Deuteronomy A Plea to Love and Obey God

Morning. I figure we should start close to on time. I love the fellowship.

This is, I think we're all thriving or striving or what's the word?

Longing. Thank you. Longing for the fellowship. And I'm sure you are all smiling in your masks right now.

So some people like my wife, she has smiling eyes. So when her eyes squint, you know she's smiling.

So that's just a clue if they're big as like, just better get out of the way. Yeah, no, just teasing. I'm just teasing.

Anyway. Okay. Well, I want to welcome you this morning that you have come and some are viewing this from home.

Our hearts are with you. Our prayers are with you. And we're just blessed that we can still gather, that we are still of the

Lord and under his leading. And we just are thankful that we can worship and even fellowship here a little bit together safely.

We're continue to be thankful that Barb is continuing to improve.

Still struggling with some of the breathing and things, but there's, you know, everything's baby steps.

And we're thankful for that. And I know there's others and there's other needs in the church that are probably unspoken, but we're praying for you that God is in your midst and working with you and helping you through these difficult times.

These are challenging times. These are confusing times. These are uncertain times, but we know that the

Lord is on high, that we can trust him. Hebrews 13, five and six says,

I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, note that word boldly, the

Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do?

Can we ask for any more than that? That is such assurance, such a promise to hold on to, just as it feels like sometimes we're in quicksand and things are just kind of always in motion around us.

And they are, but God is solid. God is firm and he will never forsake us.

And we are his and praise God for that. So I'd like to open our service message this morning in prayer.

So if you'd join me, please. Dear heavenly father, we commit this time to you,

Lord, that as we gather, as we commune Lord around your word, that you would bless us, that you would bless your word, that we would have gratitude father, that we would prepare our hearts

Lord, to rejoice and to celebrate you in a way that would honor you, that you would be pleased father, that each would be blessed abundantly

Lord. We pray that across this country Lord, that there are, there's so much unrest, but we father, we pray for our federal, our state, our local officials, that you would help them to govern wisely, that Lord you are, they are in your control

Lord, that you are overseeing all things. And we know that, and we put our faith and trust in you

Lord, that you will guide as you desire. Father, we pray that Christians also in every corner of this country and even our own community here,

Lord, that there would be an impact, that there would be a expression of the truth, the hope that rests in Jesus Christ alone, not in man's fabricated rules and regulations, but father, in the word, that that's what the soul needs and that's what we need father, is peace and rest in Christ.

So father, may we look at all things through that lens. Father, may we rejoice again today, that you would bless our time together, bless pastor

John, that he would speak with authority and with grace, and that he would just be in a place father, that you would allow that truth to penetrate our hearts, that the

Holy Spirit would be present with us to, to allow us to discern that truth father. So we're thankful and grateful for him and for what is ahead of us this morning father.

God bless our time and our day together, we pray in Jesus name, amen. So it's important to remember today that everything that we do is worship to our

Lord and that we are, our worship is rendered to God, it is set at his feet, that it is not us worshiping the worshiper, it is worshiping the

God, that he is the center of our, of our worship time and that's our focus. I want to read

Psalm 95, you can just listen along, oh come let us sing to the

Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation, let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise, for the

Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods, in his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are also his also, the sea is his, for he made it and his hands formed the dry land, oh come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the

Lord our maker, for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand, let us stand together, we are going to sing, oh worship the

King. Next we'd like to sing, we praise thee, greatest the

Lord and worthy of our praise, let's sing together. Good morning, yeah scripture today is in Deuteronomy 6, now this is the testament, the statues and the rules, the

Lord your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, that you may fear the

Lord your God, you and your son, and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which

I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long, hear therefore oh

Israel and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the

Lord the God of your fathers has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey, hear 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, and these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, you shall teach them diligently to your children, 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, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes, you shall write them on the doorposts of your house, and on your gates, and when the

Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant, and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the

Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, it is the Lord your

God you shall fear, him you shall serve, and by his name you shall swear, you shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you, for the

Lord your God is in your midst, for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God, lest the anger of the

Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth, you should not put the

Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massa, you shall diligently keep the commands of the Lord your

God in his testimonies, in his statutes which he has commanded you, and you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the

Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

Thank you Tim. Well we want to, hey I thought you guys were going to Texas. Okay well welcome, it's great to see you.

Lucky. That's Miko and Stefan, they're moving to, I guess it's a dream come true in many ways, a lot of family there, so thank you for coming to say goodbye, but we have to stay six feet from you.

Well praise God, isn't it wonderful to be together? Man, thank you for coming out, and we are, most of us are wearing masks,

I won't wear a mask when I preach because I'll be itching my nose the whole time, so forgive me for that, but we want to pray for our country, we want to pray for our leaders, that's what

God's word tells us to do, and that's what we're going to do right now. Unless there's any special needs, we want to pray for your move.

Is it, when? Next weekend. So you're going to miss church, to move to Texas, way to go.

As long as you like it, I want lots of thumbs up. You know it's so funny,

I have two beautiful daughters, I think most of you know that, and I never say anything on Twitter, but I have

Twitter, and I finally said something, and I got all these likes, and my, one of my daughters, who shall remain nameless, says, dad, that's nothing,

I like this video, and I got 150 thumb votes, or something like that, and here

I am, I'm all excited, about 30. And the other one says, boomer, you know what that is, that's my generation.

But any prayer requests on a personal basis, Miko was keeping us up to date, but she's not going to be doing that, so that's going to be a ministry that at some point is need to be, need to be picked up, because we like to know how we can pray for one another, but any very quick, before I pray for our country, the single biggest thing that we can be doing right now, is being salt and light.

You know, really, there's people that are hurting, I mean, jobs, I mean, all kinds of things, and that has to come first.

Thank you, Stephan. Well, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, how thankful we are for this day, what a joy,

I mean, I am just in my heart rejoicing to see all of us here today.

Thank you for that, thank you for the decision of the elders, God, to make this available. Thank you that we can do this safely with masks and with social distancing,

God. We're grateful to you that you're a God that loves us so much, and there's something,

Father, biblical, it's so clear in Scripture that your perfect will is for us to gather together like this to worship you.

And God, we want to join our hearts together as Christians and pray for our country. We want to join, first of all,

Daniel, God, in confessing the sin of our nation, abortion, homosexual marriage,

God, materialism, idolatry, and sin of every kind.

You know, Father God, what's going on in our cities with the protests. You know,

Father God, the things that are going on with our president and vice president and congress and mayors and governors and the decrees that are being brought down upon us,

God. You know, Father God, I can't even, every time I turn around to hear about another sector of our economy,

God, that is being absolutely decimated. I had no idea some 30 percent of school buses are run by private contractors that are all out of business now.

God, our hearts are burdened for our nation. And Father, I thank you for Stephan's reminder, because first and foremost, may this be a wake -up call to us, not just this church, but all people that are truly born again, that would say they are a

Christian, that Father God, our love for you, as we're going to see today in Deuteronomy and the

Shema, to love you with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength.

Jesus said, this is the greatest commandment, and the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself.

God, it's all going to start there, our love for you and our love for one another. So we pray for our government.

We pray for the leaders, God, first and foremost, that they come to Christ. We think about what's going on in the church.

We pray for pastors, God, that there would be a spirit of unity and a commitment,

Father God, to share the gospel, to preach the gospel. I thank you so much,

God, that we can trust you in all these things, that you are causing all things to work together for our good.

God, that we can trust you with that. As Jesus told the royal official in John chapter 4, to go home, your son is healed,

God, and this man took him at his word. We take you at your word, that you are indeed causing all things to work together, first and foremost, for believers.

Secondly, that unbelievers would come to Christ and hear the gospel. So we commit these things to you.

We pray for the United States of America, for your will to be done in our country, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Please be seated.

Thank you, Harold. Well, praise the Lord and good morning again. Well, let's go in our

Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, if you don't mind. Deuteronomy 17.

And God willing, the next few times that we're together, we will be, we'll handle

Joshua in one Sunday, we'll handle Judges in one Sunday, that's the plan, and we'll handle the book of Ruth in one

Sunday. So, we're gonna be kind of picking up some speed as we work our way through this

Old Testament series, which remember, for those of you, it's just wonderful, we have at least one visitor, and maybe some of you have a visitor, don't have a computer, so you've been missing the messages, but basically the plan is to basically climb in an airplane and fly over the

Old Testament and begin to try to relate some of what we see in the

Old Testament to New Testament truths. Remember when we're in the Old Testament, we're talking about Old Covenant believers, right?

Old Covenant believers. We've got all these heathen nations around, the Canaanites, the Jebusites, right, that Israel was supposed to kill, and we'll talk about that in Joshua, and we'll talk about that in the book of Judges, right?

God wanted them to wipe them out because they would corrupt them. And how many know that a little leaven leavens a whole loaf?

Come on. I mean, all you have to do, I mean, all of a sudden you're watching movies that you never thought you would watch, right?

When you first see them, you're shocked, but then, oh, it's no big deal, you hear this word, that word, and you're shocked, right?

And then pretty soon it doesn't matter, oh, everybody's like that. So we become desensitized, and that's the whole point when we get to Joshua and Judges, that God says, hey, go in there and wipe them out because they're gonna turn your heart from me, and that's exactly what happened.

So we want to have this idea when we're in the Old Testament that we're talking about people that would say, like we say today, you go to churches today,

I'm a Christian, right? Whether they're a Christian or not, the fact that they go to a church and the fact that they have a

Bible at home, they call themselves a Christian. I've met people in my life, they've told me, by the way,

I forgot my normal glasses, thank God for Dollar Tree. My normal glasses,

I left them at home. But I've met people that have told me,

I've always been a Christian. I was born in a Christian home. Have you ever been born again?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. So there are people today that would say,

I'm a Christian, they're not truly saved, they're not truly born again. They might even go to church every

Sunday. And this is what we're dealing with when we're talking about the Old Testament, promises what?

Promises made, New Testament message, promises kept, very good. So in the

Old Testament, when we talk about Israel, we're talking about people that would say, in our language today,

I'm a Christian. Were all of them? No. Right? Abraham was, he was justified, he was saved by his faith.

That faith was demonstrated how? By his obedience to God in the matter of his son

Isaac, right? So we're in Deuteronomy. We're in Deuteronomy. And we're going to be looking at a verse or two in chapter 17 here in a moment.

But before we go any further, let's pray. Father God, I thank you. I am overjoyed this morning to be here together, to be gathered together in the name of Jesus Christ, and to be worshiping you as a church family.

Lord, we pray the Holy Spirit would be our teacher. He cannot learn your word apart from what the

Holy Spirit shows us. So may our eyes be open, our ears be open, our hearts be prepared by you.

You knew exactly, exactly from eternity past who would be here today.

You knew that we would be in the book of Deuteronomy. And may this message, this time in your word, produce fruit in our lives, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. I think most of you have heard the old saying, history repeats itself.

Right? And I think if you've been alive for more than 20 or 30 years, you probably would say, yeah,

I think that's true. I would agree. Well, there's another saying, actually by a

German philosopher by the name of George Hegel, that says this, and it's deep, and it takes a minute to wrap your mind around it.

The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

And if you look in your notes, I put that there to give you a chance to think about that. The only thing that we really learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

And I don't know about anybody else, but I can offer some personal testimony, good and bad, about the truth of this statement.

And I could go through for quite a long time and go through and give you historical examples of how people other than me demonstrate that the only thing that they don't learn from history.

I do budget counseling. I'm certified with Crown Financial. And back in the day when our church was growing and I had,

I did, you know, people would call the church, they'd find on our website, they would click, they would call Crown Financial, and I'd have the couple come in and, you know, and look at their financial condition.

You know, the only thing that we learn from history is, okay, how many times have you filed bankruptcy?

And they'd look at me with their head down. So history is important for many reasons.

And one of which is that if we are willing, we can learn much from looking back or from history.

The question of learning from the profound, from the past has profound ramifications for Christians.

We all possess a history. Everyone has a trail of actions and attitudes behind them that is as long as their lives.

It is their own personal history. Thank God for Facebook, right? That's so 80s.

What is it? 80s? There's a statement that your children probably can tell you what it is.

I don't know what it is. But I guess you have to be over 50 to have Facebook. Whoops.

And some of you are going, what's Facebook? Because I guess on Facebook, I rarely look at it.

It puts up a history for you. This is what you did in 2019.

I said, what did I do? So our histories have made us what we are even now.

And we have made those histories. Our choices, our decisions, what we do, the things we say, our actions form, listen, form and are forming our history, the history of our lives.

Now, Deuteronomy. What does all this have to do with Deuteronomy? If you want to have a good way to put

Deuteronomy in perspective and begin to understand it and apply it to our lives today, here's a question to ask.

Does our past, does our past as Christians, our life history offer an argument for why we might expect

God's blessings in the future? Or does our past argue for something less hopeful?

And that's a hardball question, I know. Does our past offer an argument for why we might expect

God's blessings in our future? Our past, meaning our decisions, choices and so on over the last year, two years, 10 years.

Does it offer an argument for why we might expect God's blessings going forward?

Or does our past argue for something less hopeful? The overarching and fundamental point of application in Deuteronomy can be seen through the lens of that very question.

How we have lived our Christian life in the past, right up to this very moment. We touched on this life truth and this kingdom principle last week.

If you think back to how I closed the message in the book of Numbers, I read from 1

Corinthians chapter 10, and it says in part this. Now these things became our examples, these things, the stuff that we're studying right now in the book of Numbers, that we're going to see in the book of Joshua, that we're going to see again in the book of Judges, that we're going to see again in the book of Ruth, we're going to see it in 1

Samuel, 2 Samuel, when Israel cries out for a king and God says, don't you get it? I want to be your king.

You're talking about thousands of years of human history, of a very specific history in the

Old Testament, of people that would say in our words today, I'm a Christian. Are you following me?

Please give me a little bit, okay, thank you. Deuteronomy, 1 Corinthians 10, 6.

Now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after the evil things that they lusted after, and not become idolaters as some of them were.

And then there's this whole list of Israel's sins. And then we get to verse 10, where it says, nor complain.

Remember that? As some of them complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. And here is the verse, you might want to make a note of it, 1

Corinthians 10, 11. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Wow. So one way to think of the book of Deuteronomy is to really think of a black and white picture.

Not a color picture, not a gray scale, just black and white.

Because this book, all 40 chapters, one month of Israel's history, that's it.

It's one month. It's not 100 years, it's one month of their history, right? Moses' last month on this earth.

You want to learn about the Christian life? Deuteronomy, 2 Timothy, Paul's deathbed epistle, 2

Peter, Peter's deathbed epistle. Those three, they teach you a lot because they're written by men who are about to die.

So black and white, 40 chapters with a two -edged message, like a two -edged sword, an encouragement and a warning.

The blessings of obedience and the curses of disobedience. This book is a picture of a land overflowing with milk and honey for the child of God that desires to put

God first and obey him starkly and dramatically contrasted with a professing child of God who is disobedient and the picture of a stark and arid and lifeless desert for those who do not obey

God. Did you know that Jesus quoted from the book of Deuteronomy more than any other book of the

Old Testament? The bulk of the book, the 40 chapters, consists of three sermons by Moses that he preached to the nation of Israel the month before he died.

So as I just said, it's kind of the plea of a dying man. You remember Moses sinned, right?

What did he do? He struck the rock with his staff instead of speaking to it. God said, speak to the rock.

He struck it and God said, because you did that for that one thing, what? You don't get to see the land flowing a milk of honey.

You don't get the promise. The author is Moses. As I said, the time covered is one month and when it comes to getting the big picture, the way to remember it is

Deuteronomy, right? Just think of Deuteronomy and duet. What's a duet?

Five singers or two? So duet, second law, second law.

First law given in Exodus, Deuteronomy, it's given again, duet. Take a look here at, you said, when are you going to get to the actual book,

John? Right now. Look at 17 verse 14. Moses is speaking.

When you come to the land which the Lord, your God is giving you and possess it and dwell in it and say, this is before this ever happens in first and second

Samuel. When Saul, when they, when God says, okay, I'm going to give you Saul and say,

I will set a king over me like all the nations that are around me. You shall surely set a king over you whom the

Lord, your God chooses one from among your brethren. You shall set as king over you.

You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother. Then look at verse 18. Also, it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priest, the

Levites. And it shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the

Lord, his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right hand or to the left, that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.

Picture this 400 years before Israel had a king.

God is telling him this through Moses. He tells the king to write his own personal copy of the law.

God had given them the law back in Exodus 20 before they started out for the promised land, but remember that generation died out, right?

The entire generation was going to die out except for very good.

Joshua and Caleb would last, but not the rest, right? So God gives this new generation the law a second time, and that's found in Deuteronomy chapter 5.

So a good way to remember Deuteronomy is by two tablets. Remember the two tablets that God gave

Moses the first time, right? So duet, two tablets, right? And he gives them these laws that God requires the people to believe, and it identifies in the law blessings and curses that will accrue to the people according to their obedience or disobedience.

And in this year in my pre -algebra class, you know, online learning is going to be so challenging.

Any of you that have children that are trying to learn on a computer, it's just very, very challenging, you know, without the interaction.

But one of the things I'm going to do, thanks to my wonderful wife who is much smarter than I am, she said, why don't you have a reward?

Because we have in our school all these penalties. If you're late, 50 percent. You know, if you're late on assignment, you know about that?

50 percent. Oh, you know, 50 percent penalty, F. So we're going to have an encouragement auction and give them points that they can use to spend in an auction at the end of the semester, right?

So in Deuteronomy, you have the blessings of obedience, you have the curses of disobedience.

The bulk of the book, three sermons that Moses preached to Israel as they camped just east of the

Jordan River, and God willing, next week I'll start having some slides for you. East of Canaan, they're preparing to enter the promised land.

They're up in the area of the Moabites, right? And there is this list in this book of the blessings and the curses that will accrue according to the obedience or disobedience.

So a central theme in the book is obedience. That word is found in various forms.

Are you ready for this? 150 times. Not every time does it say obedience, but the principle of obedience, 150 times.

And the book deals with this, with obedience from two perspectives, two aspects.

The act of obedience and the motive for obedience. The act of obedience, the actual act of it and the motive for doing it.

Moses' sermons were a plea and an encouragement for God's people to believe in, to trust and obey

God, that is the act of obedience, in order to receive his blessings. So the central theme of Deuteronomy is obedience.

It is Moses' final plea with these professing believers, the

Israelites, regarding the importance of obeying God's law. And then right alongside this admonition and this encouragement to obey, he's going to deal with the motive to obey

God. You see, the mandate, and maybe as a parent, if you've raised kids, you can relate to this.

The mandate is not given in a vacuum. Just, and I mean, we run into this as parents all the time.

Just do it because I told you to do it. And then your kids get to be about 12 or 13, maybe 14.

First they're asking when they're three or four, why? And then you have a whole nother realm of why.

Okay, and it's, it could be challenging, okay? So obey

God, and why? Ready? Because he loves you, and because you love him.

See, the motive is not the danger of the cursing. The motive is to be our love for him.

So how can we remember the book of Deuteronomy? Duet, right? Second law, on me.

What is the key word? Obey. Key word obey. What are the two aspects of obedience that it's going to be talking about?

The act of obedience, actually doing it, and what? The motive, right? What is the message?

It's in your sermon notes. The plea to love God and to obey him. And so the question that I want to use that will help frame our consideration of this book this morning.

The question is, does our past present an argument for why we might expect

God's blessings in the future, or does it argue for something less hopeful?

So four key truths about obeying God that helps us put this question into perspective.

First of all, we learn in Deuteronomy that obedience is a matter of love.

Go to chapter five, Deuteronomy five. One of the truths about obedience taught in Deuteronomy focuses on a person's motive to obey, and it shows us that life in the kingdom of God and obedience to God is a matter of love.

Deuteronomy, Moses says, hey, obey God. But that obedience is to flow out of, it is to be sourced from, it is to come from a person's love for God.

This is Moses's central argument. Central argument.

He brings up this matter of love at least 20 times. Look at Deuteronomy five, 10.

Showing mercy to thousands, to those who what? Love me and keep my commandments.

Go to chapter seven, verse nine. Therefore know that the

Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generation with those who what?

Love him and keep his commandments. Over and over. Verse 13.

And he will love you and bless you and multiply you. Go to chapter 10, verse 12.

And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? But 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. Now go to chapter six.

So one of the key passages dealing with this whole motive in terms of love, right, is called the

Shema. And Pastor Bernstein, being brought up as a

Jewish person, can pronounce all the Hebrew in the Old Testament much better than I can. It was always embarrassing when

I pronounced a word a certain way. Janet and I would look at each other sometimes and he would say a word and it was not the way we've said it for the past 15 years.

And then I would go look it up and I'd call him and I'd say, you know, it's kind of embarrassing because my kids, we've been doing devotions for like their whole life.

I mean, my daughter Johanna has really one of the best sense of humors that you can imagine.

And she goes, we've been reading the Bible with you before, since before we were born. And we've never heard that word said that way.

And then it turns out he's right. I'm sorry,

I'm not allowed to talk about them. I don't know why. I'm going to get in trouble today. So do me a favor, glare at me or something because I can't look at them because I don't want to get in trouble.

Look at this passage, the Shema chapter six, verse one. Now this is the commandment and the, how many commandments?

Commandment. I love this. And these are the statutes and judgments.

So everything is going to come under what? This commandment, which the Lord, your God has commanded to teach you that you may observe them in the land, which you are crossing over to possess, that you may fear the

Lord, your God, which is the reverence fear, not the hiding in the corner. Daddy's going to come and get you fear that you may fear the

Lord, your God to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you and your son, you and your son and your grandson, all the days of your life and that your days may be prolonged.

And by the way, by the time you get to the book of judges, the sons and the grandsons don't know anything about this. Did you hear me?

Did you hear me? Judges chapter two, all the wheels have come off the obedience wagon.

Therefore hero, Israel, and be careful to observe it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly as the

Lord, your God of your fathers has promised you a land flowing with milk and honey. This is a picture of the

Christian life of obedience, of loving God. That's the whole thing here.

This is pointing to the kind of life that believers will have in Christ as they walk in obedience to him out of their love for him.

I get goose pimples. Hero, Israel, here's the Shema, the

Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.

And these words, which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. And when you go to Israel today and you see an

Orthodox Jew, they have those things on their forehead and they have them on their wrists and they miss the whole point because where is it to be?

In our heart. So verses four and five are the

Shema. Religious Jews today recite it three times as part of their devotional life.

No Sabbath worship if you've ever gone to a Jewish synagogue happens without its proclamation. We visited one when

I was in school. We went on a field trip to a Jewish synagogue and went to a service.

There's a deep sense of urgency in the original Hebrew. I tried to bring it out as I read it.

There is a demand here. There is this earnest plea and if you just can relate to this as a parent and the idea is to respond with your total being to love

God. Please, I beg of you with your whole being, with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your strength.

And in fact, if you do any study on Deuteronomy, most scholars would say based upon what

Jesus says about the greatest commandment and the second commandment is like it. By the way, putting them on equal footing.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second one is like it in the Greek puts it on the same footing.

It's the same. They would say that the whole Bible is built on the

Shema. And it's, if you think about it, I don't have the time. I'm already running 10 minutes late.

I got a whole sermon here, but it's just so exciting. This is what it's all about.

Mark 12, one of the scribes was trying to trick Jesus, remember? And what did he say? What's the greatest commandment?

I'll tell you the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the other ones like it. So, you ready for the hard ball?

You love me? You sure? How do we measure up to that charge?

I remember, man, I'm going crazy today. It was from the first sermon.

The first sermon this morning that I preached John 4 was exciting. I remember as a parent being so convicted by this that when

I took my daughters to the park, I would try to talk about God in everything.

They want to go on a swing, but I'm talk as you walk. Okay. As we walk to the park,

I'm going to talk about God's law. Right. And as they swing, I'm going to talk about God's law.

They want to play. I got it, dad. I got it. They're four years old. Okay, dad. Okay. There's one more thing here.

It's an amazing lesson. And you might want to put this under Roman numeral number one, if there's room.

I don't know if I left your room. And that is our tendency, our bent to forget. Because look at verse 12.

Then beware, here's the warning, lest you forget the

Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. You know, you can look that up.

This is a repeated warning in the book of Deuteronomy. Beware, lest you forget. Numerous times in these three sermons,

Moses emphasizes the danger of forgetfulness. People forget. Then forgetfulness leads to disobedience.

You see, very often we tend to disobey because we forget. So in Deuteronomy, in essence, it is this divine treatise by Moses on obedience to God.

Almost everything in the book, when you read it, revolves around this one word. Obedience and the dangers of disobedience.

So obedience instead of disobedience. Blessings instead of curses. Remembering instead of forgetting.

Prosperity instead of poverty. Health instead of sickness. Everything revolving around obedience, but rooted and flowing out of what?

Our love for God. Second, obedience is a personal matter.

Go to chapter 11. Not only is obedience a matter of love, obedience is a personal matter.

Look at verse 26. Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.

You know, there's a whole sermon there. Can I give it to you really fast? I set before you a blessing and a curse.

Is there any middle ground? What do we want? Why can't we all just get along?

It's black or white. Blessing or curse. We want the middle ground.

You want evidence of that? Go to the book of Revelation. You're neither hot nor cold.

The church at Laodicea. You see how the whole

Bible fits together? One author, 40 writers, one author. I set before you today a blessing and a curse.

No middle ground. The blessing, if you obey the commandment of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandment of the

Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today to go after other gods which you have not known. So Deuteronomy is a call to obedience as a condition to blessing.

God is always faithful to his covenant with Israel, and he now extends it to this new generation.

And in verse 26, we learn that obedience is a personal matter, meaning it's individual.

Now look carefully at the word behold. I don't know when the last time you beholded anything, but to behold something means to look at it intently, with great concentration, and with all your attention.

Behold. The first time I went to Yosemite National Park, I beholded the park.

I was overwhelmed. I wasn't worried about what was on my phone or where I was going.

I was absolutely overwhelmed. It is all your attention, all your faculties, behold.

That is what the word means. This is a call to look at something with a lot of thought.

A well -known concert pianist said that the three fundamentals of a concert pianist, you want to know what they were?

Practice, practice, practice. I'm reading a book right now called Outliers, and it talks about age groups and learning and stuff like that.

And one of the things that they talk about is 10 ,000 hours of practice. Do the math.

Martin Luther stated that the first and second and third, are you ready for this? Martin Luther, the reformer, not the preacher, the reformer.

The first, second, and third requirements of a Christian were obedience, obedience, obedience. And he said,

I would rather obey than work miracles. So Jesus said in John 14, if you love me, what?

Keep my commandments. So obedience to God is a personal, individual matter.

And this is the final charge. Really, if you go later in the book, one of his final charges is be obedient, each one of you.

Individuals become a Christian by grace through faith, by means of obedience to God's call.

Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again. And Nicodemus had to respond.

He didn't. The rich young ruler, Jesus said, this one thing you lack, sell everything you own and give it to the poor.

And what did the rich young ruler do? He turned and walked away. Every person's salvation is dependent upon their personal obedience and response to the influences of the

Holy Spirit and the commands of Jesus. Someone becomes a Christian by grace through faith, by their decision of obedience, and also once someone is a child of God.

The Lord expects each Christian individually to live a separate, consecrated, holy life as obedient children.

First Peter 116, be ye holy as I am holy.

Go to chapter 28. Obedience to God is an individual matter that leads to salvation, but it also applies on the national basis, too.

So we're talking about, in the Old Testament, Israel professing believers, right? But they're a nation of professing believers.

Do you get that? So now we're talking about the church. The church is a people, a professing people of God in the world today,

Jew and Gentile, Greek and Gentile, right? Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey, verse 1, the voice of the

Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, that the

Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. The obedience of the nation,

Israel's obedience to God, depended on the obedience of the individual that make up the nation.

You know something that I want you to just think about? You just, I don't have time to go down the trail. How much of what's going on in our country is a direct result of the church's love for God cooling, and the church losing its salt, and the church becoming like the world?

Americans should be greatly concerned about the future, and rightly so in terms of our past.

There's so much I can deal with there. The key idea in Deuteronomy is obeying

God. There's this emphasis on personal choice, the individual choices, the impact that those choices have on themselves and the people around them.

And now third, obedience is an optional matter. Go to chapter 11.

Obedience is optional, and I trust that this goes without saying.

Look what he says, Moses, chapter 11, verse 26. Behold, I set before you a blessing and a curse, and here's the choice.

The blessing if you obey, the curse if you don't. So the language here points to personal choice.

People are given the opportunity of exercising their free will. Moses defines the alternatives.

He outlines the consequences, but the choice lies with the individual children of Israel. And see, this becomes compelling in terms of our obedience to Christ, because, listen to me, willing obedience is true obedience.

Willing obedience is true obedience. In reality, and I mean,

I learned this this last year as a teacher. I mean, we have a couple of very godly teachers at the school where I'm privileged to serve.

I mean, they are amazing people. I'm humbled by their testimony. Reluctant or forced obedience is no obedience at all.

We have a choice. He says in chapter 30, verse 11, for this commandment which

I command you today is not too difficult for you. So he puts out all these commandments, but Moses says, it's not too difficult.

See, it's not as hard to obey God as we sometimes think it is.

That's why John the Apostle says in 1 John 5, 3, his commandments are not burdensome.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

That's one of the points of Galatians 2 .20. The life that I now live, I live by faith in the

Son of God. I cannot change myself. I cannot obey God. This is one of the whole points of the

Old Testament, is the absolute insufficiency of human works.

Because what did Israel do for thousands of years? Tell me. They failed.

Right? And the church does the same thing. Read the book of Acts sometime. I don't know.

Am I okay moving around? I'm sorry. Okay. I got the preach on. I'm sorry, Victor.

Go to the book of Acts. Within a month or two, there's problems in the church.

Why? Because we're sinners, and we need Christ. Rabbit trails.

I'm in trouble later. John 14 .15, if you love me, you keep my commandments.

John 14 .24, he who does not love me does not keep my words. John 15 .14, you are my friends if you do whatever

I command you. So, obedience is an optional matter, but finally,

Deuteronomy also teaches us that obedience is a vital matter. Deuteronomy teaches us that obedience is fundamentally a matter of love.

It shows us that it is a personal matter. Third, it teaches us and reminds us that obedience is optional, right?

Because we have a free will. We can do what we want, faced with a decision. Door number one or door number two?

Remember, let's make a deal. My aunt, they got to the big deal. My aunt and her husband,

Aunt Gaby, they were on there. They got to the big deal. Door number one or door number two?

They picked the wrong door. We can choose to be disobedient, but God stresses the consequences.

I set before you, verse 26, a blessing and a curse.

See, Moses' crowning argument for obedience to God's command is found in those two words.

Which one do you want? He says in chapter 30, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death.

Remember, I started the whole thing with a black and white picture, no gray scale. Black or white, left or right, blessings or curse, obedience.

There's no middle ground. I'm sorry. It's not me. That's what the Bible tells us.

There's no middle ground. You either obey or you disobey. I'm sorry. And he says, I've set before you,

I've set before you life and death. Choose life. Wow. I got a little bit more, but I really want to bring us back to the

New Testament. Go to Matthew 25. Try to tie these together with us to the gospel and to Jesus.

So, take the book of Deuteronomy, 40 chapters, boil it down, distill it down to its fundamental essence.

You're left with this plea to consider and heed the incredible importance of obedience versus disobedience and this black and white, very stark contrast between blessings and what?

Curses. Right? We got that? Is that clear as mud? And one of the incredible parallels to all of that is found here in Matthew 25, because God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world.

And there is a great gulf. I'm sorry. Not I'm sorry.

There is no such thing in the Bible as purgatory. I mean, don't you see, you can see the theology, the false theology of the

Roman Catholic Church and where it comes from. Because the Bible says, heaven or hell.

Well, no, no, there's got to be something. There's got to be a middle ground. Can't we all just hold hands and sing

Kumbaya? There is a great gulf that will separate the saved and the unsaved, the obedient and disobedient, the sheep and the goats.

Look at chapter 25, verse 35, 31. When the son of man comes in his glory and all the holy angels with him, and he will sit on the throne of his glory, all the nations will be gathered before him.

And he will separate them one from another as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

And he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on his right hand, come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the earth.

For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in.

I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer in him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you and thirsty and give you a drink?

When did we see you a stranger and take you in or naked and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?

The king will answer and say to them assuredly, I say to you, and as much as you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me.

That's why one thing I will never forget about Pastor Bernstein is my first lunch with him when we came back to the church and that homeless man was sleeping in the entrance, that little in front of the door.

And I compared my reaction to the homeless people that I found at our church and his reaction to that man.

I was very humbled. Not that you have to take in every homeless person you see.

You understand? That's just an illustration. Verse 41.

Then he will also say to those on the left hand, depart from me, you cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

For I was hungry and you gave me no food. I was thirsty and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger and you did not take me in naked and you did not clothe me.

Sick and in prison and you did not visit me. And then they also will answer him saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick in a prison and you did not minister to you?

And then he will answer them saying, assuredly, I say to you in as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.

And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Dear friends, the pronouncement is going to be made. On the one hand, come you blessed to my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

On the other hand, depart from me, you cursed into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

See, obedience to God is vital. It is personal. It is optional. We have a choice. But most of all, obedience is to flow out of our love for God.

We demonstrate our love for God by obedience. This is Moses' plea to the

Israelites, God's plea to believers today. Love the Lord your

God with some of your heart, all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your strength, and then flowing out of that love,

Obaam. So we're left with, there might be somebody watching by video, there might be even somebody here this morning, and God is convicting your heart.

I do not love God that way. It may very well be you're not a

Christian. You have not truly been born again, and I can't tell you that, but God the

Holy Spirit can. You know. I'm sitting here. I'm not a Christian. Or you're watching by video.

Well, you need to get saved. You need to be born again. And if you're here this morning and you want to talk to me about that, you can.

If not, you can, if you're watching by video, you can write the church, call the church.

The gospel is very simple. You know you're a sinner. You know you're separated from your sin, by your sin, from a holy

God. You put your trust and your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I did it in a hotel room on my knees in Rochester, New York, with a

Gideon Bible. No, no, it wasn't. It was a Bible I bought. Sorry. I couldn't understand the

Gideon Bible. It was King James. I was talking to my high school friend, and I said,

I got this Gideon Bible, and he said, that's a King James. Go down and get this other

Bible, and I did. And then it changed life. So, sinner, separated from a holy

God, trust and faith in Jesus Christ and him alone, and what he did, his death, burial, and resurrection, and then the changed life that shows the fruit of that change.

Amen? So, let's take a moment and pray. I just encourage you, use this time, and then

I'll pray, and Harold will come, but I want to give you a few moments of silence to ask

God, am I living the Shema, or something else that I said that struck your heart?

Do you know for sure you're a Christian? Don't be embarrassed.

Father, I thank you so much for your word. I just am overwhelmed this morning as I'm standing here,

God, by your love for us. You demonstrated your love for us in that while we were yet sinners,

Christ died for us. But that is an overwhelming thought. Pray, God, you would help us to take this message to heart, that it might produce fruit in our lives.

If anybody is here or watching that is not a Christian, God, that you'll open a door for them to come to Christ and be truly born again.