Aleethia!

Deuteronomy is the last book in the Torah or Pentateuch, the last book of Moses.

In Genesis we saw the creation, the fall, God’s judgment in the flood, the call of Abraham, and the story of Joseph. This left us in Egypt.

In Exodus we were introduced to Moses. We saw the sovereign deliverance of God in bringing the Israelites out of slavery.

In Leviticus we saw the application of the theology we learned in the first two books. We saw the importance of discernment in all areas of life. We saw the primary job of priests as discerning between holy and unholy. And we saw that we are all priests under the new covenant and that no area of our life is neutral, but all things have a bearing on our worship of God.

In Numbers we saw God’s judgment on an idolatrous generation. We saw a 40 year death sentence carried out to purge the nation of a group of people who trusted themselves more than they did God. We also saw God’s faithfulness to preserve the people as a whole during this time. At the end of the book the people were posed on the Eastern banks of the Jordan river waiting to enter the Promised Land.

In Deuteronomy we will pause right there. There is less narrative action in Deuteronomy than there was in Leviticus. The people do not enter the Promised Land yet. Basically the book is three sermons, or public addresses given by Moses to the people as they are camped on the East side of the river.

Deuteronomy has much in common with Leviticus. I said that Leviticus had two main points: God’s people are to live holy lives, God’s people are to confess sin. Deuteronomy is primarily concerned with that first point. As God’s chosen people, we are to live holy lives.

Leviticus told us to live holy lives, and it told us how to deal with our sin when we don’t, but Deuteronomy is going to tell us how to live holy lives.

The Hebrew name for the book is “Devarim” which is taken from the opening phrase of 1:1

These are the words…

Devarim literally means “words.”

As I said, the book almost entirely consists of three speeches made by Moses. Interestingly, these three speeches taken together represent the form of covenants from that time period. So the entire book is seen by many as a restating of the covenant with the nation.

The name “Deuteronomy” is taken from chapter 17 verse 18. This verse is dealing with the future monarchy that would rule in Israel. It says that when the nation has an earthly king, he is to transcribe his own copy of the law. Now they didn’t have copiers. The king had to sit down and, by hand, copy the book of the law. Now I’m not sure if that meant the entire Torah, or just the book of Deuteronomy, but either way, it was a lot of careful transcribing. And his copy had to be approved by the Levitical Priests as being accurate. If he made a mistake, he’d have to redo it!

Verses 19 and 20 tell us the purpose of such a regulation was to make sure that the king 1) feared God, and 2) remained humble.

In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the phrase (in verse 18) “a copy of this law” was incorrectly translated as Deuteronomion or “second law.”

While the name finds it’s origins in an ironic error, it is an apt name. Much of Deuteronomy is a restating of the laws previously given. There are laws concerning economics, family & sexual relationships, religious observances, leadership, social justice, food, property, warfare, etc.

So there are two ways to outline the book.

1. First Sermon – ch 1-4
2. Second Sermon – ch 5-26
3. Third Sermon – ch 27-33

Or, the covenant version

1. Preamble (1:1-5)
2. Historical Prologue (1:6 – 4:49)
3. General Stipulations (5 – 11)
4. Specific Stipulations (12- 26)
5. Blessings and Curses (27 – 28)
6. Witnesses (30:19, 31:19, 32:1-43)

Our task, in looking at the entire book in one sitting, is to find the overarching theme of the book. I believe it can be summed up in one sentence.

God sovereignly chose his people, now they must obey him.

There are many indications of God’s election of this people as his own throughout the book, but let’s look at one sentence that is repeated twice and explicitly states it.

That same sentence (almost word for word) in used again in 14:2.

We’ve seen this theme repeated since Genesis. God chose Noah, then he chose Abram (Abraham), then he chose Isaac, then he chose Jacob, then he chose Joseph (to send him to Egypt to save the lives of many (Genesis 45:7). Then he chose Moses (and Aaron). God chooses his people.

1 Peter 2:9 tells us that as Christians we are a chosen people.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Here in Deuteronomy, God is telling the Israelites that he has chosen them, but not because of any merit on their part.

We’ve seen in the last few weeks what a stubborn and rebellious people the Israelites were. Now go back to chapter 7 and see what God says there about his love for them.

He said the same thing in chapter 9 verse 5. God is giving them the land because he’s keeping his promise to Abraham. Let’s remember for what purpose God chose Abraham to begin with. He chose him so that “all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)

God is working through Abraham’s descendants to carry out his promise to Adam and Eve that a savior would come who would

…reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. – Colossians 1:20

We know that savior to be Jesus.

So God has chosen a people to be his own, to fulfill his purposes of redemption, to be an example to the rest of the world, of what it looks like to worship God.

And for this reason, because you are God’s chosen people, you are to be holy. We saw that in Leviticus and we see it again here. In Leviticus we saw that the way to live a holy life is to practice discernment, to view every situation in life based on how it will affect your worship of God.

In Deuteronomy, the question is better worded this way.

What does a holy life look like?

The answer is that a holy life is one of obedience.

Throughout the book there are numerous calls to obedience. The laws the people are to live by are restated or expanded and then they are told to carefully obey. The words “take care”, “be careful” and “be very careful” are used repeatedly in phrases like this:

…be careful to do them… (5:1)

…be careful therefore to do as the Lord you God has commanded you. (5:23)

This kind of phrasing in regards to obeying the commandments is used nearly 30 times in Deuteronomy. There is good reason given in this book for being careful to keep God’s commands. There are blessings for keeping it, and curses for disobeying it. I want us to look at that and consider the implications for our lives, but first I want to look at two other passages in Deuteronomy.

Probably the most famous command given in Deuteronomy is the one Jesus quotes when he’s asked which command is the greatest. He answered by quoting

Taken together with verses 4-9, this is known to Jewish people as “The Shema” and is the center piece of the morning and evening prayer rituals of devout Jews.

The first two verses teach that there is no other God than Yahweh, and that total devotion to him is the proper form of worship. Jesus quoted verse 5 as the greatest command. Just pause and meditate on verse 5 for a moment.

The idea is total devotion. Love God above everything else. Treasure him above all the things people treasure in this world: riches, popularity, looks, etc.

The Shema goes on to describe the devotion that is to be given to God’s commands.

Jesus said that if we love him, we will obey his commands (John 14:15). Love for God and obedience to God are tied together in Scripture.

So how do you go about cultivating that kind of devotion in your life? How do you make Christ your treasure? The answer is given in chapter 10.

We all know what circumcision is. It is the literal cutting away of the foreskin of the male penis. This is a bloody and painful experience. We’ve seen that already in Genesis when we mentioned the story of Jacob’s daughter Dina and what her brothers did to the men of the town where she was raped. (see Genesis 34)

What does it mean then to circumcise your heart? John Calvin offers us the beginning of an answer.

…to circumcise the heart is equivalent to cleansing it from wicked lusts.

Circumcising your heart can be more painful and bloody than physical circumcision. It means that you are to cut away any part of your heart that desires evil. You are to put to death the old man as Paul says in the New Testament (Colossians 3:5-11). It means you take out the Word, which is sharper than any sword (Hebrews 4:12), and you use it on your own heart. You inspect your heart and see where you are desiring and loving anything else more than you are desiring and loving God, and you cut that part of your heart out. That means you give up things that you like, things that take your affections away from Christ, things that hinder your worship of God. You get rid of them. You remove them from your life. This means sacrificing things that you find enjoyable. I’m not even talking about things that are outright wicked and evil, like lust, or envy, or greed. We know we should get rid of those things in our lives. What I’m talking about is harder.

I’m talking about things that may seem innocent enough. Remember when we looked at Leviticus we said nothing in life is neutral. Everything has some bearing on your worship of God. So this means evaluating everything to discern what might be stealing my affections away from God.

For me this means giving up television. Lauren and I don’t have any kind of television service on purpose. If we had it, I would watch it. It would steal my affections. I would spend time watching TV instead of reading my Bible, or praying. So we’ve given it up.

For you it may be something entirely different. I urge you and challenge you to examine your life, and everything in it, in this light. Ask yourself, what is stealing my affection? What do I need to cut off so that I more rightly treasure Christ? It’s a continuing process. It doesn’t end with one thing. Giving up TV isn’t the end for me, it’s just one example. It could be music, trendy clothes, certain friends that hinder your walk with God, any number of things. Examine your life in light of Deuteronomy 6:5!

If you read through Deuteronomy, you’ll notice that this kind of single-minded devotion is the key to Israel’s future in the Promised Land.

These are all promises of blessing given to the Israelites, conditioned upon their keeping the laws of God. If you continue reading chapter 28 you’ll see that there are also curses for not keeping the law.

The problem, is that as fallen human’s we can’t keep the law perfectly.

We can’t keep the law perfectly and therefore we are condemned by the law to death. But Jesus kept the law perfectly. Without sin he lived a human life that was fully pleasing to God and his righteousness has been imputed to us so that we are found righteous in God’s sight not by our works, not by keeping the law, but by faith in Jesus.

Our sin was imputed to Christ on the cross, and his righteousness was imputed to us by faith. So although we do not keep the law, we are justified by Jesus’ life and death.

He died the death we should have died, and he also lived the life we should have lived.

He is our substitute. We explored the nature of the substitutionary atonement of Jesus when we studied Leviticus.

So what can we learn from the promise of blessings given to the Israelites in Deuteronomy, as a reward for keeping God’s law?

We need to ask ourselves “In what way are we like them?”

They were God’s chosen people (Deuteronomy 7:6). We are God’s chosen people (1Peter 2:9).

They had been in the wilderness for 40 years, but now they were on the verge of crossing the Jordan to enter the Promised Land. We also anticipate entrance into the Promised Land. This world is not our home. We are sojourners and exiles here (1 Peter 2:9-12). Our home is in the heavenly realms (Phil 3:20), and our reward is to be found there (Col 1:5).

Paul talks this way a lot. He speaks of running to win the prize (1 Cor 9:24-27).

Peter speaks of our inheritance which is kept in heaven for us (1 Peter 1:3-4).

Jesus himself mentions rewards in heaven (Luke 6:23, 18:22). And says he will repay everyone for their deeds, whether good or bad (Revelation 22:12).

Our justification is secure, we don’t earn it, Jesus did. Our reward in heaven is to earned by obedience though. Jesus, Peter, and Paul all use that as motivation for living the Christian life.

Paul neatly bookends his letter to the Roman Christians with the phrase “the obedience of faith.” (Romans 1:5, 16:26)

God sovereignly chose his people, now they must obey him.

Learn to love God with all your heart, soul, and strength. Treasure Christ above all else!

Circumcise your heart using the Word as a surgical tool, removing anything from your life that will steal your affections away from Christ.

And practice the obedience of faith. Run to win the prize. Look past this world and place your hope in glory (Colossians 1:27).

As you live life this way you’ll find that

God’s commands are not burdensome because you keep them when you treasure Christ above everything else, and treasuring Christ in this way is the greatest joy you’ll ever experience.