Mid-Lent 1
Dt
4:1-24
3/13/19
Listen. Remember. Teach. Do. These are the things that Moses says to the
Israelites in our text tonight. In the
book of Deuteronomy Yahweh is preparing Israel to enter the promised land. Moses delivers the word of Yahweh, but he
speaks as one who is not going with them.
As he says in our text, he will die without crossing over the
Jordan. He speaks to Israelites who had
wandered in the wilderness during the course of forty years. However, after the exodus Israel had refused
to enter Canaan and God had declared that only those under the age of twenty
would enter the land. Many of those whom
he addressed had been very young when the exodus took place. Many of them had not even been born yet.
So in Deuteronomy Moses reviews what
had happened in the past and sets before them again the content of the Torah
that describes the life they are to live as Yahweh’s covenant people. And in
our text he begins a series of sermon like addresses to the nation as he
exhorts them about how they are to live as God’s people. He gives them catechesis that will guide
their lives.
As I mentioned on Ash Wednesday, the
primary focus of the season of Lent is on repentance. However, as the season that led to baptism in
the early Church, it has also been tied to catechesis – teaching the Christian
faith. Historically, this has been a
strong emphasis within the Lutheran church.
So during our mid-week Lent services we are going to listen to the
catechesis that Moses delivered to the people of Israel. Though we are no longer bound by the
requirements of the Torah, this instruction given to Israel continues to teach
us about living as God’s people.
Moses begins by saying, “And now, O Israel, listen to the
statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live,
and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your
fathers, is giving you.” The people needed
to listen carefully and pay attention to God’s Word because it offered the way
of life. It described the life of faith
for those who had been called by Yahweh.
The same urging
goes out to us. We have the continual need to listen to the Lord’s word. Do we
know what it says?: No and yes. No, we
don’t know all that is there. The depths
of God’s word can never be exhausted no matter how much you hear it. For
starters, there is just so much there. And then our experiences prompt us to
recognize ever new insights we had not noticed before in Scripture texts that
we thought we knew well.
And yes, we
know in general what it says. So why do
we need to continue to hear it? We do because it is the means by which the Holy
Spirit sustains faith. We do because the
old Adam in us doesn’t want to hear it,
and the Spirit of God uses that Word to repress him so that the new man in us
wins in that daily struggle against the old Adam.
Second, Moses
said that Israel needed to remember. He
said that they needed to remember how God had punished them. Moses says at the beginning of our text,
“Your eyes have seen what the LORD did at Baal-peor, for the LORD your God
destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor.” The Book of Numbers tells us: “While Israel
lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These
invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and
bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor.” Israelite men had fornicated with Moabite
women. It is possible this included
participation in sexual acts of pagan worship. The result had been God’s
judgment and death.
In our text
Moses further warns against making different kinds of images as idols. He says, “Take care, lest you forget the
covenant of the LORD your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image,
the form of anything that the LORD your God has forbidden you. For the LORD
your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
Like
Israel, we must remember that breaking God’s law brings judgment. Our text focuses our attention on the First
Commandment, in which God tells us that we are to have no other gods. Our God is a jealous God. He will not share you with any other
god. You are to fear, love and trust in
him above all things. That’s all things. To put something before God
is idolatry. It is sin and will bring
God’s judgment.
But Moses
also says that Israel must remember what Yahweh had done for them. In his
opening statement he says that by listening to God’s Word they will live “and
go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers,
is giving you.” Yahweh was the God who
by his grace had called Abraham. He had given his promises to Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. He had promised the land of
Canaan as his gift. And in our text Moses tells Israel: “But the LORD has taken
you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of
his own inheritance, as you are this day.”
He had rescued them from slavery – he had redeemed them in the exodus
and entered into covenant with them at Mt. Horeb.
We too must
remember God’s grace – his Gospel. God
promised Abraham that in his offspring all nations would be blessed. Our Lord Jesus Christ was the seed of Abraham
through whom God redeemed us from sin by his crucifixion. Jesus was our
Passover lamb. The shedding of his blood has caused God’s wrath to pass over
us. In the Gospel God gives forgiveness to repentant sinners and has caused us
to be born again to living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the
dead.
Third, Moses
says in our text that Israel must teach their children. He urges, “Only take care, and keep your soul
diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they
depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your
children and your children's children.”
The Israelites were to teach their children what God had done – how he
had rescued them in the exodus and taken them to be his people. They were to
teach them God’s Word of the Torah. In chapter six Moses says, “And these words
that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them
diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house,
and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”
Like
Israel, we also have the command to teach our children what God has done. We
have the obligation in the vocation of parents to teach the Christian faith to
our children. We have the responsibility as a congregation to assist parents in
doing this. Make no mistake, God has
charged you has parents to teach the Gospel to your children; to teach God’s
Word and all that it says about a God pleasing life. You are also to teach them by what you do as you place Christ and his
Means of Grace at the center of your life.
And
finally, Moses says that they are do what he is telling them – they are to do
what God’s Word says. We hear in our
text: “See, I have taught you statutes and rules, as the LORD my God commanded
me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take
possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes,
will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’”
Because of God’s saving work in
Christ – because of the Gospel – we now seek to do those things that God’s Word
says. In our day, walking in the way of
the Lord may not bring statements of appreciation from the world. But in doing so we are pleasing to God, and
we are living as God ordered life to be lived.
We are doing things in God’s way, and this is always what is best for
us. We are living in ways that share the love of Jesus Christ with others,
because he first loved us.
Listen.
Remember. Teach. Do. These four
statements summarize what Moses said to the Israelites in our text. During this
season of Lent this Word of God teaches us that the same things continue to
direct our lives in Christ.
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