Deuteronomy 32:39

the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life.

I could go on and on listing verses about the fear of the Lord. Last year we heard a sermon series on the book of Ecclesiastes, which concludes,

fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

I've wrestled with the idea of fearing the Lord. What does it mean? Am I fearing God as I ought? How can I fear my own father? To the extent that fear is an emotion, how can it be commanded? Nevertheless, we are commanded,

honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor

, 1 Peter 2, 17. I'm not prepared tonight to give you a definition or a good explanation of exactly what it means to fear God, but I can tell you that as I've meditated on tonight's verse, it has stirred in me the fear of the Lord as much as any verse has. And while I may never understand the fear of the Lord academically, I understand experientially just a little bit better for having dwelt on tonight's verse. If you haven't turned there, please turn to Deuteronomy 32, 39, which is I think on page 175 of your pew Bible. Zach last week did a good job explaining what Deuteronomy is all about. It's largely a sermon that Moses gave to the people of Israel just before he died and just before they went to take the promised land of Canaan. Moses urged the Israelites to trust God's promises, to carefully obey his commandments, to faithfully teach their children and their children's children to walk in the way that God had set before them, to hate idolatry, to love God, to fear God, and to enjoy the blessings that God had promised to them. But Moses also knows that Israel will not remain faithful. And so in chapter 32, he teaches them a song, which is to be a warning. They're supposed to teach their descendants and their children and children's children this song. It's supposed to remain with them as a warning, and God calls it a witness. Most of chapter 32 is this song. The song starts by affirming God's justice and uprightness and quickly moves to talking about Israel's unfaithfulness. It describes how God has cared for and guided Israel and how Israel has forsaken God for idols and demons. It describes God giving Israel over to famine, plague, and especially to the sword of the enemy. Moses is anticipating the exile to Babylon 800 years before it happened. But the song says, lest these enemies think they have defeated Israel by their own power and by the power of their own false gods, God will again have compassion on Israel and turn the full fury of his wrath upon Israel's enemies, whose gods are worthless. And God says in verse 39,

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God beside me. I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

This is the word of the Lord. As part of a song, this verse is written in a poetic style. Here we have a couplet where God declares something about who he is, followed by a triplet, which is really kind of a couplet with a kicker, where he applies this truth about who he is to his relationship with us, his creatures. So first, what does God say about himself?

Even I am he, and there is no God beside me.

" Here God is addressing Israel's enemies who think their false gods have given them victory over Israel. Maybe they think Israel's God is a real God, but it's just one among many gods, and their gods are, well, they seem to have triumphed over Israel, so what does that say? So he's addressing enemies who have one view of who God is. But the words are, for the benefit of Israel, who is also being warned against and who we know will fall into idolatry. Thus Israel and the nations alike are to heed this truth about God. I am he. I, even I, am he. Grammatically, that's a strange sentence. We might say, who? The he is a pronoun without an antecedent. So if my wife were to ask me to get it out of the fridge and prepare it and warm it up for dinner, I'd say, get what out of the fridge? You didn't tell me what we're talking about. He says, I am he. And if you look back a couple of verses, there isn't a question that God asks and then answers it with I am he. So he could have said something like, to the pagan idolatress, people who had captured Israel, who is it who gave Israel into your hand in the first place and then answered that with, I am he? But he doesn't do that. I am he is an answer without a question. It ought to remind us of a similar statement that God made to Moses on Mount Horeb. I am who I am. Well, technically anyone can say that. Grammatically, It's a tautology. Grammatically it tells us nothing and yet it tells us everything. Perhaps it is the most profound sentence when uttered by God, the most profound sentence that has ever been uttered. I rather think it is. I think I am he is doing something similar here. I think God puts this answer without a question here because it is the answer to every question. Who is it who gave Israel into the enemy's hand? See now that I am he. Who is it who brought Israel out of Egypt and made them a nation in the first place? See now that I am he. Who is it who created humanity? I am he. Who created the universe? I am he. Who is to be worshipped? I am he. Who is to be feared? I am he. Who makes known the end from the beginning? I am he. We can ask the questions God asks Job.

Who has cleft a channel for the torrents of rain? Who has put wisdom in the inward parts? Who can number the clouds by wisdom? Who provides for the raven its prey?

I am he. I am he. I am he. There is no other God. There is no other refuge, no one else to fear, no one else to trust, no other judge, no other savior, no other power in heaven or on earth that he has not created and that does not exist at his pleasure. I am he. I, even I. The repetition of that word I hammers home the point that God is the be all and end all of existence. See now, see now that I am he. What is this see now? It is a command because God commands all people to acknowledge who he is. It is an invitation. This song is given to God's covenant people, the people whom he has revealed himself to and with whom he has entered into a relationship, not because of their own merit, Deuteronomy is very clear about that, but because of his sovereign choice and he invites them to know him, to see him, and it is a declaration. Because willing or not, all people, even the proudest, mightiest emperors, will be brought to see God's absolute dominance. Some, like Nebuchadnezzar, will be made to see it while they still draw breath in this age, willingly or unwillingly. And in the age to come, every eye will see him. Every knee will bow before the God who is he. Now after the couplet about God's character, we have a triplet that talks about God's relationship to those he has created. It starts with two parallel lines,

I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal.

These express the same idea that God is utterly sovereign over life and death, health and sickness, pain and comfort. This comports with what is taught throughout scripture. You know, in Job, even when Satan takes everything away from Job, Satan did it, but Job says

the Lord gives and the Lord has taken away.

And we're told that Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. Job attributed it to God. Even when an evil army from a pagan empire is ransacking Israel, it is God who has brought the death and destruction. And when that pagan empire is sacked by another pagan empire, that is God's judgment on Israel's enemies, and when a pagan emperor decides to send Jews back to rebuild Jerusalem, it is God restoring his people. These words, given in the context of Israel's faithlessness and God's judgment on them, as well as God's judgment on Israel's enemies, are deeply sobering, especially with that third line thrown in,

there is none who can deliver out of my hand.

And yet these same words are echoed in the exuberantly joyful triumphant prayer of Hannah when God gives her a son, the prophet Samuel. In 1 Samuel 2, 6, Hannah says,

the Lord kills and brings to life. He brings down to Sheol and raises up.

Hannah likely knew Moses' song by heart and was drawing from it in her hymn of joyful praise, a hymn that Mary in turn drew from as she sang her own song when God gave her the child Jesus. How can something that is so sobering, dreadful, and awe-inspiring here in Moses' song be used in such a joyful, exuberant, triumphant song by Hannah? What we rejoice in and what we fear in God are the same. We used to go just and talked about God's simplicity. That's what we see here. There is not a part of God that we fear and a part of God that we rejoice in. There's not a just part of God and a merciful part. No, our God is one and we cannot properly rejoice in him without fearing him or vice versa. Now, if you are like me, then when you glimpse the holiness, power, majesty, and sovereignty of God on display here, you become aware of your own filthiness. And if, as we are told, there is none who can deliver from God's hand, then how can we be saved from God's dreadful judgment? Well, if no one can deliver us from God, the God who says, I am he, then only God himself can be our deliverer. Who is our deliverer? See now that I am he. Jesus, the incarnate son of God, became a man, a man, one of us. There's a phrase we need to delete from our vocabulary, only human, or to err is human, or there is no perfect human being. That's a lie. Is there a perfect human being? There is one who can say, I am he. And Jesus did say, I am he. He said that phrase, actually he said I am. It's translated I am he because it was an answer to a question, an implied question maybe. When did he say it? The question was who is the man, where is the man these Roman soldiers are coming to kill? And Jesus said at that point,

I am he. So let these men go.

Jesus put himself in between us and judgment. He put himself between us and the wrath of God. And he was our savior. He bore God's wrath on the cross. And you know what's funny about this verse in Deuteronomy? Why is I kill and I make alive parallel with I wound and I heal? Which comes first, wounding or healing? Wounding comes first. You can't heal if there's no wound. But which comes first, coming to life or death? Naturally, we'd say coming to life comes first and then death. But the structure of this verse and the parallel with wounding and healing hint at the opposite order. They hint at death and resurrection. And if the death, the killing, is God's judgment, then Christ has been judged on our behalf. Isaiah 53 10 says,

it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

I kill. And if we, and we are united with him in his death, if we put our faith in him, if we're baptized into Christ, we're baptized into his death. And then God says, I make alive. And if we are united with Christ in his death, then we are raised to eternal life with him. Colossians 3, 4 says,

Christ is our life.

God kills and God makes alive. All right, I guess I should talk about applications now. So what is the application? Well, that's easy. When this verse contains a direct command, see now. We talked about how that's a command and an invitation and a declaration. And so Christian, as your brother, I admonish you by the word of God given to us today to see that God is he. Give no part of your heart to any other. I invite you to rejoice, to rejoice with trembling, but to rejoice as his treasured people that your God is he and there is no other God. And I declare that all of you in this room, all in Charlottesville, in the United States and in the whole world will see that our God is he and the Lord will vindicate his people. Perhaps you are not a Christian or perhaps you're not sure. Hey, you're here in church and it's not even a Sunday morning. That's pretty devout, right? But maybe your parents dragged you here, your kids dragged you here, your spouse, but you didn't kick and scream too much. But maybe this church is, if anything, just one area in your life among several. Maybe God to you is just one area of your life among a bunch of different things you've got going on. Maybe sort of like those pagans may have seen God as one God among a whole group of gods, maybe he has his place, but he's just one God among several. God commands you to see that God is he. There is no God beside him. Nothing else in your life or in your heart can compare to the God who kills and makes alive, the God who wounds and who heals, who is the source of everything else that you love. God commands you to see that God is he. And God invites you, I invite you, to see, to know God's supremacy, power, and sovereignty as something to fear and to rejoice in, to be part of his people whom he will vindicate and who his enemies he will vanquish. How? How do you become part of his people? By trusting in Christ. Again, by being baptized into Christ, baptized into his death to trust him and by faith to be raised up with him. And lastly, I declare that you will see, God will show you. If he is merciful to you, it will happen while you still draw breath, but if not, then on the last day, when every knee bows before Jesus Christ, you will see that God is he and that there is no other. And lastly, a word of caution, whether you're a Christian or not, don't let your takeaway from this or any other passage that talks about God in this way, be that God is scary, but the cross makes God not scary. The cross makes God even scarier. The God who graciously invites us to embrace him as our father is the God who kills and makes alive, who wounds and who heals, the God out of whose hand no one can deliver, the only God, the God who is he. This is the God who delivered his own people into the hands of their enemies for a time. The God who puts us through trials, who gives, takes away, and owns our life, our health, our wealth, our very being. This is the God who vindicates his people and whose crushing wrath comes upon his enemies. What can we say to this? What can we do but cry out with Paul,

behold now the kindness and severity of God.

And when I behold that, I learn just a little bit better what it means to fear the Lord. Will you pray with me? God, we stand in awe of you. We praise you for who you are, that you are he and that there is no God beside you. We acknowledge that you kill and make alive, that you wound and you heal, and that there is none who can deliver out of your hand. We thank you for Christ. We thank you for the hope of the resurrection. We thank you for providing salvation for us so that we can know you and see and even rejoice in who you are. Help us to fear you as we should. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.