To Love the Word of God (Part 2) — Paul Washer

The Commandments of God and the Call to Obedience

Let's open up our Bibles to Deuteronomy, chapter six, Deuteronomy, chapter six. Beginning in verse one, if you will all stand, please. Now, this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord, your God, has commanded me to teach you that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord, your God, to keep all his statutes and his commands which I commanded you all the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged.

Oh, Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Here, oh, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words which I am commanding you today shall be on your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would open up our minds and our hearts to receive your word, that you would grant us great and the fear of the Lord that we might obey your words.

Father, I pray to give me wisdom and also allow me to speak clearly as I ought to speak. Oh, Lord, I am well aware that apart from your grace, I'll be nothing more than a seat demonstration of arrogance and flesh.

So I pray, Lord, that you would protect your people. For me. In Jesus name. Amen. Let's be seated this morning, we looked at the first verse. Now, this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments.

I pointed out that commandment here is singular while statutes and judgments are plural. And what the teacher is indicating here is that God has revealed his commandment, his entire body of legislation, his law, his will.

The Sufficiency and Authority of God's Word

And he has done that how through statutes and judgments. And there is no need for us to go from state to state or from heaven to hell looking for a word from God. There is no need for us to get on the television and go from channel to channel to supposed Christian station to Christian station trying to discover what God's will is.

There is no need for us to seek out angels or visions for God has told us what he desires and he has told us through his word. And then it says here, it says, which the Lord your God commanded me. Three small words, all powerful Lord God and commanded, indicating that the word he has given us is an immutable word.

It does not change. It is not like the word of men. That we are to obey it because it was given by the one who created us, it was given by the one who exercises absolute lordship over us. And it is a command, not a suggestion that you might do them.

He says that it is not enough to hear the word of God and so deceive ourselves like the Pharisees. But we must hear the word of God and obey the word of God with fear and trembling. And then he says that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it.

That is, Israel was going over to possess a land, you and I are to seek out to possess all the promises of God with regard to godliness and Christ likeness. We are to walk in this kingdom. We have been transferred to the kingdom of his dear son, and we should seek to take as a possession every good promise of God.

Scripture, Spiritual Warfare, and the Knowledge of God

We must also be careful because in order to do that, we must hear the word of God, believe the word of God and obey the word of God. And not only is the word of God necessary to inherit the promises, the word of God is necessary to avoid all the pitfalls and the snares of the devil, for we are not unaware of his devices.

So many people today, I talked to a man yesterday so into this spiritual warfare stuff and speaking more about the devil and evil spirits than they do speak about the spirit of God and Christ himself.

My dear friend, don't become an expert in the things of the devil, become an expert in God's word and the devil will be defeated. Now we go on to verse two. What are the purposes of these commandments?

Passing Down a Godly Heritage

Why has he given us these commandments so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord, your God? What do we have here? We have the idea of a heritage interwoven in this passage. We in America are so we're so consumed by the individual, by our own lives and nothing else.

It's hard for us, unlike the people in the East. It's hard for us in the West to develop the idea of community, of I am not an island to myself, but that I affect all those around me, that I come to the Lord as an individual.

But also in the context of a community and not just the community of this body gathered here, but the community of my family. I want you to think about that. It's very, very important. Now, I want to address the men primarily because primarily they are the ones to be addressed.

You are not obeying God simply for yourself, sir. Primarily, you are obeying God for God, for the glory of God. We seek to obey God. Why? So that his name will not be blasphemed among the Gentiles because of our disobedience.

We seek to obey God. Why? Because God's reputation is at stake among the unbelievers. It is said of the Jews that because of their profession of God and yet their unwillingness to live according to the commands that the name of God was blasphemed because of them.

You and I are to live in obedience primarily, not for any man, not even for self, but primarily for the glory of almighty God. And secondly, sir, you are to live in obedience for the sake of your wife, because I want you to know in the family, wife comes even before your children.

Let me give you an illustration that will be somewhat offensive to some of you. But if I and my wife and my two dear boys are in a boat that begins to sink and I'm the only one who can swim and I have to decide who I'm going to save biblically, I save my wife.

And if my wife is the only one who can swim biblically, she saves me. You say, oh, Brother Paul, no, there's nothing like a mother's love that is unbiblical. The Bible says there's nothing like the father's love.

And most women love their children more than anything else because they're not receiving what they're supposed to be receiving from their husband and vice versa. I wanted to state that because it is so very important and so easy for all of us to forget.

That we are living for our wives, sir, for their future glory, for their present day growth and sanctification, we are living for them. And then we are living for our children to hand down a godly heritage, a godly heritage upon this earth.

Now, I want to ask you a question. Why are you living? Are you living as a man of God in the context of your family with the chief purpose of bringing your wife and your children into the promises of God?

That when you lie in the dust and you breathe no more, that there will be strong young men and strong young women still walking on this earth, serving the Lord. Now, the thing I want to ask you is what does it matter if we gain the whole world and lose our families?

What does it matter if we're resting in Zion, playing on harps of glory, if our families are outside of Zion suffering the misery of eternal death? You see, it's so hard for us to understand. We are so individualistic.

We are always thinking of ourselves. We're always thinking of the individual. And we've got to start thinking about community. Now, is the purpose of your life to bring about a godly heritage, to leave a generation of those who fear the Lord?

Or have you followed the ways of Baal and Cain and so many false gods and false teachers? Some of you are so enslaved to materialism and to things that you are in bondage that you may never escape. You are so in debt because of your passion to have things that you have no freedom to serve the Lord.

You have to work blindly like a madman just to stay afloat because you desire things that God does not desire for you. You have no time for your children, no time for your wives, no time for your husbands.

And other people are raising your children. And it doesn't matter how godly those people are. It's not God's will. God gave you those children to raise. If I ever hear, and believe me, I have done this.

If I ever hear any man tell me, well, I am just working like I am working because I have a desire to give my children the things I never had. It will be the closest I come to a fistfight in this church.

God did not call you, sir, to give your children the things you never had. As a matter of fact, the things you did not have are probably, the fact that you did not have them probably is the reason you are saved today.

It's the things we do not have in this world that leads to godliness. It's the multitude of things that we seek to gather around us that destroys our soul and sucks the life right out of it. That is true.

So many times my wife and I, we have remarked, we have a house in Illinois, in the middle of a cornfield, our little house, our home on the prairie. And we really appreciate the house that the Lord has given us.

But we're no more happy in that house than we were in a tent or in a rented room. That's just true. Because happiness does not lie in these things. And yet you teach your children the lie that happiness is found in these things enough to enslave yourself to the ungodly.

In order to have things, you will become a bondservant to the ungodly and not even have time for your wife and your children. Oh, my dear friend, what kind of heritage do you want to hand down? Now, look what it says here in our text.

The Fear of the Lord as the Foundation of Family Life

So that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord. When was the last time you heard a man say, the greatest purpose in my life, outside of the personal responsibility to glorify the Lord, the greatest purpose in my life is to teach my children to have an awesome reverence for God Almighty.

That's it. That's it. That's a priority. Before hearing those words, how many men would have been able to stand up and say, that's the priority of my life to teach my sons and my daughters an awesome reverence for God?

And yet that's the very reason for the commands. That's the very reason for the commands, and that is what we are to be doing. There were a time when I was praying for my boys for their salvation and then praying that God would use them in the ministry to make missionaries out of them, martyrs out of them, if it would be for his glory.

Now, my praying is different. Lord, give these two boys an awesome sense of reverence and a pure devotion unto you. I've met so many men in the ministry, including myself, who do not fear God as they should, who are not as devout as they should be.

I would trade all the gifts and talents to have a heart of unmixed loyalty to God. That's what we're to hand down to our children. This is the number one priority in the book of Proverbs and all through the wisdom literature and even in the whole context of what we know to be piety in the Old Testament.

A man who feared the Lord or to say that a man fears the Lord was synonymous with saying he's a holy man. He's a pious man. He's a devout man. Why? Because when you fear the Lord, everything else falls in place.

That's why Proverbs says what it says about the fear of the Lord, that it's the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge. Just look at a few things. I'll just read them off to you. In Proverbs one, seven, it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

That it is impossible for the godless to teach knowledge, did you know that it's impossible for a godless, Christless educational system to teach knowledge? Why? Well, what does the Bible say? You say, oh, it has nothing to do with it, has everything to do with it.

Because the beginning of knowledge is what? The fear of the Lord. So I want my children to know all these things. I would trade all the knowledge in the world if my sons just feared the Lord. Let them be beggars, impoverished because of their ignorance of the things in the world.

But let them fear the Lord God Almighty and it will be well with their soul. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You say, oh, these young people, they are just so foolish.

Is that an indictment against them or an indictment against their parents? How much time have you spent investing in your children so that they might fear the Lord God? When they look at you, do they see a man, do they see a woman who fears the Lord God and trembles at his word?

My little boys, when they would go to sleep, when they were little, I would always sing them that Keith Green song that I love so much. Oh, my son, I am weak and I'm trembling for the Lord. I am always remembering.

Oh, what a strong shepherd holds you in his arms. He will break you and make you. So the fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom. Oh, well, I need to teach my child so many things. No, all those things are not if they haven't first gained the fear of the Lord.

Even if you take them through a study of Proverbs and you teach them all the things they're to do and not to do with their mouth and their ears and their eyes and their body and everything else, they still will not have wisdom without the fear of the Lord.

It goes on, it says the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. I know from that that many who profess faith in Christ do not fear the Lord because they do not hate evil. They can't even recognize it. Anything that's evil, anything that's off colors, anything that's not in agreement with the word of God, with the heart of God, it is evil.

And he goes on and he says, by the fear of the Lord, one not only hates evil, but by the fear of the Lord in Proverbs 16, six, by the fear of the Lord, one keeps away from evil. I have a friend who was a pastor with me in Peru, and now he he works here in the States, a Peruvian man.

Sometimes he's hilarious. Sometimes he's just so honest. Sometimes he came to me and he goes, you know, Brother Paul, he said, sometimes I obey God. Sometimes I avoid evil because I love God. But sometimes it's not out of love, it's out of fear.

And I said, it's good enough. It's good enough. The fear of the Lord, what does it do? It keeps us away from evil. Proverbs three, seven, the fear of the Lord. If you fear the Lord, you will turn away from evil.

You see, if you fear the Lord, when you when you when you're walking and you and you and you're just walking, you won't walk into evil. And if you fear the Lord, if you're just walking on that straight path and evil begins to approach you, you won't walk to it.

You run away from it. Why? You fear the Lord. Someone told me one time, I guess it was a compliment. I had gotten in sort of I had to make a stand on a certain thing. And a young man came up to me and said, Brother Paul, you don't fear men, do you?

And I said, oh, yes. I fear men. Well, then how did you make that stand? I fear God more. If there are two men want to fight, I'm taking the puniest of the two. That's just all there is to it. You don't have to be bold before men if you're afraid of God.

Also says 1427, the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life. It's not just turning away from all these wonderful things that the world has to offer. The world has nothing to offer. And so, church, you don't have to bring the world into this building to get people to come because the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life and the fear of the Lord leads to life so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil.

He says that mean that no harm will come to me if I fear the Lord. It means this. They'll kill you, but you'll go on to glory and there's nothing to fear in that. You go, Proverbs 10, 27, the fear of the Lord prolongs life.

He said, well, God is sovereign. You'll live as long as he wants you to. That's right. But at the same time, the fear of the Lord prolongs life. He goes on, says 1516. And some of you, oh, dear brothers, don't be angry with me.

Listen to this, some of you need to hear this, Proverbs 15, 16, better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and turmoil with it. Some of you live in constant turmoil because you've made material possessions your treasure and it has enslaved you.

And it is better to live with a little, a little bread, a little cheese shelter over your head. It is better to live with such and to have peace. Then to have a multitude of possessions and a family in utter turmoil, Proverbs 22 for the reward of humility and the fear of the Lord, our riches, honor and life.

Is that what's a contradiction? No, it's not. I have met men who fear the Lord and God has blessed them with wealth and they have used their wealth for the kingdom of God. I have met the poorest of missionaries, Peruvian missionaries who live in places you would not keep your dog.

And if you were to ask them at the end of their days, are you a beggar? They would smile and say, I am the richest of God. Proverbs 14, 26. And the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence and his children will have refuge, the children of the man who fears the Lord.

Specific and Enduring Obedience

You say, well, this world is so cruel, it's so corrupt, I fear for my children, fear the Lord, and you won't have to fear for your children. Now, he says, what are we to hand down to our children? He says so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord, your God, the fear of the Lord, and then to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you all the days of your life.

Now, there are two things here that we need to see. First of all, keep all his statutes and commandments. And then it says all the days of your life. What is he talking about? Not only specific obedience, but enduring obedience.

You're going to obey God in the specific commands that he has given. He has given specific commands. I was talking to my wife after the service, we were going down the road and she was talking about the sermon and I started asking her some questions.

And this is what she said. She said, too general. I said, what? She goes, too general. And it just all of a sudden she didn't mention it, she's never read it, but reminded me of all the teaching of the Puritans on preaching.

It is no good to say we're in sin. We must be more specific than that. You're materialistic, you hunger after things, there are specific commands with regard to everything. See, when commands are just general, when you just use the word commands of God, then when you disobey them, it's no big deal.

But when you start using specific commands. It's one thing to say we're all sinners that doesn't offend any of us, but to say some of you are materialistic and you're destroying your families over your greed for things.

Now, that's specific and that will get a preacher in trouble specific. Let me give you an example. One time I was preaching in a very well to do church, very large, and I was teaching the pastor. He said, well, I know you're going to preach Sunday morning.

Could you preach to our young our young couples class? And the young couples class was about 120 people. He said, could you teach them before you go on to preach the main service? I said, I'd be glad to.

And I gave them a lesson in preaching. I said, I'm going to preach the same truth two different ways. And you tell me which one had the greater impact on your life. And they said, OK. So I said, we need to love our children.

We need to sacrifice for our children. We don't need to live for the things of the world. We need to live to raise up a godly heritage unto the Lord. Everyone was saying, amen, amen, amen. And then I said, some of you are so full of greed and desire for material things.

You've got home mortgages that are far too great. You're driving brand new cars when you shouldn't be. You're working like mad, both of you. And someone else is raising your children. And I want you to know the word of the prophet is fulfilled in you.

You've sold your children for a bowl of wine. Now, tell me which way had the greatest impact on your life. You see, my dear friend, it is not out of anger that I'm saying these things and it's not to hurt you.

But what we've got to see is everybody recognizes that this is what's going on in the church in America today. But few people want to address it. But we can't have strong families unless we do. Would it not be better for everyone to pull up here in a used car?

Wouldn't it be better for everyone here to be buying their clothes? I buy my clothes at French stores, Jacques, Panay and Targé. Wouldn't it be better to come in here not keeping up with the Joneses at all?

Why do we want to follow the Joneses? They're going to hell. It's true. Have peace and just spend time with family and time, not quality time. Because if you ever say quality time, it means you're not spending enough time with your children and you're using that as an excuse.

I have to keep reminding you now, I love you. Specific and enduring obedience. It is one thing for someone to obey sporadically. So many people are sporadic. You know, emotions have such power. Emotions can be so good, but emotions can also be so dangerous because they have such power to cause us to jump up and obey for a second.

And then when the emotion dies down, we're back in disobedience again. God wants enduring obedience. And that only comes through enduring study and meditation upon God's word, enduring prayer and making ourselves accountable to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Some of you, the greatest blessing that you need in your life is to make yourself accountable to another brother or sister. You've got a besetting sin in your life. You've got a problem in a certain area of your life.

One of the greatest things you could do is pray and ask God to show you someone to whom you could make yourself accountable. You know, some of you struggle with certain sins and you're sitting there going, I'm just never going to get free.

Maybe you just need to pray and maybe you need to go to somebody, somebody that's trustworthy, someone that can keep their lip closed except to God. And someone who can pray for you, go to them and say, look, I'm caught up in so much of this stuff and I need help.

God's Good Purposes Amid Suffering

Now, also, if we look here, he says to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you all the days of your life, that your days may be prolonged. God desires good things for his people.

Now, I know that the great horde of television preachers and so many people with these worldwide ministries and such have so twisted this truth to say that God wants you without pain, without suffering, without sickness.

God wants you wealthy, healthy and wise and everything else. I know that's been twisted, but we've got to be careful when we study scripture. Sometimes we look at people who take truth and go to an extreme and twist it into an untruth.

But instead of grasping the truth ourself, we run the other direction so as not to be a heretic. And in running the other direction, we become a heretic. The fact of the matter is, God thinks good thoughts about his people.

God loves his people. God is willing to do his people well. And look what God's desire for Israel. Look what he says. He says, all the days of your life, that your days may be prolonged. God desires for you to be a blessing.

He desires to bless you. He desires for your life to be abundant and full, even when you're laying on a deathbed. Even when you're suffering, that there is abundance, even in the midst of that. That's what God desires for you.

And I'll tell you whether or not you're serving the Lord, serving the world, that world is a cruel taskmaster. It will enslave you, bind you to the point where you think you will never, never get. But God, even if he leads you to do dangerous things, terrible things, frightening things, there will be abundance.

Even if in his providence you are struck down with sickness or any other sort of thing, there will still be abundance. And the power of God will be revealed. Now, I want us to just look at a text for a moment that has to do with favor and blessing.

The Necessity of Knowing and Applying Scripture

And I want us to listen to this with great fear and trembling. In Hosea, four, six, this is what God says. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. Now, I want you to know something. I've been preaching long enough and sat under godly men long enough to know.

That great portion of what I say tonight, you are going to forget before you get through those doors. I know that. I'm not so vain as to think you're hanging on every word. It wouldn't matter if Charles Spurgeon was in this pulpit.

It wouldn't matter who was in this pulpit. You're not going to get everything you need from this pulpit. You're going to have to get into the word of God. And even when it's preached, any preacher will tell you you've got to take these things, get into the word, survey, scrutinize to see if these things are so.

God's people perish for a lack of knowledge, could just go down through the list of things of which we seem to be ignorant. It's unbelievable how we're to raise our children. Can you go to scripture and tell me what it says?

How we are to find a mate. Did you know dating is totally unbiblical? And if you're dating right now, you're out of the will of God. Did you know that? Oh, I never heard of such a thing. You need to read your Bible.

It is. Do you know that there is so much that we do that is out of the will of God and we wonder why are our children perishing? Why is this happening and that happening and everything else? Why is this happening?

It's such a mystery. No, it's not. We are ignorant of what God has said in his word. God's people perish for a lack of knowledge. The way we're to consider the balance between ministry and family and all sorts of things.

Can you tell me what Jesus has said, how we're to spend our money? Can you start at least with the book of Proverbs on through the Sermon on the Mount and tell me what to do? Your fellowship, is it under the sovereign direction of the word of God?

You see, so many things. When the conservative movement took over in the Southern Baptist Convention, in a sense, I rejoiced. But in a sense, I didn't rejoice that much because I didn't find much more in their pulpits than in the other pulpits.

Because it doesn't matter if you stand up here and say this Bible is the infallible word of God. If people aren't studying this thing and obeying this thing, it really doesn't matter, does it? You've got to get serious that life is found in this book.

Direction is found in this book, not a mixture. The worst thing you can have is something that's ninety nine percent true. Not a mixture, all this book. Now, he says my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

Now, look at this. You would think that when he says this, my people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge. You would think that the people were somehow victims, that they simply could not understand what he was teaching them.

But look what it says. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge because you have rejected knowledge. My dear friend, if we are ignorant of the things of God, it is our own fault. We ourselves have rejected God's word.

We've chosen another path. We've chosen to listen to someone else. Instead of God, if we're ignorant, being the people of God, it says that he's written his law on our heart. So if we are ignorant, it's because we have rejected knowledge.

Now, look what he says. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being my priest. You'll not be able to minister in my name. Oh, you might go through the motions. You might play the Christian game.

You might look really Christian on the outside. He says, I'll just reject you from you're not usable to me. You're not an instrument in the church and you're not an instrument in the family. And then he says something that's terrifying, since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Living Out the Word in Family and Ministry

You say, what a cruel thing. What a cruel thing. We did it. We did it. He said, because of you, I don't want God to forget my children talking to so many people here in this church. I understand that it has been instilled in you that doctrine and truth is important.

That's true. That's very true. It's so wonderful to come to a place where people believe that doctrine and truth is important. But do you consider yourself an instructor to the ignorant? Should you not teach yourself?

It is one thing to say doctrine and truth is so important. It's another thing to apply it to our lives. To apply it. And that's what this is all about. My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.

I want you to know for the time that I'm here. It's going to be about taking knowledge and making it real. It's going to be about taking knowledge and applying it to our lives. I'm going to be preaching on such things.

I'm also going to be recommending books. Now, I want you to understand that most of these books are going to be old. Very few books written in the last hundred years are even worth anything. If you'll take the time to read what men of God have written and study His Word above all things, you can grow.

You know what? We have adopted the psychological goal. The goal of psychology is to teach people to cope. You realize that? Teach people to cope. Cope with the problems. Cope that, well, even though we're Christians, our lives really can't be that much different.

Our families can't really be that much different. We just need to cope. No, my dear friend, we need to overcome. We need to overcome. You say, well, that's pretty big talk from a man who has a three year old.

And a one year old. Listen to me, my dear friend. I've never been crucified either, but I preach on the cross because this has nothing to do with a man's experience. It has to do with the Word of the Lord.

You see, what does God say? What does God say? What does God say? Again, I'm not going to give an invitation tonight. And this is the reason. If you're here tonight and you're bothered about your soul and your need of salvation, you come and talk to me or one of the elders.

The reason why I'm not giving invitation to God's people is this. We have turned this thing into almost a I don't know, a magical wand. Come forward. Pray here. You're free and just go out and not be changed.

No, I want you to struggle with what you've heard in misery, if necessary. I want the Holy Spirit to take salt and grind it into your wound. I want you to think on these things, think on them. Ask yourself, is it so?

Is it so that Israel has come to such a state? Is there no bomb in Gilead? There is. There is a doctor and that doctor is Lord. And if you want to be healed, submit to his word. Submit to his word. Start asking questions.

You youth, if this bothered you, start asking Ryan, what's going on here? Start asking Matt, what's going on here? What's he talking about? I threw out some stuff just to make you think I got you. You thinking on that dating thing, didn't I?

And if you would heed what the word of God says, you will save yourself from great trouble and turmoil. Youth. These are not archaic things from the past, the living word of God that will save your life.

You say, oh, my goodness, we've brought a Puritan in here. Yes, you have. Yes, you have. Yeah. You're clapping now. Wait for a couple of weeks. All right. Is there any announcements or songs or anything else we're going to do up here?

Are there any announcements, Matt? No. All right. Well, let's let's pray. Father, I pray that your word would endure in our hearts and that the evil one would not come and snatch them away. Help us, dear God, in Jesus name.