A High Standard No.2 The Great Blessing of All

The Immortal, Invisible, Godly One, Enlightened, Accessible, Here from Arise, Most Pleasant, Most Glorious, The Eternal Great, Almighty, Intolerant, Thy Great Name we praise. Unresting, Avenging, Unsullied, Unsullied, Ur-Rotting, Ur-Wrenching, Ur-Hour, Ur-Atonement, Thy Chalice of Tribulations, Thy Story of Life, Thy Message of Light, O'er all goodness and love. To all life, Thou givest, To both great and small, In all life, Thou livest, The True Light of All.

We keep Thyself unfurlished, As leaves of a tree, And wither and perish, But love changes me. Great Father of Glory, Pure Father of Light, Thy angels adore Thee, O visit their sight. O Godly, Ur-Wrencher, All help us to see, Tis only the splendor of Thy sight.

In watchers, in preachers, O Godly voice, Enlightened as friendship, O Here from Arise, Our pleasure calls for it, The angels obey. Almighty, Victorious, Thy great name be praised. The reading this morning is from Deuteronomy 4, starting at verse 1. Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and the laws I am about to teach you.

Follow them so you may live, and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you. You saw with your own eyes what the Lord did in Baal-peor.

The Lord your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, but all of you who held fast to the Lord your God are still alive today. See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord your God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations who will hear about all these decrees and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.

What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today? Only be careful and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen, or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb when he said to me, Assemble the people before me to hear my words, so that they may learn to revere me as long as they live in the land, and may teach them to their children.

You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form, there was only a voice.

He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow, and then wrote them on two stone tablets. And the Lord directed me at that time to teach you the decrees and laws you are to follow in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. Then we drop down to verse 25.

After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you.

There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.

For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created man on earth.

Ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened? Or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire as you have and lived? Has any God ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation by testings, by miraculous signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God. Beside him there is no other.

From heaven he made you hear his voice to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire and you heard his words from out of the fire. Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his presence and his great strength to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance as it is today.

Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven above and on earth below. There is no other. Keep his decrees and commands which I am giving you today so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time.

The Lord bless his reading. Let's keep our Bibles open at that particular passage and as it's rather a lengthy one and covers quite a bit of material I'll ask our overhead projectionist just to keep up with me in a little outline which will help I think to make what the Bible has to say clear to us. We're going to be speaking about the greatest blessing of all.

There's a verse in the Old Testament in the book of Psalms which relates back I think in its teaching to what we've just heard and it says in Psalm 33, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance. That's Psalm 33 and verse 12. Whereas the verse that we're particularly concentrating our attention on from Deuteronomy 4 says, What other nation is so great as to have their gods near than the way our God is near us whenever we pray to him.

I've always admired our American friends because of their patriotism. You don't find it so much in the UK. I'm not saying we're not patriotic but it's certainly not as exhibited over here as it is in the States.

Time and time again whether I've been in the States or on one occasion having the experience of preaching for the US military in chapels in Korea I've heard the claim made that the United States is the greatest nation of all. And on their currency they have the words inscribed, In God we trust. And more frequently than you get in the UK references made by politicians, by leaders of the community to the being of God.

And possibly the reason for this patriotism linked into a belief in God is the history of America. The pilgrim fathers who went out there to form communities where they could meet and worship the Lord in the freedom that often they didn't have in this country and more particularly on the continent. But the greatest blessing of all is not to be an American or to be British or to be Western.

It's not even to be a Jew. The greatest blessing of all is to be part of that great company of people that today in New Testament times for that's the era in which we live. People who are known as the Lord's people.

And very often in the New Testament when reference is made to Israel and reference is made to God's people it is in the form of the church which constitutes believing Jews as well as believing Gentiles. Though God still continues to have a purpose for his ancient ethnic people. Well, what is the greatest blessing? What marks out the great blessings of this very wonderful group of people who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

And from this passage that's been read to us I think we can itemize at least three things. First of all, there has been as far as they're concerned a reception of the word of God. A reception of the word of God.

Look at verse 8. What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you. And then when you go through to the 33rd verse there's a repeat of the sentiments. Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire as you have and lived? What is the church of God? It's the company of people to whom God has directed his word.

It used to be said of our country way back in the 17th century as far as folk in France was concerned England is a land of the book. And that book is the Bible. Alas, that's hardly an accurate description today.

But the truth of the matter is, my dear friends that if you possess the word of God if you have your own copy of the Bible if you read it and believe it then you are uniquely privileged. Listen to the apostle Paul. He's on the same tack.

He's emphasizing the same lessons. He's talking about the ancient people of God, the Jews. And in the epistle to the Romans in the third chapter he puts up a question.

What advantage is there in being a Jew? What advantage is there for someone like myself and others of my compatriots that we were born into the community of Israel either because we lived in the land or we were part of the dispersion that is Jews who were born outside of the Holy Land. And instead of saying there's no advantage at all the first thing that Paul tabulates in Romans 3 is this that we have been entrusted with the very words of God. If you have a Bible and you believe the Bible and you try however imperfectly to live by the Bible then you are part of those people who have inherited God's great blessing.

You know it's good to listen to an old man or an old lady. Someone who has allowed the years to go by and distills the wisdom that they have gained as a result. And this is really the context behind these verses from Deuteronomy.

You see the man who is speaking as you gather from Tim last week is none other than Moses. And it is his Nunc Dimittis. That means to say it is his final sermon.

He's gathered together hundreds perhaps even thousands of the Hebrews and they're listening to him. His time in this world is more or less spent. He's not to go into the Promised Land himself but he wants to tell the people something that's of supreme importance.

And he says you know you're the greatest people in the world. And it's not jingoism. It's not an artificial patriotism that Moses is arguing for.

He's identifying that these people have received the words of God. He has spoken to them. That makes them special.

It also makes you and me special. Who live in the onflow. The continuation of that blessing.

But not only a reception of the word of God which in Acts 7.38 and Hebrews 4.11 we're told is a living word. A word that's always powerful. But we're more than just people of the book.

Not just a reception of the word of God highlights Moses. But he and Paul and our beloved Lord who live after Moses emphasize something else. The realization of the presence of God.

Look at verse 7. What other nation is so great as to have their gods near? I once risked getting lynched in Northern Ireland. First time I'd ever preached there. Forgive me if I've mentioned this to some of you before.

But I remember it as though it was yesterday because it was one of my more embarrassing of which there are many moments in the pulpit. But to my first sentence in Northern Ireland in the heart of Belfast preaching from the historic Baptist church pulpit there was I have come to tell you that the word of God alone is not enough. I didn't get any reaction from Ian Paisley but maybe the news got through what this English speaker has said.

Although I think Dr. Paisley actually would have agreed with me. You see, it's not just the word of God. It is the God of the word.

You see, the Pharisees knew the word of God but when God incarnate passed by they failed to recognize him. You see, these people, these Israelites they were not just to worship the law. In Pakistan, amongst the Muslim community I speak with respect and other Islamic countries there is almost an esteem for the Koran which is little short of worshiping the book.

I know it's possible for evangelicals to be in that groove and I think that some have. But that's not the teaching of the Old Testament nor indeed the New Testament. The word of God, thank him for it but the word of God, its function is to lead you to the God of the word.

So there is what John Calvin would call a felt sense of the presence of the Lord. Here's Moses in Exodus 33 and there's a new twist to his career. God wants him to do something else.

And Moses has worked very hard. He could well have claimed an honorable retirement. But God says, no Moses, I want you to take these people from Sinai from the area of Horeb and I want you to lead them to the very frontiers of the promised land.

And Moses says, but Lord, I won't go with you unless you go with us. And you get that lovely comment in Exodus that God used to speak to Moses as a man speaks to his friend. And sometimes in the early morning Moses would go out to what was known as the tent of the meeting and the people would have their eyes upon Moses as this noble figure left the camp of the Hebrews and went out to the place where he believed he could commune with God.

Now not only did Moses have that experience intimately generally there was evidence for the people of Israel that God was amongst them. What other nation is so great as to have their gods near? This is the thing you see. You ask a member of the Islamic community if he has had a felt sense of the presence of Allah and with just a very few exceptions nobody would make so bold a statement.

They have a knowledge of the Koran. Their knowledge of the Koran sometimes I think causes us to be embarrassed in terms of our knowledge of the Bible. But a felt sense of God's presence.

You see the Israelites knew that God was amongst them. There was the pillar of fire at night. There was the cloud during the day and then Sinai had belched out its flames and its thunder.

But it seems to me there was more than just this. More than just the audio externally. There was that sense of God's spirit communing with Moses' spirit and this being available in some measure to the rest of the Hebrews.

And when the beloved Christ is on earth he takes the good promises of the Old Testament and he seals them and heightens them and he directs them to you and me and he says where two or three are gathered together in my name there I am in the midst. You see the service becomes a failure if you've not felt Him. Now don't start blaming other people.

Don't start blaming other people for your lack of perception of God. The probability is that the difficulty lies with you and not with others. Not indeed the service order.

Not indeed who does the preaching or what songs are sung. We had a guy from the Sudan in our college when I was at London Bible College many years ago he was as tall as tall as a telegraph pole and as slender too. And he used to have a wonderful way of handling the English language.

One occasion he says God we thank you, you're always previous. What he meant was that God always got in first and that is the case. God present with Moses.

Amidst a congregation of people who sometimes would gain saying who sometimes were very very difficult but God manifesting His presence to Moses and promising that same through the New Testament revelation to ourselves. If you know the presence of God you are indeed blessed. If you receive the word of God you are indeed amongst the company of an unusual people.

But moreover and finally you need also not only to know the word of God and to sense the presence of God but there must be a recognition of the will of God. You see that's the point that's brought out time and time again in this chapter. Look at verse 2. Moses is setting down what God wants for the Hebrews.

And he says as far as this revelation is concerned it's so precious you're not to add to it, you're not to subtract from it. What you have to do is to keep it. And then you go to verse 5. And he's saying more or less the same thing.

See I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me so that you may follow them in the land you are entering into. Listen, imbibe, absorb, react, obey. It's all here in this chapter.

Push it through into the New Testament because the Old Testament is just like the negative of a picture that needs to be developed. And when it stands out in the fullness of the revelation of the New Testament what do you discover? Well our Lord is saying by this you will be known as my disciples. Not just that you love one another but that you keep my commandments.

Which of course the former is just an illustration of the latter. Being God's people. Doing what God wants us to do.

Now Moses of course knows a bit about human nature. After all he got the most difficult congregation that there's ever been in the world. You try and bring the Hebrews from what Moses describes as the iron smelting furnace of Egypt and keep them happy in Sinai for 40 years.

I mean the more recent Hebrew or Israeli presidents be they prime ministers, be they men or women will tell you that their job is the most difficult. I heard Mrs. Van Gurion on one occasion say the only problem or the only difference between you, President and she got the President of Egypt with him and me is that your people accept your leadership whereas everyone in Israel thinks they should be prime minister. You see the nation of Israel is a nation of leaders.

That's why they've created some of the most remarkable personalities or given birth to some of the most remarkable personalities in history. And Moses had his work cut out. And he knows full well that that tendency to backslide in the wilderness could be carried through into the promised land when under Joshua and Gideon and all the leaders that are to follow they take up residence and they expand in terms of their numbers and in their territory.

So Moses said well, let's assume what I take for granted that though I give you this good excellent advice you fail. Then what happens? Well, he outlines the judgment of God that they come under but he also tells you something of the mercy of God. The Lord our God, verse 31, is a merciful God.

He will not abandon or destroy you forever the covenant with your forefathers which he confirmed to them by oath. You see what Moses is here saying is this that there's a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. And our Lord makes it even that much more clear.

Neither Moses nor Jesus will allow you to consider prodigality as being an easy option in which you can go with no sense of disgrace, with no sense of discomfort. But he does offer, does Moses and our Lord even more so that there is a route back. Alright, so you're privileged, you receive the word of God.

You've known the presence of God. You knew what the will of God was. But you fought it and you backslid.

But there's a way back, a way back as an individual. And bless a big God, there's a way back as a nation. And this is a chapter that Mr. Major and all our cabinet and our Queen and her consort and Tony Blair and all the leaders of the opposition, this is a chapter that they ought to read because there is a sense in which the teaching here remains for us to apply in our own country.

God has used the United Kingdom in times gone by. But we've done what Israel did. We've given up on what God granted to us as our blessings.

And as a result we suffer. But the word comes through once again that there is a way back and that for a nation to be blessed they are to receive God's word, to seek His presence, and to become conformable to His will. What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to Him? And the answer is there is no other nation.

Israel remains unusual. The church is unique. So the psalmist sums it all up for us and we go back to the starting point which I read from the verse that I read earlier to conclude, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance.

Let's come before the Lord with contrition. Let's come before the Lord with thankfulness. As we prepare to come around the table let's bring our nation to the Lord and all its great needs.

Let's bring our own needs to God too and ask for forgiveness where we've let Him down. Sometimes ours has been a disobedient spirit. Sometimes we've been critical.

Sometimes we've blamed other people for our own spiritual failures. But God wants to draw near to us right now to heal us as well as to heal the land. So let's come to Him in prayer as we prepare to take bread and wine.

When we think of our nation let's think of our town. When we think of our town let's think of our family. When we think about our family let's think about ourselves.

And ask that God will do a deeper work within us. We're going to be singing this through a couple of times and then maybe go on to something else. In the meantime we'll be bringing you bread and wine.

It speaks of the offer of God's forgiveness. It helps us to reaffirm ourselves as those who've trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior. Only receive the bread and wine if you're Christian, if you have an ongoing relationship with Him or if your desire is to come back to Him.

And when we've received the emblems then we're prepared to eat and to drink together. A couple of times softly as Susan leads us. Be our nation Be our nation Pour out your spirit on this land Could we hear your spirit coming closer Mighty wave to break upon our land Bring justice and forgiveness God we cry to you revive Pour out your spirit on this land Verse one again.

God we long for you to move in power And our hunger deep within our hearts To see meaning in our nation Send your spirit to revive us Pour out your spirit on this land Could we hear your spirit coming closer A mighty wave to break upon our land Bring justice and forgiveness God we cry to you revive us Pour out your spirit on this land And a hymn of repentance says Just as I am without one plea 396 But that thy blood was shed for me And that thou bidst me come to thee O Lamb of God I come Let's sing softly from the fourth verse To the end of 396 Verse four, five and six Just as thy edge and thine Sight rich and healing of the mind May all I need in thee To find God's hand I am The will to receive Will work how we need The evil that you deny This is a time to draw near to God Someone used to say to me when I was in college If you feel a long way from God Guess who's moved And it must be true, mustn't it? Because the Bible says You draw near to God and he will draw near to you So just draw near to him now Just take this opportunity to deal with any barriers That there are between you and him And just reassert that promise Because thy promise I believe O Lamb of God I come He who comes to me I will in no wise cast out We do come with thankfulness For all that the Lord has done for us One of our brothers is going to give thanks For the bread and what it represents for us We gladly use those words and say this morning O Lamb of God I come We want to draw near to you this morning dear Lord Jesus We want to be in your immediate presence We want to sense the power of your Holy Spirit coming upon us As we just bow around this table We thank you this morning that we have the desire to be here And we willingly come to worship you Father through your Son the Lord Jesus Christ You have done so much for us whereof we are glad And we want you to accept the homage of our hearts this morning We want to accept the praise and worship for all that you have done for us And we are thinking very especially this morning Of that supreme gift of your Son going to Calvary and there dying for us And our Father as we partake now of this portion of bread Symbolizing the broken body of our Lord Jesus Christ We pray that our hearts may be wonderfully moved and stirred And that we shall sense a real nearness of yourself to us Pray that our hearts may be pure and clean before you That even now before we take this bread to our lips If there is anything that we need to ask your forgiveness We come now and say cleanse us afresh And make us worthy of accepting this wonderful provision that you have given to us We ask these things in the Lord Jesus Christ's name Amen So we do have the wonderful invitation to draw near with faith And to take bread and wine to nourish our souls As we remember our Lord Jesus Christ And particularly his death for us on the cross So Jesus on the night that he was betrayed He took bread when he had given thanks He broke it and said this is my body which is for you Do this in remembrance of me Our blessed God and loving Heavenly Father What a glorious privilege is ours To come to this table Come because we are invited Come because we love to come Come because we want to show forth his death till he come And Lord we thank you that no matter what distance we are from you That you call us And that if we come, if we seek you with all our heart Then we shall be found of you But Father the initiative, the love, the seeking love is yours And Lord we bless you for that love And now Father as we take this token cup of wine And remember our Lord Jesus Christ Yielding his life, giving up his life for us Lord we just give you thanks We can't compute the worth, the value of this shed blood But Lord we know this that through the ages of eternity We'll be able to sing of its worth and of its splendor And we rejoice Father Even though that rejoicing is touched with sorrow to see the death of the Lord Jesus Nevertheless Father we do bless you And rejoice before you in this feast of remembrance And so we take this cup in his precious name We need to imagine that the Lord Jesus is giving this cup to us personally And individually as he did to each one of his disciples When after supper he took the cup and he said This cup is the new covenant in my blood Drink this all of you in remembrance of me Father we do want to express our great appreciation and gratitude to you And we do want to tell you that nobody has been blessed like us We're the most privileged, most fortunate people on the whole of the face of the earth That you should not only give us your word and speak to us through your word Though you are so great and in heaven and we are so little and on earth You've spoken to us Not only given us that sense of your presence So that we know you, we feel you, we sense you in our lives Maybe not all of the time but certainly from time to time We couldn't imagine not having you in our lives Thank you that you make clear your will to us as well You map out a path for us And when we walk in that path that's the very best We've discovered that We've experienced that in our lives But on top of all of this you've given us your own dear son The Lord Jesus Christ Thank you that you gave him who was your most valuable possession That you loved him so much And yet you loved us in order that you might give him for us Father we thank you May we go out of here with a great sense of joy and privilege at being your people And may this week we live as your people For Jesus' sake Amen Thank you for watching Please subscribe Thank you for watching Thank you for watching Please subscribe Thank you for watching Please subscribe Thank you for watching Thank you for watching