Take your Bibles, if you will, and open them again to Deuteronomy chapter 10.
As we spoke this morning, concerning the basics for everyone, Moses, as he opens this message to Israel, will declare to them what they are required to do by the Lord.
And we noticed this morning that Moses would tell Israel,
by inspiration, 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 all his ways, and to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the
Lord and his statutes, which I command you today for your good.
In that opening salvo of
Moses' message.
He focuses on our relationship to God.
What God demands from us commands of us in relationship to Him.
But if we were to think back to what Jesus answered when Jesus was asked the question, what is the greatest commandment in the law?
Jesus answered, shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind.
But he didn't end there.
He said, and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
As Jesus there brings forward these commandments from the law, the commandments from Deuteronomy, the commandments from Leviticus,
He reiterates what the Law and what Moses had taught.
And so, in this passage, we find in verse 14, Moses continues, Indeed, heaven and the highest, heavens, belong to the LORD.
As Moses moves forward from this series of five instructions to the nation of Israel,
He moves forward into a focused understanding and a point that Israel needed to remember they needed to live out, they needed to put into practice in their lives, and that is that
God is sovereign.
Everything that is going to be stated from this point forward in the text is drawn out of the fact that God alone rules.
that God does not share his authority with anyone.
God does not give his authority away.
God does not establish nations, governments, rulers, or despots to oversee his rule.
God is sovereign.
And Moses will say to Israel, Indeed, heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it.
As God has instructed Moses to tell Israel how they are to behave in relationship to Him,
Moses will then make clear that God's sovereignty, His authority, and His rule do not end with a person's relationship with God.
They begin with it.
And then they move out from there to a person's relationship and interpersonal relationship with everything else.
With the universe that we live in, with the planet that we live on, with the people that we're surrounded with.
Psalm 24.
the psalmist writer
as he considers God, will write in Psalm 24 and in verse 1, the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.
As we look at our lives, as we plan our actions, as we contemplate the year ahead, we are to be reminded that the world that we live in doesn't belong to us.
That the universe that we are surrounded by wasn't created by us.
That the people that we share this planet with belong to the Lord.
and that everything that we see around us also belongs to the Lord.
That when we get up in the morning, we get up in a house that belongs to the Lord.
When we go to bed at night, we'll pillow our head on a pillow that belongs to the Lord.
that when we sit down to eat as Moses would reiterate and focus and tell the children of Israel that when they sat down to eat what were they to do?
They were to teach their children the law of the Lord because even the thing that they ate belonged to the Lord.
This had very special significance to Israel for the last 38 years.
They had been eating something that originated exclusively from the Lord, and it was manna.
as they looked around them, they were headed into a land that was going to be given to them by the Lord.
They headed to an inheritance that had been promised to them by the Lord.
They were going to go into a land that had been shown to their ancestors by the Lord.
Moses reminds them God is sovereign.
He does not utilize that which belongs to someone else.
Rather, he has placed in our hands what belongs to him.
You notice there in verse 15 as you consider this idea, Moses continues by saying, Lord delighted only in your fathers to love them, and He chose their descendants after them.
You above all peoples as it is this day, therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer.
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords.
the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.
As Moses speaks to the children of Israel, he points out to them that their position and their relationship to God was not of their doing.
As a matter of fact, if you read through the book of Deuteronomy, you...
probably will take notice of and should be impressed by the number of times that Moses criticizes the nation, blames the nation, lays the fault of their circumstances at the
feet of the nation, and even accuses them of being the reason he's not going to get to see the promised land.
Moses doesn't pull any punches with Israel.
He's been through too many things for 40 years, and he's now 120 years old.
If you think you're grouchy in the morning, imagine waking up 120.
And then having to deal with Israel every day.
You wanna talk about having a reason to be grouchy when you wake up.
Moses declares to Israel
that it was the Lord that delighted in them.
It was the Lord that chose them, not the other way around.
That it was the Lord that determined to use their fathers to bring them into this land and that it was the Lord that loved them.
And it might be easy for us to, from a modern perspective, from a Christian mindset, think that's rather unique and yet not applicable to us.
And then we would be reminded of Romans chapter 5 where Paul wrote that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
We need to be reminded that God is sovereign, that God didn't owe us anything, that God didn't owe us a home in heaven, God didn't owe us redemption, God didn't owe us salvation,
God didn't owe us forgiveness.
God chose to deliver that to us because of who He is, not because of who we are.
God is sovereign.
in Isaiah chapter 66.
Isaiah writes in a period of his book where it is focused on the Messiah, it is focused on the coming kingdom, and he writes, thus says the Lord, verse 1 of Isaiah 66, heaven is my
throne and earth is my footstool.
Where is the house that you will build me?
And where is the place of my rest?
You remember that when David desired to build a house for the Lord, God sent back his prophet to tell David, when did I ask a house from you?
Rather, I have built your house.
So in Isaiah's day, Isaiah brings forward that message to Israel and asks Israel, where are you going to build my house?
Where's the house that you're going to build that's going to house me?
Heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool, what are you going to do that makes a single impact in my existence?
except
to love me and keep my command.
God is sovereign.
First Corinthians chapter 10.
Paul would write to the church at Corinth.
1 Corinthians chapter 10 and in verse 26 he says, for the earth is the Lord's and all its fullness.
A simple statement, but a profound one.
As Paul looks at all the quibbles and all the arguments and all the discussions about all the things in this world, he reminds those Christians it all belongs to God.
But God as sovereign has one thing that He requires you to give Him.
and it's your heart.
Look at verse 15 again.
As Moses carries forward the picture of the covenant circumcision that was a part of their flesh,
as Israelites, he takes that imagery and he says, God's not as interested in your flesh as He is your heart.
He wants you to cut away what is part of your past.
He wants you to cut away the sin and the wickedness and the idolatry and the willingness to serve other gods and serve Him alone.
He wants your heart.
Jeremiah is going to prophesy to a nation in a time in Israel where God is going to tell Jeremiah as he begins to prophesy that he's going to prophesy and the people aren't going
to listen.
That he's going to tell them what the Lord has to say and the people aren't going to repent.
Can you imagine getting a commission not from another person, not from an officer, not from a superior, but from the Lord and He says, you go out and do this, you're gonna fail.
but you're still going to go out and do it, and you're going to do it exactly the way I say.
And the way I say is going to guarantee that you're going to fail.
But in Jeremiah chapter 4 and in verse 4, Jeremiah says, Israel circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, you men of Judah and inhabitants of
Jerusalem, lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your
doings.
As Jeremiah pulls forward the words and the commandment of Moses to Israel, he says, here's the problem, your sins and your iniquities separate you from God.
And Jeremiah tells Israel, you've got to cut it out.
You've got to cut it away.
You've got to leave it behind.
In Hebrews chapter 3,
The Hebrew writer introduces this chapter.
by asking the people who he's writing to.
what they're going to do if they neglect so great a salvation as has been presented to them by God.
But in chapter 3 and in verse 15 the Hebrew writer said, while it is said today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the day of the rebellion.
The Hebrew writer looks back on the history of Israel and he looks back on a nation that was renowned for their rebellion against the Lord.
He warns the Christians saying,
Go look at their example.
Now learn from it.
Don't do what they did.
Don't make the mistakes they made.
Don't rebel against the Lord the way they rebelled because He showed you what He will do.
God is sovereign, but God requires your heart.
the only thing over which you're sovereign.
But then consider in chapter 10 beginning of verse 17 we find out God is just.
Verse Moses says, "'For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe.
He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.
Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.'" As God, through Moses,
presents to Israel where they're headed.
They're headed into the promised land.
They're headed into a land that God said and Moses declared was flowing with milk and honey and they had sent out their spies and they knew it was so.
They were heading into a land of plenty.
They were heading into a land of prosperity.
They were heading into a land, as Joshua pointed out and we read this morning,
that they went into houses they didn't build, went into cities that they didn't build, went into vineyards and uh locations they didn't plant.
All of the things that they had when they walked into the land of Palestine wasn't theirs, it belonged to somebody else and God put it in their hand.
But before they went in, God reminds them, number one, I am a God who is just in judgment.
I do not take bribes.
I will not show partiality." Now some have really struggled to parse this because wait a minute, God just said that He chose them over all other people in all of the world, and
yet God doesn't show partiality?
Except Paul will point out that no, He doesn't.
For God also provided for the just and the unjust.
He sends His sunshine and His rain on the just and the unjust.
He's provided the earth for the just and the unjust.
He's provided the world and the nature and all that exists for the just and the unjust.
And yet, God doesn't show partiality in judgment.
for the same people that God prepared a land, prepared an inheritance, and gave it into their hand.
He also said to them, if you do what I tell you, if you keep My commandments, if you're faithful to Me, all these things will be yours.
And if you're unfaithful to Me and you reject My commandments and you turn after idols, then the same thing that happened to the people who were in this land will happen to you.
God is just in judgment.
Over in James chapter 2
James as he writes to the church writes in James chapter 2, my brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.
as James looks at the very assembly of the church.
He looks at the actions of some within the church and he says your actions are defying the very nature of God and His character.
You are living in a way that is not right before God, and you are showing partiality based upon the appearance of men.
And God doesn't do that.
God does not accept a bribe.
God does not show partiality.
As a matter of fact, you notice a connection here from Deuteronomy chapter 10 and James chapter 2, because if you go back one verse into James chapter 1, you will find James
writing, pure and undefiled religion before God is this, God and the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
God is just in judgment.
He does not show partiality.
God is just, according to Deuteronomy chapter 10, in defense of the fatherless and the widow.
God is just in opportunity as well.
God warns His people as they are about to go into the land.
He warns them, when you get in that land, when you receive that inheritance, when you finally obtain that which you've been waiting 40 plus years to receive, that which has
been promised to you for nearly 400 years, when you get there.
You be careful how you deal with the strangers in the land.
You be careful how you deal with foreigners who are in your land.
Not the warnings that he would give, yes, all throughout the law, not to intermarry with the nations that are in the land.
That's not the context.
He's warning them not to abuse and to mistreat the foreigners and the strangers in the land.
because as a nation those foreigners and those strangers had no representation under the law except through one person and it was God.
God tells His people, I'm watching you, and I'm watching how you treat the ones who aren't from you.
I'm watching how you treat those that aren't from your lineage.
I'm watching how you treat those who are outsiders.
few of the places I've lived in my life, thankfully not here, but a few of the places I've lived, you knew when you weren't from there.
Little towns in some places in America, eastern Kentucky, there was everyone who was from there and then there was everyone else.
And if you hadn't been there for a number of generations, you weren't from there.
You could have been born there, you weren't from there.
because your great-great-great-great granddad wasn't born there.
and you were treated like you weren't from there.
And yet, God tells Israel, I'm the God who doesn't judge with partiality.
I'm the God that defends the widow and the orphan.
I'm the God that stands up for the stranger.
Much has and should and will continue to be said in our country about people who move here who aren't from here.
And there is a right way to do that and there's a wrong way to do that.
There's a legal way to do that and an illegal way to do that.
But there is a reminder to us.
that how we treat the stranger.
is how God treats us.
And that's still the case.
Turn to Matthew chapter 25.
Matthew chapter 25.
Jesus in the closing week of his life.
says in verse 41, then He will say to those on His left hand, Apart from Me, you cursed into 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.
The condemnation of abuse of a foreigner is not exclusive to the Old Testament law.
Rather, God will tell Israel through Moses, you remember that you were once strangers in a land.
and consider what happened to Israel as they became strangers in Egypt, when at one time they were but 70 people.
And they arrived in Egypt and they came before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh said, you know what, we don't really like people who keep sheep.
We kind of think it's an abomination for people to be shepherds.
So I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to put you in the worst land.
I'm going to enslave you.
I'm going to take everything that you have and I'm going to mistreat you.
And that's not what he said.
As a matter of fact, that Pharaoh, under that time, under his recognition for what Joseph had done, put them in the best land in Egypt.
And yes, he separated them from the Egyptians who considered their shepherding an abomination, and yet by separating them he actually gave them room to be prosperous and to
grow into a mighty nation.
God reminds Israel, you be careful what you do to the stranger.
You be careful to take in the foreigner.
You be careful to have a heart that is willing to remember that once you were a stranger in this world.
but he doesn't end there.
He says, verse 19, Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
You shall fear the Lord your God, you shall serve Him, and to Him you shall hold fast and take oaths in His name.
Similar statement to what we read already this morning in Deuteronomy chapter 6, Moses again reiterates that they are to place their
covenants in the name of the Lord.
Now there's going to be a time in the life of Jesus where Jesus will be asked and Jesus will entertain the question as to should men say something and provide an oath or not.
If you swear by the temple was that greater than if you swear by the gold in the temple?
And Jesus would declare to the people in His day, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
How does that connect with the fact that God told them to swear their oaths in His name?
I suggest to it should be understood this way.
The question that they were asking Jesus was, how do I make a promise to do something and then get out of it?
And what Moses is telling them is, you better make an oath in the name of the Lord and you better not get out of it.
In Psalm 15, psalmist writer writes concerning the one who will dwell in the house of the Lord.
And he describes there in that passage a number of attributes of the one who will dwell in the house or the temple, the holy hill of God, and he describes the one who swears to his
own hurt and does not turn back.
What the Psalmist writer is saying there is that when the man made the oath, he thought it was in his best interest to make it.
When he made the covenant, when he made the promise, when he swore the oath, he thought for sure that this was going to be a good thing for him, except now the circumstances
change, the scenario is on his head, and now he's looking at it, and if he keeps the oath, he's going to harm himself.
The psalmist writer says the righteous person who dwells in the house of the Lord is the one who's going to look at his own impending harm due to his own oath and he's going to
keep his oath.
because that's what he said he would do.
As God, through Moses, speaks to Israel, He tells them, you are to hold fast.
He tells them that they are to serve Him and fear Him and that they are to grasp onto the Lord and never, ever let go.
no matter what it costs.
1 Corinthians 15.
Paul writes to the church at Corinth.
about some who were denying the resurrection.
He reminds them as he introduces that discussion.
says, moreover, brethren, verse one, I declare to you the gospel which I preach to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you were saved if you hold
fast that word which I preach to you unless you believed in vain.
Paul tells the Corinthians that you have received salvation and you can lose it.
if you don't hold fast to the message that was preached.
Moses tells Israel.
You see God?
You hold fast to Him.
You don't let Him go.
You don't put space between you and Him.
in polite company, sometimes people give hugs, kinda like one arm with a whole bunch of space in between.
That's not holding fast.
The picture of God and someone who loves Him, who hold fast to the Lord, is the picture that you probably have in your own mental imagery of a three or a four year old that sees
somebody that they absolutely love and they run up and they just...
with every bit of energy and strength they have.
And if you tried to with a pry bar, you couldn't get them off.
Moses tells Israel, hold fast to the Lord.
but then consider as well.
in Revelation chapter 2.
that as Christ through John was writing to the churches.
He writes in Revelation chapter 2 and verse 13 to the church at Pergamos,
and did not deny my faith even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr."
who was killed among you where Satan dwells.
John reminds the church.
that what he really means when he says hold fast.
is you hold fast even if it costs you your life.
You hold fast even if it costs you everything.
You never let go.
No matter what.
God tells Israel.
You hold fast and you take your oaths in my name and I'll hold you to them.
But then in verses 21 and 22, Moses says of the Lord, he is your praise.
when we think about the things for which we're thankful.
When we think about all the things for which we should show gratitude.
Moses is telling us embodied in the very nature of that for which we should offer praise is God.
Not that we praise Him, that's a concept that's biblical, but that's not what Moses is saying.
That rather, God is our praise.
that He embodies in His very existence and His very relationship to us everything that is praiseworthy.
The New Testament would say it this way, every good and every perfect gift comes from above.
Moses says, is your praise and He is your God who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen.
It's important to remember that some of them, while they were children when they came out of Egypt, were alive when they came out of Egypt.
They saw the sea turn to blood.
They saw the locusts.
They saw the frogs.
They saw the lice.
They saw the storms.
They saw all of it.
They saw the darkness they couldn't see through to the army behind them and the sea in front of
They walked through the very sea, the Red Sea, and they saw the water standing on either side of them.
They saw Moses get to the other side and as the very last Israelite crossed out of the sea, the extension of that rod and the sea come back together.
They saw the mountain that burned with fire and wasn't consumed.
They saw the pillar of smoke during the day or the pillar of uh smoke, fire at night and the pillar of cloud during the day.
They saw the manna come from heaven every morning, except one day a week.
They saw the quail come into their camp so deep, so thick, and so tall that people were wading through it.
And then it turned to nothing in their mouth.
They saw the rock that gave forth water in a parched and barren desert.
They saw deliverance.
They saw judgment.
They saw promise.
And Moses says,
And He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen.
Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.
God is praise worthy.
God is one who should be praised.
In Romans chapter 15,
Paul as he writes to the church at Rome, as he nears the end of this letter to this congregation, which he says he loves, he desired to visit with, and yet had never been to
them in person.
He writes in Romans chapter 15, beginning in verse 5, now may the God of patience and comfort grant to you to be like-minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus.
that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore receive one another just as Christ also received us to the glory of God.
Now I say that Jesus Christ has become a servant to the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for
His mercy as it is written, for the reason I
I will confess to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.
And again, he says, rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.
And again, praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, loud him, all you peoples.
And again, Isaiah says, there shall be a root of Jesse, and he who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hold.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul writes to this church in Rome.
Paul writes to them and says, you know he was planning for you all along,
that he had been promising through prophet after prophet after prophet after prophet that the Gentiles were in mind.
in 2 Peter chapter 3.
We are again reminded of the promises of God.
But as Peter writes to the church in 2 Peter chapter 3, he reminds them that God is faithful to those promises.
Moses is telling Israel, you look at everything God has done, you look at all these great and awesome works, now you remember what He commanded you to do.
because the previous generation had gotten right up to the land and they had seen all of the things, they had witnessed all the things, and then they forgot what he told them to
do.
By forgot, I mean they decided not to do it.
Moses is telling generation number two.
You don't have the luxury of forgetting.
You can't claim you don't know.
You are witnesses to it.
You saw it with your own eyes.
Now act on it.
But in 2 Peter chapter 3, Peter will address the church and he will say that there were some scoffers, verse 3, who were saying, verse 4, where is the promise of His coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.
For this they will fully forget that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by which the world that then existed
perished, being flooded with water.
But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day,
The Lord is not slack concerning His promises, some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.
Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved...
what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved,
being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.
Nevertheless, we according to His promise.
look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Peter.
reminds the church.
All judgments coming.
and he's bringing it.
And he promised he would and he's not like us.
We promise you might have a better than good odds that it actually happened.
God promises and you can take it to the bank.
It's gonna happen.
But he says while you're waiting.
That's the time where you're supposed to be helping those who are unrighteous.
cease from being unrighteous and rather come to repentance.
There are times in a person's life where they wonder, is my life over?
Am I of any use anymore?
Is there anything left to do?
Am I all used up?
Or they look at their health situation and just go, I'm all used up.
We are to be reminded that while there is still life in our body, while there is still day in the sky, there is still the opportunity for someone who has lost to come to repentance.
and that every day the Lord delays, every hour that the Lord waits is the opportunity for another soul to be grasped out of the clutches of hell and saved by the blood of Christ.
so as we wait as we like Israel in the wilderness look for a day coming which is promised which is assured which is guaranteed and which will without fail come
We wait, but we don't wait.
sitting still.
We don't wait sitting on our hands.
We rather walk in accordance with His will.
We follow His commandments.
We speak His Word and we hold fast till He comes.
If you have need of the invitation to put Christ on in baptism,
or as a member of the body of Christ to make your life right with God or if you have a need that needs to be expressed.
Why not come forward now?