Lest You Forget God's Word
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| "Moses" by James Tissot |
"Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the just decrees that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you. . . .
“Keep them and do them,
for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the
peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great
nation is a wise and understanding people.’ For what great nation is there that
has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon
Him? And what great nation is there, that has statutes and just decrees so
righteous as all this law that I set before you today?
“Only take care, and
keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen,
and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known
to your children and your children’s children” (Deuteronomy 4:1-2, 6-9).
Grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!
No one knows how to
preach a sermon the way God does!
Moses wanted this
generation to remember the sermon God had preached to their parents almost 40
years earlier. As their parents had traveled out of Egypt, they complained and
disobeyed God at every step. Finally, at Sinai, the Lord interrupted the
journey and called a “family meeting.” “We need to have a talk.” What a talk it
was! Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, billowing up from it like from a
furnace; the mountain shook violently as a trumpet blast grew louder, and above
it rumbled the voice of God. He’d certainly gotten their attention! Out of that
dreadful display the Lord’s voice spoke His Ten Commandments.
Yet that first
generation of Israelites had quickly forgotten God’s powerful Sinai sermon. None
of them made it to the Promised Land, except Joshua and Caleb. So, Moses tells
their children: “Be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do
not forget.” He wants them to learn this and pass it on. “Teach them to your
children and to your children’s children,” Moses says.
Moses’ words are direct.
Do God’s Law, and you will live. He also tells the people, “Keep [the Lord’s statutes
and just decrees] and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these
statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding
people’” (Deuteronomy 4:6).
Life, fame, wisdom,
understanding—don’t these all sound great? Let’s get to it then. Dig deeply
into God’s Word. Read, ponder, and inwardly digest it so we don’t miss
anything. Learn the Commandments, the statutes, the rules, the judgments, and the
testimonies. Learn them and do them, and you will live. God takes His Word
seriously. Life or death seriously. Blessing or curse seriously.
Moses emphasizes this
with the powerful charge that Israel neither add to nor subtract from
God’s Word, a warning that is repeated throughout Scriptures. Agur son of
Jakeh writes, “Every word of God proves true; He is a shield to those who take
refuge in Him. Do not add to His words, lest He rebuke you and you be found a
liar” (Proverbs 30:5–6). The apostle John concludes the Revelation, “I warn
everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to
them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone
takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his
share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this
book” (22:18–19).
Jesus criticized the
Pharisees for adding a burdensome body of rules and regulations to the
Scriptures: “For the sake of your tradition you have made void the Word of God”
(Matthew 15:6).
The Old Testament
prophets condemned their own generation for ignoring God’s Word when it spoke
to their sinful sexual habits, their hollow worship practices, or their corrupt
business tactics. The Lord spoke through Hosea: “Hear the Word of the Lord, O
children of Israel, for the Lord has a controversy with the inhabitants of the
land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in
the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery;
they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed… My people are destroyed
for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from
being a priest to Me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also
will forget your children” (Hosea 4:1-2, 6).
“Think of all the
spiritual advantages the people of Israel enjoyed! Theirs wasn’t a musty
collection of myths about the misadventures and misbehavior of their gods,
which happened ‘once upon a time.’ God revealed Himself in their national life
with power and purpose. He rescued them from slavery, journeyed with them
through the wilderness, responded with awesome power to their prayers, and
shaped their lives with a one-of-a-kind covenant.”[i]
St. Paul understood the spiritual privileges His people enjoyed. He asked the
church at Rome, “Then what advantage has the Jew?” Then answered his own
question, “Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the
oracles of God” (Romans 3:1–2).
He told the Corinthians:
“For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under
the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in
the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank
the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed
them, and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:1–4).
Along with a knowledge
of what the Lord wanted, the Spirit of God also gave His people willing hearts
to respond to His commands. The Israelites could observe them and follow them,
and the nations around would see and be drawn to the Lord God through them.
Jesus taught the same thing: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a
hill cannot be hidden… In the same way, let your light shine before others, so
that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in
heaven” (Matthew 5:14, 16).
If you were asked to
list the great spiritual advantages the Savior has given us, what would your
list include? For many of us, a godly mother and father who told us about Jesus,
prayed for us, and set an example of a faith-filled life. For many of us, a
community of believers who provided opportunities for worship, education, and
encouragement in the faith. For many of us, the privilege of growing up in a
country where religious beliefs were neither legislated nor forbidden, but
where we could believe and live our faith as we wished. Those are great
blessings!
Who would not want
their children and grandchildren to receive the same?
None of us, it might seem.
Time and again, God’s people did what is evil in God’s sight and turned toward
other gods. Over and over, they tested the Lord’s patience. Every time they
repented and returned to the Lord, it never took them long to forget God’s Word
and fail to teach it to their children.
Sadly, with a few
exceptions, we have not passed on this teaching to our next generation, either.
We have not kept God’s Word sacred and gladly heard and learned it. We have not
loved God with all our heart and strength and soul and mind. We have not loved
our neighbors as ourselves. We’ve let the priorities of the world crowd out our
faith. And our next generations are suffering the most for it.
No wonder our church
pews are empty. No wonder only 1 in 4 Americans is considered to be a
practicing Christian—someone who identifies as a Christian, agrees strongly
that faith is important in their lives, and has attended church within the past
month—when only 20 years ago almost ½ of all Americans fit this category.
We’ve forgotten God’s
Word. We’ve failed to listen to His teaching and do what it says. We’ve foolishly
turned away from the wisdom of God’s Word. We’ve added to God’s Word and
subtracted from it when it has suited our own purposes. We’ve forgotten the
wondrous works of God we have seen and failed to make them know to our children
and our children’s children. We’ve failed as a group, and we’ve failed as
individuals.
Dear friends, what then
shall we do? We have not remembered God’s statutes and rules. Our hearts are
inclined to any and every evil thing. We have stumbled time and again, falling
away, falling into sin. Hearing the Word of God today, we are reminded what our
sinful natures have tried so hard to forget; we are sinful, we are lost, and we
are dead in our sins and transgressions. We have failed to teach God’s Word in
all its purity to our children.
Can there be any more
desperate need? Is there any more urgent time of trouble than this? Cry out
then in your distress, for our Lord God has promised to hear you. “For what
great nation is there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to
us, whenever we call upon Him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7).
Confronted with God’s
holy and righteous Law, we cry out to Him: “Lord, have mercy! Christ, have
mercy! Lord, have mercy! You have promised to be near to us in our hour of
need, and this it!”
What God promises, He
will do; what He says is true. He promises to come near in our time of trouble,
and so He has. Near to us, even “God with us.” Here He is. He is not hiding or
concealing Himself. He is Immanuel, and in Jesus, God, the Word made flesh, is
with us!
“What great nation is
there that has a god so near to it as the Lord our God is to us?” When God is
with us, He brings freedom and redemption. When God is near to those who call
upon Him, His enemies and all who threaten His people are devastated and His
people are set free.
God was with His people
at the Red Sea. In pillars of cloud and fire, He protected His people and
destroyed their enemies beneath the waters. In the time ahead, God would be
with His people to vanquish armies with His own hand, to shut mouths of the
lions, to bring His children through the fiery furnace, to guide the stone from
David’s sling, to lead His people back from exile, and finally, He would be
with them—with us—in the flesh and flood of Jesus, who makes all things new
again.
In the face of the
accusations and condemnations of our enemies—sin, death, and the devil—and of
our own sinful nature, God comes near to us, steps into the flesh of all
mankind, and Jesus submits to the same Law of God that was binding on us. He
fulfills it perfectly, and then He dies for all of us who didn’t. And since He
came near to us, actually becoming one of us, in His accomplishing all things
for you, all your enemies are vanquished, and you are set free and redeemed. Because
Christ came near to fulfill God’s Law, you are free. That is the Gospel, God’s
Word of grace, mercy, forgiveness, and life in Jesus Christ.
God does not want His
Word to be adulterated by human wisdom or skirted over in the interest of
social harmony. Yet the Church in both Old and New Testament times (and even
today) has suffered from groups and individuals who sought to add to, and take
from, God’s Word. This happens when legalistic prescriptions bind people’s
consciences where God has not, and when that which God calls sin is not
condemned but embraced as good and right.
By Jesus’ day, so much
had been added to and taken from God’s Law that it was hardly recognizable.
Those wanting to justify themselves happily added law upon law so that they
could declare themselves clean by all they have kept. Those who would rather
eat, drink, and be merry gladly tamed the Law with excuse after excuse, taking
from it God’s benevolent authority.
Regardless of what had
been added to it or taken from it. Jesus sets it right once again. More than
that, He purifies it and then transcends it. The Word made flesh takes back
from the unrighteous the Word of God, His very Word and His very self. He
declares that it is not what goes into a person that defiles him or her but
what comes out the defiles.
Jesus has come to set
you free and give you the forgiveness of sins, so He sets God’s Law free from
all that man’s sin had added and taken from it.
As Jesus thus declares all foods clean on account of His blood and righteousness, He, too, declares you clean and holy. God has come near to you this day, here in His house as you eat His body and blood, and as you hear His life-giving Gospel, you are just as He declares you to be: forgiven, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture
quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001
by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
[i]
Mark E. Braun, Deuteronomy:
People’s Bible Commentary. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2005. p.
49.
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