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Since we've been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, how should we view God's law?

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When we love the Lord, we'll love His Word. When we love the Lord, we'll love his law. And when we keep his law, we display the righteousness that he has given to us.

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Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and welcome to the Tuesday edition of Renewing youg Mind. As I said yesterday, we're a few months into the year, and by now, perhaps in your Bible reading plan, you're spending time in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. If you're finding it hard to persevere, stay with us, as this week we're taking a closer look at Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy is filled with God's law. But since Christ has fulfilled the law, how should we approach Deuteronomy and other Old Testament books today? Here's Dr. Godfrey.

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We come back now to Deuteronomy and to our look at the section we're calling the warnings in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 5 through 10:11. And we saw how that section of warnings began with a reiteration of the ten commandments that Moses gave to Israel. And now he's going to apply those commandments to Israel in various aspects of its life. And we're going to see that the focus in chapter six is particularly on the family and on communicating those commandments faithfully to the children. But here in chapter six, we should note at verse four is this very famous statement. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. That is the central declaration of the Jewish synagogue to this day. It's called the Shema because Shema is the Hebrew word for hear. Listen, O Israel. That is the great confession of faith. That is the great call on the hearts of God's people. That's the great warning, if we should fear to observe it, that the Lord is. Now, the translation of that is a little bit tricky. What exactly is intended in saying the Lord is one? Probably a big part of what's intended there is to say that God is the only God of Israel. To be sure, God is one. He's a single God. He's the only God. That's even a possible translation. Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord alone. Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. So the stress is on the individuality of God, the singularity of God and the exclusiveness of God. And that great truth is what echoes throughout the Old Testament and is central here in chapter Six. That God's people would know that, and that God's people would remember that. And that God's people would teach that to their children. Verse 6 of chapter 6. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. I think that's important, too. You see, this is not just something to memorize and move on. This is the life of God's people. This is the essence of God's people. This is their heart. It shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, and when you lie down. And when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand. They shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Now, the picture here is that the Word is always to be with you. The Word is to surround you. The Word is to inform you. The Word is to be present with you to this day. Pious Orthodox Jews literally wear a little box on their forehead in which is written a portion of the law. And in the homes of pious Jews, on the lentil of the door, entering the house is a little container of a part of the law. And they touch that going in and going out again. There's a great danger of reducing this to simply an external physical object. You go in the door, you touch the plate. Are you really thinking about the law of God, or are you doing a ritual act? What Moses is concerned about here is where your heart is. Is your heart in the law of God. And it's interesting how this has informed a lot of Christian practice. It was always pious advice that Christians should pray in the morning when they get up and pray at night when they go to bed. A lot of Christians still do that in the old Dutch Reformed homes. You always prayed before the meal, but then you read the Bible and prayed after the meal. It was a way in which the Word was kept central in the life of God's people. Now, like any good thing, it could become a kind of meaningless ritual. But when you hear the Word read, when you have to read the words, when you have to listen to the words, it makes an impact. It establishes it yourself in your mind. I remember one of the first times I had a meal in Dutch Reformed home. I was in high school. And they started to read the Bible after dinner. And I was sort of surprised by this. I didn't know that. And so I was sitting there and a lot of things were going On I wasn't familiar with. And all of a sudden, the mother at the table hit the table and pointed at one of the kids and said, last word. I didn't know what was going on. Well, the child had to be able to reproduce the last word that had been read to show they had really been paying attention. Now, whether that developed a love of the word, I'm not sure, but it helped promote attention. So what Moses is stressing here is not so much, you know, the exact times of doing this, but is the word really with us all through the day? Is the word a central part of our relationship as a family in our discussions? And my sons are great baseball fans, and I used to kid them and say, do you actually know the catechism as well as you know the baseball stats? And, you know, part of the function of being a Calvinist is to make people feel guilty. And I succeeded. And. But we have to be careful about this, don't we? We have to let that word be with us and in us and surround us. And we see that encouraged here. But again, it's not just laws and rules that are being encouraged here, because in verse 10 of chapter 6, Moses says, Remember in the land that God gave you the land, the remembering of what God has done for you is at least as important as remembering the laws. Remember that you are in the land because God brings you into the land. And in chapter six in particular, it's remarkable that Moses says, remember when you're enjoying a house and an orchard and a vineyard, that you didn't build that house, that you didn't plant that vineyard or that orchard, you are enjoying the labors of others because God gave it to you. Now, that was unique at that moment in Israel's history because they'd been brought into a land that was already settled. But it's all illustrative of this truth. What do you have that you have not been given? And that's what God wanted his people to see and wanted to stress. Then again, in verse 16 and following, he says, and don't be like the people at Massah. Now, Massa is a little bit like Sihon and OG events we don't always remember, but it was a critical moment in the history of Israel, Exodus 17, when Israel thought it was dying of thirst, didn't have enough water, and they complained, they grumbled. Remember that? And what's clear in the text is that they are muttering to one another, complaining about the Lord. The essence of that, Moses said, was putting the Lord to the test. And what was the test. The test at Massah was this. Is the Lord really among us or not? You see, it's a root question of faith. Here we are in the wilderness, and is the Lord really with us? Did he bring us out in the desert just to let us die of thirst? Where is God? That's a fairly universal human question in times of great stress, isn't it? Where is God? Why is he letting this happen? And Moses is saying here to the people, when you come into the land, when you inherit the land that others have labored for, when God gives it to you, when God blesses you and you're in your home talking about these things and remembering these things, don't let the questions of Massah come into your heart and mind. When you have troubles, God is always with you. God is always blessing you. God is always taking care of you. And then down in verse 20, when your son asks you in times to come, what is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you? You're talking about these things at the table. The children ask questions. How do you answer the questions? You know, this would become part of the Jewish ritual of the Passover. Why is this night different from other nights? The youngest child at the Passover table asks, and the Lord is saying, as head of the house, you better be prepared with an answer. Why do we have all these commandments? And it's interesting, the answer that Moses given. The first part of the answer is, remind them of their history. You have these laws because God brought you out of Egypt, because God delivered you, because God liberated you, because God brought you into the land of promise. That's why we keep these laws. That's why we have been given these laws. And then he expands on that answer down in verse 24. The Father is to say to the Son, 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 we are this day. And it will be righteousness for us. If we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded, it will be righteousness for us. Hmm. Hmm. Is this the kind of thing Paul is rejecting? We'll come back to talk about Paul and Moses more later. I don't think it is. I don't think what Moses is teaching here is, tell your son that he needs to keep the law in order to become righteous. I think he says, we need to keep the law to show that we fear God. To show that we love God. To show that we recognize his goodness in this law. And to show that we are righteous. Now, in a very brief verse like this, sometimes hard to know for sure what's being said. But I think that's what. What Moses is saying here. He's not saying, teach your children that in order to become righteous, you have to keep all these laws. But I think he's saying, because God has made us a righteous people, we long to keep these laws. And that's critical, of course, because I think one of the tragedies of the Jewish people is that they have tended in their religious life to replace God with the law. Now it's a temptation in religious life to replace God with something good. And so it often seems that Jews are more concerned about the life they live than the God they know. In Roman Catholicism, I think you see maybe a somewhat similar danger. I think sometimes in Roman Catholicism, you see that God has been replaced by the Church. You know, the Church says the church does a lot of the formulations that come out of the Vatican. If you replaced the word church with the word God, things would be a lot better. But it's almost as if the church itself has become God. And that's a danger. Could be a danger for Protestants in a variety of ways. But here the stress is, when we love the Lord, we'll love His Word. When we love the Lord, we'll love his law. And when we keep his law, we display the righteousness that he has given to us. And I think that's the main point of what Moses is saying here. Then in chapter seven, he goes on to talk about how not only are we to be careful with the law in our family, but we're to be careful with the law in our relationship with the nations. The law needs to guide us, particularly when we come in contact with the nations. Because as we read in Deuteronomy 7:6, you're to be a holy people. Now, what does that mean, to be a holy people? It, of course, means being morally pure. But often in the Old Testament, holiness just as much means being a separate people, being a distinct people, being a set apart people being identifiably different. God's very concerned about that. It comes back to what we talked about before. How much are we going to accommodate to the nations that surround us? How much are we going to allow ourselves to become like them? And that's what the Lord is concerned about, it seems to me. Particularly here in chapter 7. Here in chapter 7 16, he warns particularly about the danger of idolatry and intermarriage from the nations being a snare. I think that's the first time the word snare is actually used in Deuteronomy. What is a snare? It's a trap. It's a trap to lead us and to box us into something that we ought to know, we ought not to do. And so the Lord is warning us to be careful, warning us to be thoughtful, warning us to be on the alert, because it is so easily the case that we are led astray. And here in chapter seven, verse 14, we come to the center of this whole section. And I've been trying to convince you that centers are important. Sometimes they're a little hard to. To judge from an English translation. But here's the very center of this whole section of warnings. Why all these warnings? Why all this call to carefulness? Well, verse 14 of chapter 7, you shall be blessed above all peoples. Again we see the heart of the Lord in this. The heart of the Lord is to bless his people, to cause his people to goodness, to cause his people to rejoice, to cause his people to be thankful. What a beautiful statement that is, that at the heart of warning is that you won't lose the blessing. The Lord doesn't want us to be his people because it's so difficult to be his people, because it's so disagreeable to be his people. You know, I think that is a sad reality we sometimes communicate to children. And is that what the Lord is about is telling them all the things they can't do and all the things they'd like to do that are forbidden. And, you know, we always need to come back to the statement of our Lord when he said, I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly. And really that's true in the Old Testament as well, that the people are chosen, the people are blessed, so that they might be a blessed people and rejoice in the Lord and in his goodness. And in serving the Lord amongst the nations, we should remember that we have nothing to fear from the nations. I think that's a valuable word for us today. This is what is said at verse 17 and 18 of chapter 7. If you say in your heart, these nations are greater than I, how can I dispossess them? You shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. I think in our day, particularly as American Christians, who historically have had so much influence, been so blessed, sometimes we can feel like everything's in retreat. Everything's going from bad to worse. Everything's going from wrack to ruin. And. And the Lord is still saying to us, don't lose heart. The nations are powerless in the face of the power of our God. He will accomplish his purpose. He will do what he sets out to do. And I think really kind of delightfully here in this chapter, verse 20, Moses says, Moreover, the Lord your God will send hornets among them. Now, there are a couple of times in the Old Testament where the Lord literally sent hornets. It's recorded in Exodus 23 and in Joshua 24. But I think the point sort of here is, what's a hornet? An annoyance, a tiny bit of pain. What's a hornet? Who would be overly afraid of a hornet? And yet the Lord can use hornets to accomplish his purpose. God doesn't need elephants or rockets or atom bombs. All the Lord needs is a hornet to accomplish his purpose. And this is meant, I think, to encourage the people of Israel, to encourage all of us that God can use the littlest things to accomplish his purposes. And we don't need to fear. We need to go forward in faith, with confidence in the Lord and, and what he can accomplish and the great confidence we have. You shall not be in dread of them. For the Lord your God is in your midst. A great and awesome God. I wonder if that was in Jesus mind at the time of the Great Commission when he said, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. I am in your midst. You see how these resonances flow from Deuteronomy into the New Testament. God is the God who is with his people. God is the God who blesses his people. God is the God of strength against all the strengths of this world. And that's the encouragement that is being given here and is so important for us. And it's because of the character of God that once again, we return to the theme of idolatry. Don't dilute your relationship with God by idols. Don't weaken it. And because he knows these people so well, he gets very specific. When you have contact with the nations and dispossess them, take their idols and destroy them so they won't be a snare to you. And by the way, that means destroying all the silver and the gold that cover the idols. I know what's in your heart. Yeah, I'll destroy the worthless parts of the idol. But the valuable parts of the idol, the gold and the silver, I'm going to put in my pocket that only makes sense, doesn't it? Because I can take that gold and silver and beat it into a different shape. It won't be an idol anymore. I can make coins out of it. What a good thing that would be. And the Lord says, idols come in different shapes. Gold can be an idol, money can be an idol. Don't be deceived by these things. Don't be led astray by these things. Stay on the straight and narrow that I have set before you and devote these things to destruction. That's a very interesting idea concept. Set these things apart for destruction, you are set aside for holiness. You are set aside to be my people. Other things are set aside for destruction and they need to be destroyed. Because I'm leading you into a holy land to be a holy people before a holy God. And all of this is a picture of what the new heaven and the new earth will be like. It's very much taken up at the end of the book of the Revelation. You see the holy city come down from heaven. And then we're told, outside are the idolaters, outside are the cowards, outside are those who did not serve the Lord. And so here again we see this picture of what faithfulness needs to look like, what commitment to the Lord needs to look like. And I think it's important to say as well, wherever we read these passages about judgment and destruction, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that even if it's not said in the immediate context, it's said in the broader context of the Old Testament, that destruction will not come to those who repent. Why was Sihon, king of the Amorites, destroyed? Because he would not repent of his willfulness. That's why judgment falls. And over and over again in these chapters of warnings, the Lord says, judgment falls on the nations because of their sinfulness. They have filled up the full measure of their sinfulness. These chapters say, that's why I'm driving them out of the land. I'm not driving them out just to give it to you. He says, that would be unjust. And God is never unjust. He's driving them out in the first place because they have filled up the full measure of their sinfulness. That's what happens in history. It's a solemn warning to all peoples. God is patient, but not patient forever. And Israel is to remember that what happened to the nations could happen to them if they are faithless. So the warnings, both in terms of the family and in terms of Israel's relationship to the nations, is very important. And next time we'll go on to look more at the warnings as it comes to Israel itself as a nation in the service of God.