God is Faithful

Good morning. It has been encouraging to hear so many tell me they're excited about Deuteronomy. As you should be. It's God's expounding upon and explaining the law to a generation so that they would worship Him and follow Him. It's one of the books that explains to us God's great love for us. As we begin the formal chapter-by-chapter study of Deuteronomy, well, this is a hard one to begin with. As we're excited to hear about God's love, God's law, it begins with a great warning. It begins with a great warning. It warns us of our sin. And so we begin the study, I'm thankful with excitement, but we also need to begin the study with a desire to be corrected, a desire to have our worship and our love for God purified. So, will you pray with me? Father, we thank You that we can come to Your Word. We thank You that Your Word always reveals to us our sin. It reveals to us who You are. How can we repent so we can worship You more faithfully? Bless us as a church as we study Your Word together. Refine us, Almighty God, May your Holy Spirit be moving among us, teaching us. Help us, Lord, to know how to stir one another up to good works and to love you more. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Last week we did a big picture overview of the book of Deuteronomy. We saw some themes traced through Genesis and Exodus and Deuteronomy. God's one big story. We saw God's love, God's law, God's promise of land. We also saw man's rebellion against God, man's grumbling against God, and man's constant worship of idols. If you look at Deuteronomy 1, and if you're using a Pew Bible, you can find this on page 145. Again, if you do not have a Bible, please take this with you. These are the words of life. Moses has gathered the second generation He's gathered them and He's going to give three orations. The book of Deuteronomy consists of three orations. They've been wandering around for four decades, for 40 years. It's been 40 years since God delivered Israel from Egypt. It's been 40 years since God gave Israel the Law. It's been 40 years waiting for that first generation to die. because they failed to trust God. They've been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Now God is speaking again. Moses is pastoring. He's parenting. He's seeking to lead that next generation to be faithful, unlike their parents. A reminder of the overall structure of Deuteronomy. Again, the three basic sermons. I think my sermons are long. One sermon was chapter 5 through 29, or 28 rather, sorry, 28. Chapter 1 through 4, this is Moses declaring what God has done. It's the history of grace. Chapters 5 through 28, what God expects. This is grace and law. And then chapters 29 through 30, how to return after you have failed. grace to repent. So, let's look at the first sermon, the first oration of Moses. This is chapters 1-4. If you read it, I encourage you to read it in its entirety. Notice that it's in reverse historical order. It begins with the rebellion, Kardash-Purnia, and then it talks about all the kings God destroyed, and then it talks about the law, and then it talks about the deliverance from Egypt. Chapter 1, how I blessed you when you rebelled against me. Chapter 2 and 3, how I battled for you, how I went to war for you. Then Chapter 4, it's a summary. Now listen, listen, so that you might obey. We're going to learn a lot of things, many things about God and ourselves, but I've structured the sermon around these three things we will learn about God. First, God's faithfulness. First, God's faithfulness. This is verses 1 through 8. Second, God's blessing. This is verses 9 through 18. God's faithfulness, then God's blessing. Finally, God's command. God's command. And this is the remainder of the chapter. There's really much more we'll learn about God. Like, He's a warrior. We're going to learn a lot about ourselves. We rebel. We murmur. We fear. We have no reverence for God. We're forgetful. Let's look to our first section. God's faithfulness. God's faithfulness. Verses 1 through 8. These are the words that Moses spoke to all Israel beyond the Jordan in the wilderness in the Arabah opposite Suf, between Paran and Topal, Laban, Hazaroth, Dizahab. It is 11 days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kardash Barnea. Got through that. Notice, setting in the 40th year, 40 years, on the first day of the 11th month Moses spoke to the people of Israel according to all the Lord had given him in commandment to them. After he defeated Sihon, the king of Amorites, who lived in Heshphan, and Og, the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth, and in Eldorah, beyond the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses undertook to explain this law, saying, the Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Turn and take your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites. To all the neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country, in the lowland, in the Negev, by the sea coast, in the land of the Canaanites, in Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. See, I have set the land before you. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob, to give it to them and to their offspring after them." So verses 1 through 5 it explains the setting. He's gathered that second generation. They're now gathered to hear the orations and Moses explains the law and he begins with the rebellion of the generation previous. Verse 6 is really reciting word by word what God had already said to them in Numbers 13 and 14. This is, Deuteronomy, the second law. This is God retelling the story that took place in Numbers 13 through 14. I want us to see two things about God's faithfulness in this passage. First, God is faithful to speak to his people. God is faithful to speak to his people. Verse 1, these are the words that Moses spoke. Verse 3, these are the commandments. Verse 5, Moses undertook to explain this law. There's words, there's commandments, there's law. These three things are synonymous. The law isn't just the do's and don'ts. The law is the promises. How did the Ten Commandments begin? The Lord your God who took you, who delivers you from slavery. God speaks. He reveals who He is. He reveals His will to us. He reveals who we are. Do not take this for granted. The most basic truth are God's not a dumb idol. Our God speaks. A God who speaks wants to be known. A God who speaks wants us to know Him so we can love Him. His law and His words Everything God says is good. His restrictions, His boundaries, His commandments, His prescriptions, His prohibitions, His instructions, His promises. Every word is good. They have the promises, the do's and the don'ts. Now, if you look at any era throughout Christian history, it's either an overemphasis on one of these and ignoring the others. Right? So, if we only emphasize the promises, then we just talk about the free grace to sin. If we only look at the do's and don'ts, we become legalists who don't understand grace. No, all three of these have to be understood together. The promises, the do's, the don'ts. The promises, because we need to be saved from our sin. We need a deliverer. We need someone who will act for us. The do's, because we need direction. We need to know how to live, how to follow the don'ts, because we're sinners who love sin. We need to be told what not to do, because what is so natural to our hearts and to our love is against God. God's Word, His Law, it tells us about Him, tells us about ourselves. In the Psalms, we hear songs, I love your law, I delight in your law. Do we delight in His law? Do we look to everything He says, what He says not to do, what He says to do? He says just stop and trust. Do we delight in that? It's all good for us. And in following what Brian prayed, following Gospel of John, John 1 18, God has spoken through Moses, but now He's spoken through His own Son. The Word we have that He's spoken is so much better. The second thing I want us to see in this section is that not only is God faithful to speak, God is faithful to keep His promises that He has spoken. Look at verse 8. This is a central idea throughout the entire book. This is recording what he said to the generation before, but this is the same command he's giving to this people, the second generation. See, I have set the land before you. I'm giving it to you. It's there. Go in and take possession. I've promised it to your fathers. I've promised it to you. It's there. Go and take it. God told His people He would give them a land. God told Abraham in Genesis 15, you will be sojourners, you'll be slaves, I'll deliver you, and then your people will take the land. He's fulfilling His promise. He's fulfilling His promise that His people would have this land. He is keeping His promise. There's really three promises we can think about together here. I will be your God. You'll be my people. I'll give you the land." These three things are all related. God put His people in His land. These three things all come together for Israel to be the nation and the light to the nations that He had called them to be. They needed to be His people in His land. His people meaning they're worshiping Him, they're obeying Him, they're keeping the commandments. they need to obey first to take the land let's look to our second our second section God's blessing God's blessing verses 9 through 18 at that time I said to you I'm not able to bear you by myself the Lord your God had multiplied you and behold you are today as numerous as the stars of the heavens Now, at some level we could think, alright, there's so many that Moses can't handle the load. He needs help because there's so numerous. May the Lord, the God of our fathers, make you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you as He promised you. How can I bear by myself the weight and burden of you and your strife? It's not just that there's many of them. It's that there's many sinners. Choose for yourselves, choose for your tribes wise, understanding, and experienced men, and I'll appoint them as your heads, and you answered me the thing that you have spoken is good for us to do, so I took the heads of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you. Commandments of thousands, commanders of hundreds, commanders of fifties, commanders of tens, and officers throughout your tribes. And I charge you, judges, at that time, hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God's. In the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it. And I commanded you at that time all the things that you should do." So it's not just that there are too many. There are too many sinners. There's too much sin. They have so much strife and bickering and complaining and murmuring. They set their way at the Red Sea. They're already complaining. In the midst of the plagues that are coming on Egypt to deliver them from their slavery, they're already complaining. This is a grumbling people and Moses had enlisted help. Now notice the characteristics that he looks for in a leader. They're men of wisdom, understanding, and experience. We see this in verse 13. We also see they need to be impartial. We see here that God has set apart men to judge according to His law. These are things that we should look for in our leaders. Men of wisdom, understanding, and experience. We also need to see here, God always makes provision for our sins. So, in the Gospel of John, we saw that He provided the land that would take away the sins of the world. He has forgiven us of our sins. But He also makes provision to protect us so that our sin doesn't run rampant, so that our sin doesn't go unchecked, so that our sin doesn't go uncorrected. God makes provision so that we are not as sinful as we would be apart from His grace. Let's move on to our third and final and longer section. God's command. God's command. He has said, go and take the land. Again, this is recounting the event that takes place in Numbers 13 through 14. This story is, again, is a loud warning God is trying to lead a people, He is leading a people that is rebelling against Him. There's a number of stories in Scripture that really highlight key sins. As we can go to the golden calf, that is the story, that is the event that really captures our love for idols. There's the cross, that is the event that demonstrates our sin the clearest because that is our hatred for God who loves us. Here, The rebellion at Kadesh, Benia, reveals our stubborn self-will and a lack of trust in God. It reveals our rebellion. Let me try to summarize this story and then we'll walk through it step-by-step. Let's try to first see the big picture. So I'm just going to kind of highlight the transitional verses so we can get the big picture. Verse 19, we set out from Horeb. Verse 21, God said, go, take the land. Verse 26, yet you would not go up. You rebelled. Verse 29, Moses says, do not be afraid. Verse 32, in spite of this, you did not believe. Verse 34, the Lord was angry and he sent you back into the wilderness. Verse 41, then you answered, now we'll go up and fight. Verse 45, God would not listen to you. Let's walk through a more ordered plot line. First, our setting, verses 19 through 25. Our setting, verses 19 through 25. Then we set out from Horeb and went through all the great and terrifying wilderness that you saw on the way to the hill country of the Amorites that the Lord our God commanded us and we came to Kadesh Barnea And I said to you, you have come to the hill country, the Amorites, which the Lord, our God, is giving to us. See, the Lord your God has set the land before you. Go up, take possession, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has told you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Then all of you came near me and said, let us send men before us, that they may explore the land for us and bring us word again of the way by which we must go and the cities into which we shall come. The things seemed good to me. And I took twelve men from you, one man from each tribe. And they turned and went up into the hill country and came into the valley of Eskel and spied it out. And they took in their hands some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us and brought us word again and said, it is good land that the Lord our God has given us. God leads them up to the land. They want to spy it out. They send spies. They want to go look at the land. The report is in this account. Only that the land is good. The land is good, as God promised. It flows with milk and honey. Look, they brought back figs. And God's not listening. Capture this. They refuse to listen to the command to go up. They refuse to listen to the command to don't go up. They come back and they weep to the God who heard them weeping when they were slaves in Egypt and they're literally with the money right now because they've constantly rebelled. They've constantly been hard-headed and hard-hearted. They've constantly been stiff-necked. God has said, I am no longer listening. This is devastating. The conclusion is, you're going to stay in the wilderness. You're going to stay here for many days. I wanted to walk you through this story because this is a fantastic story. It reveals our sin. When we think about those people, we ask, what else could God have done for you? He's done everything for you. He's stretched out His mighty right arm. He's been patient with you. He's not struck you off the face of the earth as He should have ten different times. You've given credit to a golden calf for the deliverance. Still, He's been patient with you. He sits in place to deliver you. What more evidence do you need that God loves you and is going to fight for you and you can trust Him? Now, logically, we can look back and judge these people pretty easily. We have to realize that their sin is what makes them illogical. Sin makes you stupid. We become like what we worship, and when we're not worshiping the God of wisdom, truth, and righteousness, and love, we become stupid. It's easy to see their sin because that splinter is so obvious. The problem is we oftentimes have a hard time finding that log. We become what we worship. We need to see that we're worshipping the one loving, wise, and righteous God and see that our actions are reflecting that. They are not worshippers. They're rebels. Let's just walk through their rebellion, step by step. The rebellion has three aspects. First, they murmur. They grumble. They grumble against God. You judge a tree by its fruit. Words are important. God speaks to us. We're supposed to be listening and His words are supposed to be forming our heart. What comes out of our mouth for? Thanksgiving and praise to God or complaints? I realize we're coming out of Thanksgiving and this is not why we're going after this particular theme. It's because we're either going to complain or we're going to give thanks. Romans 1.21 makes it very clear. They were given over to their sin because they did not give thanks to God, they did not honor God. Sin begins with a lack of gratitude. Think about Israel. Did they ever thank God? Did they look to God and say, thank you for delivering me from slavery? Our sin begins with a lack of gratitude. We think we deserve it. We think God should do more than He does. This is why we're constantly called to remember. We're called to remember what God has done. We're called to gather together and stir one another up regularly. The second aspect of their sin. This one's hard. They murmur, and it's what they murmur. Verse 27, Because the Lord hated us. They accuse God of hating them. This has to be the Old Testament equivalent of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is saying that Satan did something the Holy Spirit did or is giving the wrong credit to the wrong person. Here they're saying to God, the greatest act of love before Christ came down was the accident. And they're saying you did that because you hated us. There's nothing more painful than to hear somebody say, you must have done that out of hate when you know your primary motivation was love. When a spouse tries to give a gift and the recipient throws it back in their face thinking there's some ulterior motive. When a parent tries to protect their child from a sinful situation and the child responds with anger, you must hate me because you don't want me to have fun. When a friend questions your motivation, because they don't agree with your actions? For instance, here, God has demonstrated His love effectively and fully, and His people throw it back in His face and they say, it's because you hated us. When all He has done is love them. Really, as Moses alludes to, God cares like a child. Later in Deuteronomy, He'll say, God disciplined me like a child. You see, a lot of life is all parenting, It reminds me of a teenager. They're having a teenager fit. No, not like our teenagers. It reminds me of how I was as a teenager. To say I was a foolish adolescent is an understatement. I was a juvenile delinquent. I remember saying things like this. My parents would want to protect me from sin. From pursuing impure things. And I would think, why do you hate me? I would say, why do you hate me? All along, they were seeking to love. They were loving by protecting. How little we appreciate that kind of love. There's many things we can learn about parenting from Deuteronomy. The third thing we see about their rebellion, they fear man They have no reverence for God. There's no worship in this book from these Israelites. They fear those who oppose God. They do not fear God. From the funeral, a woman at Joshua's funeral, the second line of amazing grace stood up to me that's never stood up before, from studying this, I believe. It says, Grace taught me how to fear. Grace my fears first relieved. What is Newton saying here? It's only by grace that we have a proper reverence for God. It's only by grace that our wrong fears are dismantled. Grace teaches us to properly fear God, and it relieves all those other fears that are false. Our fears really reveal our idols? What we're afraid of losing, that's what is our idol? But we should be revering as God and God alone. As we think about these three sinful acts, we see God's command, go. They say, no, we're going to rebel against you. We're murraying against you. You hate us. We have no reverence for you. What does this teach us today? We need to look at God's judgment. He tells them you're not going to go into the promised land. This is a tragic irony. Remember in Exodus, when they're enslaved, they're multiplying so much that Pharaoh just scares them? Now that they're free and they're in the wilderness, it's all about death. God is going to wait 40 years and the only cry, the only noise, is that of mourning because death is the theme of these 40 years because of their rebellion It's a turning point in their history. They've been shit back. The other judgment. He will not listen to them. This is terrifying. The God who speaks is the God who listens. To think he would stop listening. Friends, this is a warning for us. And it's a warning for us because we should be afraid of our own sin. Because this is our sin. Our murmuring. Our accusing God of hate. It's a warning because we know from the passage Andrew read earlier, 1 Corinthians 10, all these things happen as a warning for us. Most of all, we know it's a warning because of Hebrews 3 and 4. Hear what our author says in Hebrews 3. He's going to quote a psalm, and then he's going to recite our own story. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says today, If you hear his voice, do not harden your heart, said then the rebellion. On the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years, therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart. They have not known my way, that I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. End quote of Psalm 95. Now our preacher picks this up to apply. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have all come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence. Firm to the end, as it is said, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart, says in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But to those who were disobedient. So we see. that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us fear, lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. If you're not a Christian this morning, today is a day that you can enter the rest of Jesus Christ. Every human being had refused God, had rebelled against God, and resisted Him. And God sent His Son, so that instead of us being judged for rebellion, His Son, Jesus Christ, died on a cross. And it wasn't just the excruciating pain of the cross that day. It was the judgment of God upon Jesus Christ, because He was judged for our sins. If you're not a believer today, if you're still in your sin, you will face a judgment. unless you hear his voice. You hear the voice of God calling, come to me and I'll forgive you. Come to me and I will give you pardon. Believe in my son Jesus Christ who took your sin upon himself, who took the wrath you deserve. If you believe in him, you can be set free. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, that is what you must hear and believe, and it's the only way into His rest. Otherwise, you will die and you will enter into His judgment. Do not leave here without seeking that rest. Christian, this warning is more specifically for us, because we are so quick to presume upon the grace of God to excuse our sin. We have to stop saying one more taste of sin. Tomorrow I'll repent. Stop presuming upon the grace of Christ to permit sin, to excuse sin, to protect sin. Sin destroys. Christ gave us that it's free. We've been called to stop walking in the trespass and to walk in the good works that Christ set before us. Today, hear his voice, repent of that sin that entangles you and ensnares you and rejoice in Jesus Christ. I know how you're thinking, because I think the same way. Just one more day tomorrow. No, it's clear today if you hear his voice. Set aside that sin and enter into that worship. Quit saying, tomorrow I'll repent. Tomorrow I'll seek God. Quite frankly, this is what is clear. If God is not worthy of your worship today, He's not going to be worthy tomorrow. If God is not worthy of every bit of worship and love for you to follow Him at every command and precept and prohibition, He's not going to be worthy tomorrow if He's not worthy today. Look to your sin and see it for what it is. It's destroying you. It's keeping you from the joy of Christ. It's keeping you from the rest that Christ has purchased for you. Do not presume upon the grace. Do not be presumptuous or arrogant that God will continue to give you the grace to repent. Repent today. Do not leave here. without talking to someone about the sin that you need to set aside to kill that keeps you from enjoying Jesus Christ and rejoicing in Him. Let me give the final application from Hebrews 4 by reading verse 14. Let this encourage you. Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, Let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Let's go to the throne together. Father, we thank you that we can have confidence in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray for everyone here, Lord. Whether we be new believers, because of this moment, or believers that have been walking with you for some time, Lord, I pray your Holy Spirit would work in us to show us the sins we protect. Help us, Lord, to no longer be afraid of losing them. Help us, Lord, have a reverence for You that longs to be rid of them, so that we worship You and we love You, because You are worthy of all our worship and all of our love. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.