances.

Secondly, I’m saying that I think it’s better understood as sermonic because it doesn’t read like a law code. There are some specific prohibitions of activity. “You can’t.” “You shall not commit adultery.” “You shall not kill,” or “murder” is a better translation. But then some of these things are put in the context of reasons for them and they’re described in more detail than a law code would necessarily use. I mean the biggest example of this of course is the fourth word.

The fourth word is sermonic. It says well, this is what happened. God created the world this way and therefore I want you to do this. That’s a sermonic explanation. That’s not a statute. He’s giving explanations, motivation, I guess, is one way to put it, instead of just a bare statement of command. That’s more sermonic than it is a law code. And when we think of the ten words that way, it helps us, you know, maybe meditate upon them a little more than we would otherwise.

How, what is this sermon by God telling us? What do these words say? And it avoids us thinking whether these are commandments for us or not. I mean, are these our commandments? Well, not really. These are ten words spoken to God’s people at a particular time in covenant history. Now, to some extent, they are our words as well because they reflect the character of God and the character of how men should live in relationship to each other, but they’re particularly contexted in a particular stage of God’s covenant actions with mankind. And so in a way they’re not directly—some of them at least are not directly applicable. And so we have to think a little broader or deeper about what’s being said.

And additionally, it helps us to remember that there’s application of these that we need to think through. And my contention is that most of the rest of the book of Deuteronomy is actually a sermon on these ten words. And again, we shouldn’t think of it as a law code book. We should think of it as a sermon with illustrations, motivations, with commands written in a way that are designed to make us think about the essence of the command and apply it to the particular situation in which we find ourselves.

You know, what are the gods around us? Which gods do we have to be careful about serving? Well, there are no named gods around us. Does the commandment have any relevance? Oh, you bet it does. There’s a lot of significance to it. So these are ten words. They’re sermonic. They’re not a law code. They have command to them, but they’re not to be limited to the idea of a commandment. And this is also shown by the fact that it changes. The law code is not fixed; the law code changes a little bit. It’s a sermon. The sermon changes a little bit. We’ll be looking at some of these changes in the next few months.

The most notable one we’ll talk about at the Lord’s Table, which is a change in the fourth word. In Exodus 20, the fourth word’s motivation is linked to God’s work of creation. In Deuteronomy 5, the motivation for the fourth word is redemption from Egypt—God’s completing of the redemptive work, bringing them out of Egypt. So we have creation and redemption, and there’s this change which gets us to focus on that, to think a little bit about it.

This change of course is very significant in ongoing contemporary discussions of the correct application of the fourth word to our setting and I’ll say more about that at the Lord’s Table itself, more later. So there are ten words. They’re sermonic. They’re not a law code. They do change according to the circumstances. God wants us to understand, you know, the essential truths of these statements and to think about them in a broader way.

You know the Westminster Larger Catechism has a description of the ten words and then extrapolations from each of those ten words as to what they imply. And this is the example of you take a word—a sermon—and you apply it in different ways, and the Westminster Larger Catechism does exactly that. And that’s what Moses does in the rest of the book of Deuteronomy. And that will help us to make application of these ten words.

Now we know actually, there is only one word, right? There’s only one basic command. Our Savior tells us this. The first and great commandment is the command is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now, this same—not exactly the same, but to love God with all your heart and soul—is given in Deuteronomy 10:12. That’s in the section dealing with the first word. When our Savior says that the command is to love God, he’s really just picking up what the law—the law sermon itself of Moses—says. Moses says exactly that in Deuteronomy 10:12.

So again, you know, that if we didn’t know Deuteronomy and we didn’t know that the law is sort of summarized at that point as being to love God, we would think that Jesus is telling us something brand new in the New Testament. He’s not—he’s repeating what Deuteronomy said. But Jesus goes on to say, “But the second is like unto it. The second flows out of it.” We’re to have a correct relationship to God as structured by an understanding of his sermonic ten words and the sermons that he gives us in the Bible about that. But we’re also then to love our neighbor as ourselves.

And traditionally the ten commandments from the Protestant perspective have a first set of five which deal with our relationship to God. The fifth commandment—honoring your parents—is seen as relating to a superior, to God. They represent God to you. So the obligations to love God are spelled out in commandments or words 1 to 5. And the obligations, or the way to love our neighbor, the way to love God, is here. The way to love our neighbor is in the last five words, words 6 through 10.

So there’s really one word, but there’s in a sense from another perspective two words because the second demonstrates the first. And it’s a series of three-threes.

Now on your handouts I’ve given you the numbers 1 2 3 4 space 5 6 7 space 8 9 10. Could you write down the ten commandments right now from heart? It’s hard to do. When you go home today, test. Well actually the test would work better if you did it now but I don’t want to take the time. But unless you’ve developed some way of handling it, maybe a little ditty is saying or whatever it is, you’re not really going to be able to probably sequence the ten words correctly. That isn’t your fault. It’s that this doesn’t show your lack of love for God’s word. It shows the limitations—at least at this point in history—of the human brain.

We have what, ten-digit phone numbers. Do you know your ten-digit phone number? Well, you do, but you don’t know ten digits sequentially. You didn’t learn it that way. You learned an area code of three numbers, then a prefix, a prefix of three numbers, and then the last four numbers which are specific. So you learn 3-3-4 and as a result, you can learn a sequence of ten by breaking it up into smaller elements. I don’t know what the scientists tell us—that a string of six or seven things is about maxes out any human potential for, unless you know there’s strange things happening in somebody’s brain, which there’s always exceptions. But for most of us, that’s the way we have to memorize a string of things is by breaking them up into tens.

And if we think of the Sabbath as coming to rest—coming to a place of having done, lived in relationship with sermonic application of the law for six days—then we enter into this seventh day of enthronement and blessing and rest. That really brings to a conclusion a week which is representative of our lives. And so one way to think about the ten words is in sequences of four, three and three. So the correct living your life in relationship to words 1 through 3 brings you to Sabbath rest, enthronement, and blessing in word 4.

Okay, so no other gods, no idols and no taking God’s name in vain. Now, if you think about these things and we’ll talk much more about this in the weeks and months to come. “No other gods” refers to the ultimate superiority of God. And we could say that the focus—while you know, we don’t ever want to make these things absolute. The Trinity is unity and diversity. It’s one God existing in three persons. But I think if we chose a focal point for the first word, it’s God the Father. God the Father is the God, the powerful one who brought all things into creation.

So the first word stresses, I think primarily, our relationship to God the Father. The second word stresses mediation. You know, how do you worship God? Do you go through a mediation of an idol, an icon that you worship through to get to God? Through Mother Mary to get to God? No. Are we unmediated between us and God the Father? No. Who’s the mediator? There’s one mediator, Jesus Christ. So the Son, the second person of the Trinity, is to be our source of mediation between us and God the Father.

The first word, as we’ll see in a little while, has as its center mediation. In the sermonic application of it, Moses intercedes with God. And so we need a mediator, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ.

The third word—you know, our words, we get used to saying things a particular way. We make it real easy to obey that third word by just saying, “Well, you’re not supposed to swear. Don’t say GD.” Pretty easy for some people. Not as easy for others, but easier than what I think the word really says. What the word really says is don’t take God’s name upon you in vanity. The word means in emptiness. Emptiness. And the implication is that we’re to have a full-fledged, full witness as Christians.

We’ve got the name of Christ upon us. We got the name of God on us. They had the name of God on them. And they’re supposed to bear that name living their lives six days a week, right? With a full witness to their relationship to God through this covenant word. And so we would say what we want to do for our six days is to have a spirit-filled life. And a spirit-filled life is not an empty life. And a life that isn’t spirit-filled, when we walk away from walking in the context of the Holy Spirit and we are Christians, we’re always Christians eternally marked, then we have an empty witness of our Christianity.

So I think the first three words can be seen as having primary reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And when we love God our Father, when we love God the Son, and when we love God the Holy Spirit, this thematically—this is a three-point outline, and the conclusion of that part of the sermon—brings us to delightful rest and enthronement in Lord’s Day worship or in Sabbath convocations that are described in word 4.

So we come to full rest by loving God with all of our heart and soul. That’s what it is. But we have a problem because it’s easy for us to think we love God in our prayer closet, in our minds in isolation. “Oh yes, I’m very committed to God. Yes, I love him. Oh, I may not think about him all the time, but I love him.” And then we have a horrible fight with the wife, the husband, children, parents, friends. Sinful tendencies and patterns start to overtake us in relationship to other people.

We sin against our wife through unloving acts or through other substitutes for marriage. We sin against our husbands by not trying to respect them and to recognize their need for God in leadership, loving servant leadership, easily intreated leadership, but to be leaders. I could go on. The point is, it’s easy to think we love God. But when that love for God is tested by how we interact with each other in our homes, in our church, in our neighborhoods, in our workplace, in our commerce, then maybe it becomes more difficult to believe we love God.

It’s a diagnostic test we can say for God, to demonstrate to us whether we really love him or not. Because the truth is that the fourth word says we come to rest by loving, is Adam stealing from his father, right? The forbidden fruit. Then it helps us to remember that theft is ultimately a denial of the property rights of Father, who has given people stuff, and we deny that. We sin against the Father by stealing.

And then the ninth word says that we’re not to bear false witness against an equal, a brother. And what it really means is in court primarily, but we’re not to sin against our brother by our words in relationship to him. And then finally, we’re not to covet our neighbor’s wife. And then Deuteronomy 5 puts that word “wife” first of the whole list. So what we have in the ten words is really one word that we can think of as two because the second demonstrates the first, and it’s a series of three-threes.

The first three tell us that loving God brings us into Katherine Erland’s beautiful singing and wonderful sound, beauty, grace of the Lord’s day. And then he tells us, “Here’s a couple more. Here’s a double witness about your need to live at peace with people of various sorts as an evidence of how you’re not doing things right and of how I want you to live in a way that is beautiful, gracious, and harmonious.”

Okay. So that’s sort of an introduction to the ten words. I think if you try to think of these characteristics of 4-3-3, sort of like your telephone number but a little bit different—there’s instead of 3-3-4 it’s 4-3-3—I think this will be easy for you then to begin to memorize the ten words, to focus on these words as we go through this set of sermons, and to think about how we can live our lives in relationship to God and to other people.

So, there’s two lists of the ten words. One is in Exodus 20, the other is in Deuteronomy 5. There are some changes from the list in Exodus to the list in Deuteronomy. The biggest change is the fourth word about the Sabbath. The book of Daniel also is based upon the ten words. And we’ll be talking about the book of Daniel. The ten words or the ten commandments are like a sermon. A sermon. Meditate on it. Think about it. Mull it over. It’s a sermon. Most of Deuteronomy is a sermon about the ten words. And there is really only one word ultimately—to love God. But we’re also to love others. Others. We’re to love others. And the ten words can be grouped into sets of three.

The first set of these brings us to rest. And to have full rest, we must walk in the other sets. Sorry for leaving the word “set” off that part of the handout. It’s easy to think we love God, but true love for God will be seen by our love for others. And so the ten words talk about that love.

Now then, I have an outline on your handouts of the book of Deuteronomy or most of it based on the ten commandments. I got this from Jim Jordan. This is not my outline. Jim Jordan got the basic outline here from Dr. Krabendom who has actually been in this pulpit a year or two ago. Dr. Krabendam is the one that first taught Jim about how Deuteronomy—most of it—is this sermon by Moses on the ten words. Jim then does a little bit of differentiation in terms of where he puts the breaks, but you have this. This is important stuff.

I’ve stapled and put three-hole punch on these because if I was you, you know, if I’m sitting in the congregation, I want to keep a binder about God’s word. This is what I’m supposed to teach to my kids. This is what’s supposed to lead me to sing beautifully in my life, so to speak. But we have illustrations like Katherine. This is what it’s all about. Here’s some good material culled from many good, godly men. And whether you agree with all of it or not, it’s still good stuff to have in your reference library. So if I’m you, I’m keeping a binder. I’m saying thank you, Pastor Tuuri, for and thank God for that wonderful copy machine that punches them and staples them as it makes copies. Just amazing.

So you can keep this outline, and this is actually going to be the outline of my sermons on the ten words.

All right, I want to do two other things fairly quickly here. And I think I have time to do both, but I’m probably wrong. Well, let’s not. We’ll leave for next week a discussion of the first word. We won’t actually get into the first word today. On your handouts, on the outlines there is an outline of the first word Deuteronomy chapters 6 through 11. This is directly from Jim Jordan. I don’t think Dr. Krabendom took the time or energy to do the different words and their structure. This is chiastic. If you look at A-C-C prime-B prime-A prime, this week clearly, don’t have to busying people. But if you do, those will be the texts I’ll focus on next week to show, but pretty easy way here.

The structuring into the heart of the matter of the first word at the middle of this, and I’ve already talked about what the heart of that matter is. It is intercession by Moses and I’ll also talk about the death and resurrection of Aaron. So next week we’ll deal primarily with that handout, that part of the handouts, the outline of the first word, the portion of Moses’ sermon on the first word.

But let’s conclude today by looking at the preamble to the law. So in Deuteronomy 5, we have the listing of the ten words, but before the ten words are begun, we have an introduction. You might call it a preamble. And really, if we were to do justice, we would say there’s some words before the ten words in Deuteronomy 4:33. We start in 4:33 because it says formal header, “these are the laws.” And then in chapter 6:1, it clearly has the next header to us. So we know this is a section and in this section you’ve got the ten words preceded by a preamble and then followed by a postlude that work together.

Okay, a description surrounding, sandwiching in, the actual listing of the ten words in Deuteronomy 5. And I just want to take a few minutes here as we close talking about the preamble. So turn to chapter 4:44. You don’t have this on your outlines. The outlines only, we have the text for the discussion of the first word. So turn in your scriptures to Deuteronomy 4:44 and we’ll just go through seven quick points about this.

First, it says, “This is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel. These are the testimonies, the statutes, and the judgments which Moses spoke.” Well, if you’re like me, you wonder what is that? Well, you know, our English translations give us some idea. So there’s a law, there’s a word, there’s a commandment. There is a sermon to help us learn how to live. It’s the way. It’s the Torah. It’s the path. It’s the musical notation that lets us sing beautifully.

But then he says specifically that this law is contained in testimony, statutes, and judgments. Testimony seems to have an emphasis on testifying to the character of God. Statutes have a focus on actual laws, what we would think of as laws, and judgments are blessings and cursings based on those. But however, that’s kind of how the English translation works. But in the Hebrew, it’s less than clear. So you know, there is some distinction, but I’ve not seen a good overall study differentiating these terms and they’re used throughout the Old Testament. But suffice it to say that right away we’re told as we’re told about the way or the walk of God that we have to meditate on it in terms of different elements of what these things do or say.

So that’s number one.

Secondly, when are these given? Moses speaks these to the children of Israel after they came out of Egypt. The law is not given to bring them out of Egypt. The sermon, the ten words are not given to make us have life. The ten words are not given primarily to drive us to Christ. They can have that function, right? We read it, we see we’re sinners. What are we going to do? So somebody points out to us Christ. And it can be used that way, but that’s not the primary purpose here. These people are saved. They’re redeemed. Redeemed how? They love to declare it. You know, they were redeemed. They were brought out by the blood of the lamb, right? So the law is given to a people that are redeemed—not to affect redemption, but they’re given as a way of life. And because some of these laws are statutes, it’s a way of life that includes the structuring of our civil government.

They were to go in to possess the land that had been given to them graciously by God. And they were going to go in and live beautifully and sing their song, live their lives. And those lives would be lived in relationship to the civil implications of God’s sermon on the law as well.

So the second point is that the law is given to a saved people to tell them how the world is supposed to really look. We see around us evidences of people not walking in the ways of God. And we don’t like it. God doesn’t like it. He says he’s going to change the world. He’s going to bring the world to fruition. Jesus Christ comes in to usher the new creation, the greater Exodus, which causes us to meditate upon how we’re supposed to live.

Now, they were going into a land, but as we read from Ephesians, the promise today is for all the earth, the world. And the same thing is true of the first word. We’ll talk next week about that. But there’s a we have been brought into the world and saved. And God wants us to save the world. We save the world. It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it. We’re supposed to live lives that are beautiful and well ordered in all our relationships, including our civil ones. And God gives us this law because we’ve been redeemed, not to bring us into redemption.

Third, not only were they redeemed, they had a little taste of victory going on. The definitive battle had been done because they beat these two kings. Og was this big giant. And so they’ve already beaten the giants in the land. They were afraid of the giants in the land forty years previous. Now they already killed the giant. In a way, they’ve already conquered. And in a way, as Christians, we’ve already conquered in Jesus Christ. Now he’s going to call them to go in and conquer more. But he’s saying the battle has already been won prior to you giving the law. So the law is given to a redeemed people and a people that by the grace of God have already been victorious—to a victorious people.

Fourth, drop down to verse 5:1 now, chapter 5, verse 1. Moses calls all Israel and he says to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your hearing today that you may learn them and be careful to observe them.” Okay?

And this pattern is repeated over and over again in Moses’ sermon here. So you’re hearing the word “learn”—apply yourself to learning what this sermon says so that you might obey. So again, it’s a sermon. You got to hear this stuff. You got to meditate on it and learn it and then you got to apply it. And we’re supposed to teach it to our children. They’re supposed to hear the word of God. We’ll talk about this next week. But clearly the great Shema is found then in the very next chapter, chapter, in the explanation of the first word. And we’re supposed to have our children hear and learn so that they can walk up, you know, grow up, rather, learning to live their lives beautifully.

So there’s this process. You don’t jump to obedience. You have to think. You have to put yourself under the instruction of the hearing of God’s sermon on the law in order to then come to a position of obedience.

Fifth, the Lord God made a covenant with us. From this we see really that the law tells us what the purpose of the covenant is. God made a covenant so that we would go into a land and transform it and make it a beautiful garden again. It’s become a howling wilderness. Those horrible you know people that are so rebellious against God need to be wiped out and the world needs to be changed. That’s the purpose of the covenant. The covenant brings the world to its fruition, to its completion. Jesus Christ came to affect the covenant and to bring the world to its fruition. And the way that happens, Moses says, is to bring the world to its fruition to have you walk in the way of God, understanding and applying his law in your lives.

So it’s a covenant law, which means it’s a victorious law. It works. God’s goal is not to have you live a life that isn’t effective. Ultimately, the church, to live a life that isn’t effective. His goal is to have you effective—to transform the world into an even better garden, a garden city. And that’s the purpose of the law. That’s why he’s given this here. It’s a covenant law. And as a result, it’s a victorious law that changes the world.

Sixth, I’m going to drop down to verse 6, and we’re actually now into the actual text itself of the laws. But I wanted to make these points here again. Actually, no, this is still the preamble. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” That’s verse 6 of chapter 5, still in the preamble. So the sixth point is once more, it’s a redeemed people, but now it’s a people that have been brought out of slavery. There’s no slavery to keeping God’s law. It is the definition of freedom. He’s saying, “I brought you out of slavery, and what he’s going to do is he’s given you freedom.” And the way to be free is to live your life in relationship to his words, his sermons, his laws, his statutes, his judgments.

You know, you’ve heard the illustration, a balloon on a string. This summertime, little kids get these balloons, they let go and the balloon goes up. So if you’ve got a balloon without a string, you cut the string, you don’t get freedom for the balloon. You get its destruction—that’s what you get. It goes up there and explodes or dies or whatever happens. That’s not freedom. Freedom also isn’t not having a balloon that’s beautiful and buoyant and all that stuff. But freedom is found in relationship to the law. We could say the string that’s attached to it.

So the law is given as a means of freedom. And the world lies to us. “You want to be free? Which means you want to cast off the chains of God’s law.” No, they’re not chains. They’re beautiful adornments to a Christian life. They’re not things tying us down. If we perceive them that way, or if they work out that way, we’re doing something wrong. We need to get more mature about the use of the law.

And then finally, the last point is up a verse from that in verse 5. He says, “I stood between the Lord and you at that time to declare to you the word of the Lord, for you were afraid because of the fire.” The law is set in the context of a fearful people. And over and over and over again in Moses’ sermon, he’s going to say, “Be fearful, be careful, and obey.” And we read this and we think, well, see, the people were stupid. They were, you know, that’s why they didn’t get to go and meet with God because they were fearful. But as read to us the other side of this after the listing of the Ten Commandments, what did God say to Moses when Moses was up there? He said, “Everything they said is right.” Everything they said is right. God wants us fearful.

The law is not to get rid of fear. Now, there’s different kinds of fear, but you know, before we just chuck the idea of fear, let me read a few verses to you from Moses’ sermon. Here’s what he says. I’m going to go through several verses here and then we’ll be done.

Deuteronomy 5:5, “I stood between the Lord and the,” one we just read, “You were afraid,” and God says everything they said is right.

Deuteronomy 5:29, “Oh that they had a heart in me that they would fear me and always keep my commandments and that it might be well with them and with their children.” There’s a proper fear that leads to a life lived in relationship to God’s law which produces Katherine Erland singing. Sorry to embarrass Katherine all morning, but it was such a beautiful illustration of law-keeping. That’s what God wants for us. This is his intention. He doesn’t mean to make you into people that don’t have joy. He intends for you to be the most joyous of all people and your children. But you get there through carefully observing his words and applying them to your lives.

And you get there, he says, by fearing me. God says, “Oh, that they would fear me properly and hear my words and obey them and then have joyous, wonderful, abundant life as a result of fear.” Fear.

Deuteronomy 6:2, “That you might fear the Lord your God to keep all of his statutes and his commandments which I command to you, you and your sons that your days may be prolonged.” Same thing, fear to obey. Teach it to your sons to be fearful and obey. And the end result is long lives of blessedness and cool, harmonious, melodious lives lived in relationship to God and our neighbor.

Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall fear the Lord your God and serve him. Shall take oath in his name.” Fear, serve.

Deuteronomy 6:24, “The Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes to fear the Lord our God for our good always.” How do we get to obedience? By fearing for our good. It is our good. It is our well-being to fear God.

Deuteronomy 8:6, “Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.” In a way, the law is summed up in “you shall love the Lord your God.” But here it’s sort of summed up in fearing God. And the result of that fear, understanding your need to live according to the way that he’s created you and designed for you.

Deuteronomy 8:15, “God led you through the great and terrible fearful wilderness in which there were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water, who brought water for you.” God intended them to have a fearful experience to the end that they might fear him and as a result hear him, obey him, and have wonderful lives.

Deuteronomy 10:12, “Now, Israel, what does God require of you?” But so the summary statement, “to fear the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” This is what Jesus is referring back to when he says the first and great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. He’s referring back to this text and he wants us to remember the context of all of this. And part of the context is this: loving God is a result of properly fearing him, fearing him.

Deuteronomy 10:17, “The Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of hosts, the great God, mighty and fearful.” Awesome, King James, but fearful. God is a fearful thing. He’s supposed to bring us to, do he’s supposed to bring us danger. “Will Robinson, do not offend this God. Do not walk away from what he tells you. Curse is on the other side of it.” We’re to fear God.

Deuteronomy 10:20, “You shall fear the Lord your God. You shall serve him and the hymn you shall hold fast.” How do we hold fast? How do we serve? By fearing first and foremost in that series of words.

So as we begin this series of sermons, my motivation to you is to consider God, to fear him. Consider what we might call the natural consequences of disobedience to a God who is all powerful and who has told you, “I have wonderful plans, plans for you. I’ve got a wonderful life planned out for you. Here’s the way you do it.” And understand that part of your motivation to do that is that when you don’t do that, your life is going to be hell. Your life is going to be disordered. Your life is going to be messed up. I don’t want that to happen. I’m fearful of that happening to me. And because of that proper fear, I want to, you know, listen to God. I want to love him as my master. He brought us deliverance that we could not bring to pass ourselves.

Now, we had an illustration in the news this week of fear, right? So this Cambridge professor comes back. He’s arrested by the policeman for disorderly conduct in his home. President Obama, for some reason, enters into the fray, stirs up racial tensions in the entire country, I think, by not being careful in his speech. And I thought about this in relationship to fear back in the counterculture, I was breaking the law all the time. Not in big ways, but in small ways, doing things that were illegal. And whenever I saw a policeman, I was frightened. You know, I got anxious, nervous. Every time I saw a policeman, it scared the willies out of me.

Now, that’s not the kind of fear God is talking about. That’s kind of a slavish fear to some guy that, you know, the only thing he’s going to do is whip you, okay? And some Blacks in America have that same kind of fear for policemen. They haven’t done anything wrong, but they know that the policeman or they think they know that the policeman thinks they did something wrong. So they have kind of a slavish fear to the policeman and they’re trying to break away from that. They know they shouldn’t feel that way. And what they do then is, you know, go the other way and get rid of all fear. And so this Cambridge professor has no fear of the policeman. He thinks he’s safe. So he doesn’t have to fear him for being doing something wrong. But as a result, he enters into conduct that has no proper fear of the policeman as an authority in the land—a person that is sent by God to minister justice, to lead us into productive, happy lives.

The absence of fear on the part of the professor led him into jail, handcuffs, Harvard professor, important man, mugshot. This is the result. This is the slavery that happens to people who don’t have a proper fear and respect for authority. You know, I heard Juan Williams on TV, a commentator, and he said that when he was, he was Black and he was raised, his parents told him, “Man, you’re Black. They’re going to, you got to be careful when the man comes around. You don’t say anything sassy. You act real nice. You act good.” And Juan Williams sees this incident in relationship to that.

Now, he thinks the Black guy was totally in the wrong. But one, you know, saw this, but one didn’t understand that everybody when they’re properly trained in reference to authority is trained the same way. Not because we feel sinful or guilty or oppressed as Black people. I’m sure that Black people felt that way and that led to the wrong kind of fear, too. But the proper fear is just that sort of upbringing that one had from his parents. We should tell our children that. Don’t mess with the authorities. Don’t be disrespectful of them. Have a proper fear of them. They can throw you in jail. You may get out. You may think, you know, you’ll be okay eventually, but they have power. And if you if the policeman comes to your house and you start reaching for something, you know, quickly without any fear for this authority figure, this representative of God standing before you, you go reaching in your drawer or something, you could be dead. You could be dead.

God wants us to have a proper fear. Not a slavish fear, but a proper fear of his authority. A proper fear that leads us to follow his instructions and enter into a life of melodious blessing and pleasure and joy, or even joy in the context of suffering. When we have a slavish fear of God because we don’t have the mediation of Christ, we’re never going to get to the place of freedom and beauty. And if we have an absence of a proper fear of God’s authority, then we’re never going to get to the place of freedom and beauty either.

And remember what I said, it’s easy to think that we fear God. Do we fear those authorities? Do we fear the police? What the Harvard professor should meditate upon is, “Man, I got a bigger problem than the police. I’ve got to think through the implications of the ten words and the repeated admonition in Moses’ sermon to be properly fearful of God and his representatives—parents, lawbringers, elders, business managers, whatever it is.” A proper fear, not slavish, but not absence either. A proper fear is the correct motivation for us to pay attention to, diligently hear, learn, and then walk in the application of Moses’ sermon.

Now, of course, the reason for this—that we can do this—is he’s brought us out of Egypt. The mediation of Jesus Christ has taken away the slavish fear. It has taken away the guilt that produced a slavish fear and an inability to walk into freedom. Jesus is that greater Aaron who dies and his son takes his place. Jesus dies, but he’s also the resurrected priest. He’s at the right hand of the Father interceding for us the way Moses interceded for the people of God. He prays for us. He’s our mediator. He’s died for our sins. He’s redeemed us from sin and death. He’s brought us out of slavish fear. And he’s brought us into a proper respect and fear of the Father through him.

And as a result of that, he’s brought us into abundant life.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for your ten words. We thank you for this sermon by Moses on the ten words. Bless us, Lord God, as we open up our studies of the ten words today. Help us to be properly fearful of you. Help us to teach our children the fear of the Lord, as the Psalm says, and help us to teach ourselves to avoid—to not fall into improper fear, but also to avoid the other ditch of no fear toward you.

Help us to be properly fearful, Father, knowing your power, your authority, your awesomeness, your fearfulness, the wonderful things you’ve accomplished for us that we might trust you. Be careful and fearful of disobeying you and incurring your wrath and falling into those consequences of our actions. Bless us, Father, in this sermon series that we might fear you, that we might hear, learn, obey, and be blessed. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.