Defining The Relationship: Deuteronomy 5-6:3

On March 1, 2014 I married my husband, a man, before we said yes, we both stood face to face, holding hands as we waited for someone to hand us our rings, once they did, my pastor He started talking and made me repeat after him. a list of vows a variety of commitments he was choosing to make to my husband in light of the Covenant we were entering into. I promised to love him for better or for worse in sickness and in health until death do us part. This pact was not made because of the vows it was made because of the

relationship

that existed between us and the vows simply defined the terms, clarified how this pact was supposed to be from that day forward and, if it held, it would surely us would maintain, but as we all know that vows are broken all the time and when the same

relationship

that gave life to the vows is at play in Deuteronomy 5, we are hearing Moses' second sermon to Israel, this Israel, as we know, is not the same Israel that left Egypt all along.

Many of them had died in the desert because of their unbelief and now it is their children who are about to enter the promised land but before doing so Moses takes the time to talk about the Covenant that God made with most of them. They weren't even there. born yet or were just children when God established his covenant relationship with Israel but his promises to the previous generation did not die when they did this relationship would exist for generations and beyond, but this current generation would do well to have the terms of this relationship defined They needed to know what this pact was supposed to be like from that day forward and how, if kept, it would keep them.

Let's open our Bibles and turn our phones to Deuteronomy 5. I'll start at verse 1 and Moses called together all of Israel and said. Listen to them, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your ears today and you will learn them and be careful to observe them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Hara, not with our fathers the Lord made this covenant, but with us who are all here alive today the Lord spoke with you face to face on the mountain how he was in the midst of the fire while I stood between you and the Lord and you at that time to declare to them the word of the Lord because you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up to the mountain, he said: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage , you will have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself, you shall not make for yourself any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth, you shall not bow down before them or serve them. I, the Lord your God and the jealous God, visit the iniquity of the father on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but by showing unbreakable love to thousands of those who love me and keep my Commandments, they will not take the name of Jehovah. God in vain because Jehovah will not hold him innocent who takes his name in vain, then observe that Sabbath day to sanctify it as Jehovah your God commanded you six days you will work and do all your work except the seventh day is a Sabbath to Jehovah your God, in You shall not do any work with him, whether it is your son or your daughter, or your male or female servant, or your ox, or your donkey, or any of your animals, or any foreigner who is within your territory. doors so that your male and female servant may rest, as well as you, and you will remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep On the Sabbath day, honor your father and your mother as Jehovah your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that Jehovah your God is giving you, you shall not kill and you shall not commit adultery and you shall not steal and you shall not give false testimony against your neighbor and you shall not covet your neighbor's wife and you shall not desire your neighbor's house his field or his male or female servant his ox or his donkey or any other of your neighbors these words the Lord spoke to all your assembly on the mountain, from the middle of the fire, the cloud and the thick darkness with a loud voice and did not add more and wrote them to establish a tone is a touchstone and you gave them to me and as soon as you heard the voice in the middle of the darkness while the mountain was burning with fire, all the chiefs of your tribes and your elders came to me and said: Behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness and we have heard his voice in the midst of the fire this day we have seen God speak to man and man still lives now, therefore why should we die because this great fire will consume us?

If we hear more the voice of the Lord our God we will die because who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the Living God speaking in the midst of the fire as we have done and I still lived, come closer and listen to everything? that the Lord our God will tell us and will speak to us everything that the Lord our God will speak to you and we will hear it and we will do it and the Lord heard your words when you spoke to me and the Lord told me I have heard the words of this people that they have spoken to you they have reason and everything they have said oh if they had such a heart to always fear me and keep all my commandments so that it would be good for them and their descendants to always go and tell them to return to their tents but you stay here with me and I will tell them all the commandments and the statutes and the rules that you will teach them so that they may obey them in the land that I give them for possession.

Be careful, therefore, to do as the Lord your God has commanded you, do not turn to the right or to the left, you will walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, you will live and it will be well with you. you and so that you may live many years in the land that you will possess I am going to read chapter six verses one to three now this is the commandment the statutes and the rules that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you so that you can fulfill them in the land to which You are going to go over to possess it, so that you may fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son, keeping all his statutes and his commandments that I command you all the days of your life, so that your days may be, stay here, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to fulfill them, so that it goes well with you and you multiply greatly, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in the land flowing with milk and honey, let us pray God, thank you for Your Scriptures I pray that we hear them, learn them and do them in the name of Jesus.

Amen and what we just read you see God meeting the people, God giving them his law and Moses becoming his mediator, the main impulse. This being the main idea which is that a covenant relationship with God requires obedience, in this passage there are four themes that stand out to me and that I like for us to see: they are the law of the Lord, the fear of the Lord. the mediator of the Lord and the high standard of the Lord let us revert one again, he says and Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: listen, O Israel, to the statutes and the rules that I speak today in your audience and you will learn them and be careful. do them if you notice that with everything Moses is about to say, he doesn't just want them to hear it and he doesn't just want them to learn it, but he wants Israel to hear the statutes and rules, learn the statutes and rules, and make the statutes and rules This sermon that he is about to deliver is meant to be heard so that it can be lived in verse 3 he says that the Lord our God made a covenant with us here, not with our fathers, that the Lord do this. covenant but with us who are all here today some believe that this reference to our fathers is speaking of the patriarchs to whom the covenants that were made with them were different from the one that God made with Israel others take Moses saying that the Lord made no make a covenant with them as a Hebrew idiom as if to say that the covenant God made with the previous generation included the current generation, that is, even if they were not at the foot of the mountain, but God spoke 40 years before, he has the same number of them.

God as his parents were God, whichever way you choose to look at it, one thing is clear is that God wants a relationship with a nation of Israel that will continue for generations after the previous generation left Egypt three months later, to be exact, They camped. In the Sinai Desert, his God called Moses from the mountain and told him to tell Israel how they saw what he had done to the Egyptians and how he bored them with eagle wings and brought them to himself. . God goes on to say that if these people who are now his people obey his voice and keep his covenant, then they will be his most precious possession among all people and a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to which the people responded to everything the Lord He said, we will do it.

Do it then God tells Moses that he is going to go down to the mountain in the sight of the people but before doing so they must spend a couple of days consecrating themselves because on the third day God would come I want you to imagine that you are them and today is the morning of the third day You are at the foot of the mountain waiting for God to appear and then you begin to hear thunder you see lightning but there is no rain you see a thick cloud and there is a kind of darkness that is felt on earth because after all it is morning time and then you hear a trumpet but there is no human being playing it and with all the images and sounds you begin to tremble because you recognize that what you are experiencing is something holy on the mountain it begins to tremble smoke rises from the top of it because God has descended over it and the fire and that trumpet that's being blown by no one in sight gets louder and louder and louder and then God starts speaking and what's the first thing he says verse 6 I am the Lord your God who tells you brought out of the land of Egypt from the house of slavery imagine how it must have felt to experience the terrible holiness of God in that way knowing that you know that God is completely different from any of the so-called gods of Egypt and assuming that because he is so different from us or anything we have seen is known and surely this God will remain distant from us, but then to hear him say that it is not only the Lord but he is the Lord our God who is apart and yet extremely personal Yahweh is their God why would they have done to deserve it clearly nothing he is their God because he made them his people how he did when he took them out of Egypt with the sole purpose of bringing them to himself and he has done the same with you when you ask the Church when he rescued you from the slavery of sin why clearly you have done nothing to deserve a God like him especially those of us who gathered a plethora of worthless idols and believed them more worthy of glory than the Living God but the Living God is also a loving God who for no other reason than his glorious grace rescued you so that he could have you as his own when God goes down the mountain before Israel, shows up and reminds them of what he has done for them before giving them the law if he had decided to go directly to the Ten Commandments of Israel and you probably could have been tempted to do it.

I believe that this law is what will make the Lord your God or, to put it another way, that this law is what will create the relationship between God and Israel, that perhaps if all it says is obey, then God will will bring himself, then God will bring them. Bear them on eagle's wings, then God will save them, but we know from Exodus 19 and verse 6 that God redeemed his people before they obeyed. Remember that is the correct word. The exodus journey occurred three months before God gave the law of it. So know that the law was not given to a lost people but to a redeemed people, therefore, you must obey, not to obtain salvation, but you must obey in the light of the salvation you have already received.

They have been taken out of the house of slavery and into a covenant. relationship with Yahweh the Lord who is also very much your God God gives you what we know as the Ten Commandments if your mothers were like my grandmother then you grew up seeing the Ten Commandments framed in the kitchen as if Leviticus and the law were just pretty or something like that, it's like a strange kind of reparation situation, but anyway from the mountain God gives his law to his people in his own voice. Moses had been God's open spokesman up to that point and will be so afterwards, but to show the extremely important laws and to give credence to why they must be obeyed God speaks the commandments to them himself the first four in verses 7 to 15 they have no other gods they do not make graven images they do not take the name of the Lord in vain they observe the Sabbath and sanctify themselves are summarized in how one loves God and the rest verses 16 to 21 about a father and a mother do not murder do not commit adultery do not steal do not bear false witness do not covet all of them are summarized as loving your neighbor.

Now, the word that comes to mind when reading the Ten Commandments that God is giving to His covenant people is why are these particular things so close to God's heart that He would cause Him to list them? before Israel to be heard and lived, the typical approach to analyzing the Ten Commandments is to delve into the vertical and horizontal nature of the commandments as they relate to us: us loving God vertically us loving people horizontally, but I believe that By studying the commandments we can also see how these commandments relate to God. What he commands has everything to do with how he is glorified and what glorifies him most is what will be in accordance with his character so to speak.Simply the Ten Commandments are also capable of telling us something about God and what is the general characteristic of God that anchors everything is His Holiness, which is the other perfection of everything, that God is the nature set apart from his person, which can be seen in the first four commandments, but in them we can also see that a God is committed to honoring his name just listen to the four Commandments again the first because you will have no other gods before me you will not make yourself a graven image you will not take the name of the Lord your God in vain he observes the Sabbath day and sanctifies it God is the only true God and must be worshiped as such God is also the invisible God on that mountain they heard his voice but they did not see any image to put a face to what has never been seen it would be clearly something that God should and would despise and his name Yahweh the name that he has revealed to Israel this name is special because God is also holy and distinct and set apart and glorious and good and great for the name of his Use the name in any way it is totally irreverent and careless is to dishonor the Lord God himself and a God is a God our God and he worked and rested so if he is their God and they are his people then just as he rested so much they God has not commanded the people to obey anything don't care and the glory of God matters to God, so the glory of God should matter to God's people.

The second set of commandments reveals something similar about God, which is that God is also committed to honoring people listen to the beginning honor your father and mother those are people I know some of us think they are aliens but they are not people You shall murder You shall not commit adultery You shall not steal You shall bear false witness You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his property Each of these commandments is about how Israel should deal with people God could have left the commandments on how we should love him but God surely knew better that his people would need guidance on how to love him and people by being a relational and self-sufficient God since he is one God and three distinct persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, have always been loving, honoring and enjoying. each other and they will be forever this God this relational God created one person Adam and put him with another person Eve and ordered them to create more people because God never intended for us to be alive and alone why because he is not but in that There is also the fact that each and every person from Adam and beyond are image bearers of the Lord their God, so when God deals with his image bearers, he intends for them to deal with each other. in the same way that the Lord your God created. family structure and cares deeply that the established authorities within a family are honored just as we saw Jesus did with the way he consistently honored the father, the Lord, their God, being loved, commands Israel to be to their neighbor what God has always been to them and to us the Lord their God will surely never murder them even though they accused him of doing so or possibly doing so.

The Lord your God has not deceived you nor will he deceive you. The Lord your God has not stolen them nor will he steal them. To them, the Lord their God has not and will never bear false witness because God, as we all know, is not a liar and God has not and will not cover anything they have as if it all did not belong to him in the first place. place God God does not have the command, he has not ordered the people to obey something that does not matter to him. All image bearers mattered to God, so all image bearers must matter to God's people and each of these commandments is a The good thing is that we are in a culture that would not agree with them.

The only good thing is the autonomy to do what you want and what you want. Having any set of rules or limitations imposed on them is a terror worth fleeing from, but Before it appears that this culture is the only one opposed to seeing God's commandments in a positive light, let us remember our own hearts and how similar it can be to Eve who decided that God's command to eat from the tree was not good, she decided that it would be best to sin and that is what happens when we decide that God's commands are not good, we conclude that because they are not good in our foolish opinion, they cannot be good for us. and if they are not good for us then clearly God was not being good to us when he gave them the accusation will always fall on God because the commandments are not good in themselves, they are good because God is and because God is. well all the time you can fully trust what he commands, even if the commandments don't feel right, it surely doesn't mean they aren't right after speaking before the entire assembly.

Verse 22 says that God wrote his words on two tables of stone. and I gave them to Moses. I love how the law was not only spoken to Israel but written for Israel. God had said many things and if you are like me sometimes I might have been a little distracted by the fact that the mountain is shaking and then I might have missed a couple of words from God, but having God's Word written down would mean for me that I would not They would have to rely entirely on memory; they would have a permanent reference point for everything God had spoken to them, but also having the Word of God written on two stone tablets that most commentators would say was made of marble would create This mental image that the Word of God was actually a fixed and permanent word, not one that should be heard from the foot of the mountain never to be thought of again but one that should always be read, learned and lived shortly after God stopped speaking the leaders of his tribes and his elders went to Moses and told him beginning in verse 24 and you said, behold, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness and we have heard his voice in the midst of the fire this day we have seen God speak to man and man still lives now, therefore why should we die because this great fire will consume us?

If we hear more the voice of the Lord our God we will die because who is there of all flesh that has heard the voice of the Living God speaking in the midst of the fire as we have done and still lived? The people have experienced God. in such a way but they are terrified as expected in all scriptures when the Living God reveals himself to a person or a group of people the immediate response is usually fear in Exodus 3 when God spoke to Moses at the burning bush the text says that Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God and judges 6 when the angel of the Lord who is believed to be a preincarnate appearance of Christ speaks to Gideon face to face the Lord tells Gideon not to afraid why because Gideon was afraid and Isaiah 6 when Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on his throne Isaiah says in response to this vision woe is me unless you think this was just an Old Testament reaction to experiencing God and Mark later that Jesus rebukes the winds! and the waves the text says the disciples were filled with fear this fear is a common response to being in the presence of God because the Lord truly is more amazing than we can imagine that word amazing is used so out of context in our vocabulary modern that when I attribute it to God some of you might think I'm just saying God is cool, but by awesome I mean that literally the word means to inspire both fear and awe, there's no way the creator of the universe wouldn't do that. be more than your created mind can imagine, especially when he is holier than you have ever been.

Between verse 24 and verse 26 there are five references to death, one on this day we have seen God speak to man and man is still alive now too, so why should he? We will die three because this great fire will consume us because if we hear more the voice of our Lord God we will die five because who was there of all flesh that heard the voice of the Living God speaking in the middle of the fire like We have in a still life why was there so much talk? of death because they had heard the voice of God and had seen his glory and greatness in such a way that for them it was the same as seeing God and they knew that seeing God meant Death no man will see the Lord and live his experience with God It was so tangible that death felt imminent.

God is that big and they were that human, so they told Moses in verse 27 that he should be one to get closer to God. do it, you have it and listen to everything that God has to say so that he then he can come and tell them with us say to the Lord, they essentially want God to be the mediator of him. God is a living God who can not only speak. but here listen to the conversation between Israel and Moses listen to their fear and their commitment to obey him God says in verse 28 I have heard the words of these people that they have spoken to you are they right in everything they have spoken or did they have a heart like this to fear me always and to keep all my commandments so that it might go well with them and their descendants forever.

I personally appreciate the fact that verse 28 is here because it immediately combats the idea that we should not fear God. There seems to be a fear of saying that God is to be feared because in doing so we somehow undermine how loving He is and make the people are less likely to believe in the gospel, but here God says that everything they have said is true and that I wish they had a heart like that whenever what kind of heart do you say well God said it I will read it again someone who fears him this is something good for God and since we are here let me ask you this question: do you fear God if you don't know how to answer it?

I'll ask you sit another way oh baby God? You see that the fear of God fuels obedience to God, why else does Philippians 2:12 tell us to work? our salvation with fear and trembling let us not assume that fear can have nothing to do with love and psalm 147 verse 11 which says that the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him and in those who hope in his unwavering love for the fear of the Lord It comes from faith in the Lord and this faith is in the love of the Lord as seen in the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ, so when I ask you if you fear God, I also ask you if you obey God and when I say or obey God also asked you, do you love God as he loved you first?

If not, it is very likely because you have not seen his glory and greatness with the eyes of faith if you have heard the gospel of Christ preached? I hear that you are reading the scriptures about Christ and you have only thought that God is just great and not that God is amazing. I encourage you to look at it again. The fear of the people moves them to commission Moses as their mediator and their teacher in verse. 27 we know that this is the case by telling Moses that they want him to come to the Lord and listen to everything that the Lord will say and that they want him to speak to them everything that the Lord speaks and in verse 31 the Lord Himself puts Moses as a mediator between him and Israel God says this to Moses in verse 30 go and tell them go back to your tents but stay here with me and I will tell you all the commandment and the statutes and the rules that I will teach them that they can do in the land that I am giving you to possess.

To mediate is to be a bridge or a connecting agent between two parties, so you have Israel here, you have God here and you have Moses, not Malcolm. in the middle' I thought it was funny apparently you didn't Moses Moses goes to God hears from God then returns to the people and tells them what the Lord says the people must hear and then obey everything they have heard Moses his Mediation definitely It points to another, much better mediator who would not only be close to God but would also be between God and those who have sinned against God because without this mediator the space between God and man would remain.

They are not holy enough to approach him and they are not God enough to cleanse themselves, they could not obey to stop being his enemies because they were born as one and would have remained that way if God did not commission the mediator to do what they They could not do it on their own, this mediator will teach them everything that God commands and, unlike Moses, he was and is able to show them exactly what God is like because he has made visible the invisible God, the one who once condescended on a mountain and the fire came.

He came down to earth in the flesh and I think we all know who this mediator is because we have all been brought closer to God thanks to him, what is his name. Amen, but before he came, Moses heard a dark picture painted of what Jesus would do. When Moses acted as mediator of Israel, it was to teach them some things. Let's read chapter 6 verses one to three. Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the rules that Jehovah your God commanded me to teach you so that you can fulfill them in the land that you are going to pass through to possess it. , then you and your son and your son will be able to fear the Lord your God, keeping all his statutes and his commandments that I command you all the days of your life and so that your days may be as long.

Let us step back to see a second Israel that has been rescued from slavery and brought into a covenant relationship with God. God initiated the Redemption of him not by any merit of his own, but on the basis of grace, from this relationship arises the law that includes the Ten. Thecommandments spoken by God himself and the rest of the law are given to Moses who then gives them to the people. This law is given to the people before they entered the land that God has promised to give them a land that they have been waiting for less than 40 years. years to enter Moses summarizes how the people are to respond to this law in verses 2 and 3 with two words here and doing so is as if he were saying yes, you have been rescued from slavery by grace, yes, you have been brought into a relationship of pact with God. yes he has redeemed you yes he has saved you yes he loves you but still demands your obedience the Word of God is not something you just listen to and walk away as if God himself had not spoken.

Obedience, of course, did not start the relationship, but obedience must be the byproduct of the relationship. It is in his act of redemption that proves that he is worth obedience because he is worth it. being trusted, God carries him on angel wings and brought them to himself and because of this, his words and his people must be heard, believed and then obeyed there in chapter 5 verse 27, the people told Moses that that It's exactly what they plan to do. Were they very jealous? They said they would obey God and here in chapter 6 verse 2 Moses explains what this obedience looks like and how long it should last.

Let me read it to you. He says in verse 1. Now these are the commandments. the statutes and precepts that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you so that you may observe them in the land to which you are going to go to possess it, so that you and your children and your children may fear the Lord your God by keeping all his statutes and his commandments that I command you every day of your life now remember that the people at this moment want to obey the Lord their God and then Moses comes and deepens their understanding of what this commitment means God wants them to obey everything always every minute hour day week month year For the rest of your lives you must keep every law of the Lord, but let me remind you of what Israel ended up doing while Moses was on the mountain of God before he could come down.

The people with the two tables that God had given them, the people became impatient, the means they had commissioned were taking too long to mediate in their opinion. 40 days was too much for them to wait to hear from the Lord, so they decided to listen to their hearts and do what they wanted. ordered, then the people made a golden calf, violating God's law of not making graven images, the people brought burnt offerings and peace offerings to this calf, breaking God's command not to serve or bow before any graven image. as God came in, some have no other gods before him and if things couldn't get worse once the plaster was made, they didn't say oh look at this golden cow we just made with our own hands, at least that would have been the truth, but instead they said: These are from your God, or Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt when God came to meet them on Mount Sinai with all the flour, the fire and all the clouds, the trumpets and the lightning, the first thing he did.

He said to them: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, but now the people have forgotten to fear the Lord and the presence of God so quickly that they have now taken the words of God and applied them to a God by his own creation, did the people keep all the statutes and commandments of God? No, did the people keep all the statutes and commandments of God all the days of his life? No, then the question should be why the Covenant that God made with his people was not completely eliminated.

Why did God's wrath not break out against them? Why didn't he completely destroy Israel and gather another people? Because they had a mediator. They had a man close to God who could stand in the gap for them. a man who interceded for them a man who was able to make atonement for the sins of the people so that God's wrath would be appeased a man who asks for forgiveness for his people I'm talking about Moses but it surely sounds like Jesus, right? because I don't know about you, but there has never been a day where I have NOT violated God's law, even when his word is so easily accessible.

I often listen and learn more than I hear by obeying the same standards God has for Israel. same standards that God has for his church it is still true that without holiness no man will see the Lord it is still true that to love Jesus is to obey him it is still true that it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the Living God but it is also true that God has provided for us a mediator who is greater than Moses even Moses could not enter the promised land because of his humanity and his imperfection but this mediator kept all the statutes of God and all the commandments of God every minute. every hour every day every week every month for every part of his life and now because of his death and resurrection we can live in the light of his life and as we do and perfectly at best he is at the right hand of God doing what who intercedes for us as any good and perfect mediator would today and forever we will be called his people because we have done he has made us his god no that is all bad we his people the annoying thing left by a second Israel was set apart by God to He himself gave them his law after proving his love, but like all humans have done, they violated his law every time.

We have all done the same thing, even when God's law is not written on tables of stone but in our hearts, but God is so good. all the time has given us Jesus and through Jesus we have entered into a new kind of relationship, a new covenant and within it you have not come to what can be touched: a burning fire and darkness and darkness and darkness and a storm and the sound of a trumpet and the voice whose words you hear is to beg that no more messages be spoken to you but that you have arrived at Mount Zion and at the city of the Living God, take care that you do not reject him who spoke in case you do not escape when you rejected him who spoke to you. warmed from death much less than what escaped us if we reject the one who warns from heaven at that moment his voice shook the earth but now he has promised if what one more time I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens for Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that then cannot and will never be shaken and so let us listen to God offer acceptable worship with reverence and fear because our God is a consuming fire today and for the rest of your life listen to God believe in God and please obey him let's pray God thank you for speaking thank you for speaking to us through your word and through your son thank you for promising us that you would never leave us or forsake us thank you because you have sent us the Holy Spirit to dwell in us so that we can do everything what you have sent us.

I pray that we continue to trust your word. I pray that we continue to trust in what your son has done for us on the cross and that you will take us where we need to go which is in you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.