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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/jerry-jennings/what-does-the-lord-require/
Deuteronomy chapter 10 and verse 12,. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 12 says,. And now, O Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee? Now underline that in your heart. But to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the LORD and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good, behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD's, thy God the earth also with all that therein is.
Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you, above all people, as it is this day. Circumcise, therefore, the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked.
For the LORD your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute judgment of the fatherless and the widow, and loveth the stranger in giving him food and raiment.
Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Verse 20,. Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God. That's what the LORD required of the nation of Israel. Him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave and swear by his name.
He is thy praise, and he is thy God that hath done all, excuse me, done for thee these great and terrible things which thine eyes have seen. Now, what I have upon my mind this afternoon is simply this little phrase, What doth the LORD require of thee?
Now, we can underline that little phrase in our hearts. I take it that the secret to rest lies in ceasing to struggle in our own strength. You ever do that? You ever hear people say, Well, I'm going to beat this thing, I'm going to make this thing work, and they're not going to beat this thing, and they're not going to make this thing work, and they're not going to experience any rest in their soul until they cease to struggle?
And a nice little illustration of that, in my mind at least, is a man by the name of Jacob at Jabok. He's a man that yielded to the man from heaven, and when he yielded to the man from heaven, he became a prevailing prince, but not until he yielded, not until he surrendered, not until he submitted, and not until he ceased to struggle in his own strength did this man Jacob ever become a prevailing prince.
Now, our response to the question in verse 12 could correspond with the words of Paul the apostle many years ago on the road to Damascus, Acts chapter 9. Remember what he said? He said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?
What doth the Lord require of you? Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Obviously he wants you and I to do something. So as the creator and the redeemer, the Lord has certain requirements. As the creator, notice in verse 14, the heaven of heavens is the Lord's, the earth also, and all that therein is.
So as a people of God, as the children of God, as the sons of God, I take it that we live and move on the things that are His, not the things that are ours. Nothing's really mine anyway. Whatever I have today, I have because God has allowed me to have it.
Psalm 24 and verse 1, the earth, the world, and the people that dwell upon the earth are the Lord's, every bit of it. None of it's yours, none of it's mine. He's just allowing us to use these certain things that we have that makes our life so very, very comfortable while we're here on this earth.
So as our redeemer in verse 21, He is thy God that has done for thee these great and terrible things which thine eyes have seen. And they saw those things. They saw the things that God had done. Some of those things were great things that they saw and some of those things were terrible things that they saw.
And I take it the great thing was in redeeming Israel out of Egyptian bondage. That's something that He's done for every child of God. That's a great thing that He has done for you. It's a great thing that He has done for me.
And it was a great thing that He did for the nation of Israel so many, many years ago. Terrible things in judgment against Pharaoh. His dealings with a man by the name of Pharaoh. And there are terrible things that are lying in the near future that's going to come to pass in this poor old groaning world.
When the judgment of God is going to be poured out upon this old earth without mercy or mixture in a soon coming day. Those will be terrible things. But thank God for the great things that He has done and the great things that He is doing every day and the things that He has done in your life and the things that He has done in my life and the things that He is doing through you and the things that He is doing through me, ideally.
When you come to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 20, you read,. For ye are bought with a price, and nothing cheap about salvation. It's free to you and free to me, but it's very, very costly. It costs God, the Son of God, and His death upon the cross of Calvary.
So ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. Is that too much for God to ask of you and me? When we stop and consider all that God has done for us in redeeming us and setting us free from the plague, from the penalty, from the power, and one day soon from the very presence of sin, is it too much for God to ask of me to glorify God in my body and in your spirit, which are whose?
They're not yours and they're not mine, so they must be the Lord's. And they are the Lord's because the Word of God makes that crystal clear. That your body and your spirit, like my body and my spirit, are the Lord's.
What then doth the Lord require of thee? Well, when you come down to verse 12, you learn what God required of the nation of Israel, and I believe that He requires the same thing from you and me. Fear the Lord thy God.
What's that? That's a requirement that God has for His people. I take it that's a respectful fear. That's not a fear of fright. That's a fear of respect. We don't fear God as a master with a lash or a whip in His hand, but we do fear Him as a master.
We respect Him as a master. That's the lordship of Christ. He's the master and I'm the servant, and the servant ideally has respect for the master. And we have respect for this master because of who He is and what He has done on our behalf and what He intends to do in the future.
Not because He has a lash in His hand, because He has no lash in His hand. We fear God today as devoted sons, and what we really fear to do is to grieve Him or dishonor our Father in any way. Did you know that there are people, there are young people in the world today, and it would grieve them in their hearts if in any way their conduct or their deportment grieved their father or grieved their mother.
How much more a child of God. We should have a fear of grieving our Father or dishonoring Him in any way. What does the Lord require of thee? Verse 12, an obedient walk. To walk in all, the Bible says, His ways, in all of His ways.
You know that partial obedience, if we were just decided, well, we'll just walk in some of His ways, then that's just partial obedience. And partial obedience is disobedience. So God would have us to walk in all of His ways.
And Paul gives us a little clue in Colossians 1 and verse 10, worthy of the Lord in all well-pleasing. That's how God would have us walk in all of His ways, worthy of the Lord in all well-pleasing. Malachi tells us in chapter 6 and verse 8, walk humbly, not proudly, not even spiritually proudly, but walk humbly with our God.
We walk in His ways, it would seem to me, when we are willing to bow to His Word. And if we're willing to bow to His Word, then we're walking in His ways. What else does the Lord require of those that are redeemed in verse 12?
To love Him. In other words, He expects us to have, He requires this of me and He requires it of you and He has every right to expect me to have a heart of affection towards Him and for you to have a heart of affection toward Him as well.
For you know, there's no man that can look on your heart. He can look on your ways, look on your character, and mine as well, but He can't look on your heart. The only one that can really look on your heart is God, and He does look on your heart and He looks on my heart, and He knows whether there is a real genuine affection in my heart for Him today, and you as well.
No one else knows that. You don't know that about me, and I don't know that about you, but God knows it about you and God knows it about me because God is the only one that can look on your heart and the only one that can look on my heart, and He knows whether our hearts are loaded with affection for Him or not, and God requires truth in the inward parts.
And what really is more sickening, what is more repulsive than a fake love, a make-believe love, a hypocritical love that is manifested by fleshy activity? That's really spiritual leprosy in its advanced stages, fleshy activities, mere words spoken in the ears of God for the ears of men, in the ears of God, but really spoken for the ears of men.
And that won't meet the requirements of His heart concerning you and concerning me. Come down to verse 12, you have the idea of consecrated service, to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, not just part of it.
Some quote this verse, set your affections on things above. Is that true? It's not true. You only have one affection. I only have one affection. I can set that affection on things above or I can set that affection on things of the earth, but not both.
To serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart. God didn't save you and He didn't save me just to rejoice over our salvation. He did save us that we might rejoice over our salvation, and if we're saved today, certainly we rejoice over our salvation, and for a good reason, and rightly so, that we would rejoice over our salvation.
But He wants us to move on. He wants us to move up. He wants us to realize and recognize what we really have in Christ. The great inheritance that is ours, the length and the breadth and the height of it, and all topped off with the love of God.
He wants us to move beyond Jesus died for me into greater things. I don't know if there are any greater, but great things await us right here on this earth and in the future as well. God would have us glorify Him in a life that is consecrated to Him, hands filled with Christ.
In Mark chapter 10 and verse 21, there's three little interesting words there. One is sell. One is give. What's the other one? Follow Him. Simple, certain, little instructions for those that would be consecrated to Him.
Peter said to a blind man years and years ago, such as I have, I give. What do you have today? What do I have today? You have some treasures today? You know if you were to die today, what would happen to your treasures?
You'd just leave them set right where they're at. Your treasure might be a trinket that's sitting on a shelf. It might be $2 that's in your wallet, or it might be $200 ,000 laying in a bank. And if God required your soul or mine today in one heartbeat, you would leave that right where it's at, treasures.
You can spend them here for the glory of God or leave them here on the shelf. Talent. There's talent in the room. Look at all the young folks in the room today. Look at all the talent, all the potential for the glory of God.
It's right here in our midst in this room in young folk, all the older folk too, but especially the young folk. Treasures. Such as I have, I give. Do we give our time? Certainly we have a little time.
Do we give our talents? Do we give our treasures? What doth the Lord require of thee? You'll have to answer that in your own heart, and I have to answer that in my own heart. In verse 16, God requires something from you and something from me, and that's a submissive will.
Not self-will, brethren, but a submissive will. He said, be no more stiff-necked. Years ago, you know, when you used to try to put a horse in a bit? I did when I was a kid, I always had horses, riding horses.
And I'd try to get a bit in their mouth, and they'd keep tossing their head, stiffening their neck, and they didn't want the bit, because if they got the bit, they'd be under control. And God says, be no more stiff-necked.
You know that clay in the hands of the divine potter that remains stiff and unyielding will never, ever be fashioned into a vessel of honor. Only if the clay is soft and surrendered and submissive, then the divine potter can take you and me and make us a vessel of honor that would bring glory to him.
2 Samuel, chapter 15, and verse 26, in the words of David of old, when David said some wise things, he said, let him do to me as seemeth good unto him. Is that our attitude today? Let him do as seemeth good?
Let him do unto me that seemeth good unto him. Those were the words of David. And in the words of David's greater son, what did he say? Not my will but thine be done. And that really should be our attitude today, if we are going to be clay, soft, submissive, surrendered to the hands of the divine potter, that he might mold us into a vessel that would bring honor to him.
Notice what you got in verse 19. What is that? It's a soft spirit. It's a soft spirit. Says love ye therefore the stranger. Much love do we have for the stranger. The stranger by the way, you know if the love of God is in us, it should be seen in us.
And who would see it? The stranger by the way. And that love is manifest in you and me, in our compassion for the dear unsaved. Do you have compassion? Do I really have compassion for the dear unsaved?
Do I really, really have a heart for them? Do I really have love and compassion for them? Well God requires that of me. And he requires that of you. And how about those that are out of the way? We heard a little bit about that from Brother Dahl this morning.
Will ye also go away? Do we have love and compassion for the stranger by the way? And do we have love and compassion for those who have gone away? And today their seat is empty. And you and I see that that seat is empty.
Do you and I as a people of God have enough compassion and love in our hearts for those that are out of the way to go after those who go away? Do we go after them? Or we just sit around and wait for them to come back?
People are leaving today. Did you notice that? They're leaving. Did you notice years and years ago when they left they'd come back? Generally speaking they'd come back because they were spoiled for anything else.
But today when people leave, it's not very likely they come back. Why is that? How have we failed them? In some way we must have failed them or they'd come back. We need to go after them. Exodus 23 and verse 9, we know the heart of the stranger.
Well why would we know the heart of the stranger? Because there was a time in your life and my life when we had the heart of a stranger. Have we forgotten? Look to the rock from whence ye are hewn and the hole of the pit from whence ye are digged.
And then maybe we'll remember what it was to be a stranger to grace and to God. And we will better understand the heart of the stranger. Is there an example in the Word of God? I think there is in Luke chapter 10, the story of the good Samaritan.
You remember the priest? He just passed by. The thief who had been trampled and left half dead on the Jericho Road. That's where the stranger's at, don't you know? On a downward course from a place of blessing to a place of the curse.
To the judgment of God. And the priest and the Levite, they just saw him and they passed by. And they did exactly what they could do for him and that was nothing. And that's exactly what religiosity and the law can do for souls, strangers on the Jericho Road today, nothing.
But the good Samaritan, what did he do? He came to where he was. And that's what you and I can do. We can come to where they are. In Mark chapter 1 and verse 37, the disciples told the Lord, they said, all men seek for thee.
And you know, I don't know about you, but it could very well be if somebody said that to me, I'd say, where are they? They're seeking me? Where are they at? I want to go see these folks. The Lord didn't say that.
He wasn't looking for notoriety. He wasn't looking for attaboys. He wasn't looking for pats on the back. He wasn't looking for his name in truth and tidings. Wasn't looking for any of that stuff. His words are monumental.
He said, let us go to the next town that I may preach there also. What did he have? He had a compassion for the stranger, by the way, Lord, give us more love for the lost. Verse 20, and I'm done. God requires our faith to be firm, firm.
Says the Lord thy God, to him shalt thou what? Cleave. We cleaving to the Lord? Is that what we really need to do? This is really our occupation as we're traveling in this wilderness is to cleave to the Lord.
Cleaving to the Lord is the secret of spiritual strength. It's the secret of spiritual progress. God would have you and me progress spiritually. God would have you and me to be strong spiritually. If we're going to be strong spiritually, if we're going to progress spiritually, we need to cleave to the Lord.
Need to hang on. It's abiding. It's the branch simply and solely, simply abiding in the vine. That's what it means to cleave to the Lord. Abide in the vine. And if we abide in the vine, we're going to bear fruit for his glory and for his honor.
And we're going to be vessels of honor. What doth the Lord require of thee?