Deut No.4 The Land and the Law

Now, let me just for a little while engage in a piece of revision as we come to our fourth study from this magnificent book in the Old Testament, and I use that word not indiscriminately. I'm absolutely filled with amazement as I constantly am reading this book in preparation for these studies to discover within it so many aspects of the Gospel of Jesus which stand out very, very clearly in the New Testament. The Old Testament has a great deal that points away to the future books, the second part of the Bible, and though I've recommended the New International Version on many occasions, I don't apologize for doing exactly the same again this evening.

I found that this version has brought Deuteronomy, for me, really to life, and I can think of nothing more helpful than just spending an hour or so reading that book all the way through from chapter one right through to the end of this volume. Now, Deuteronomy, as you know, is the fifth book in the Old Testament, and it comes at the end of that little group of books which were in the main written by Moses. The word Deuteronomy itself, you may recall, I think I alluded to this, actually means second law, but really it's not a very good title.

It's a title that's been put to this book, and whether it was the choicest one or not I think is up for debate, because it gives the impression that God having given a first law, then gives a second law, whereas actually what you find within Deuteronomy is a repetition of some of the teaching in Exodus and also in Leviticus, but the title means second law, the repetition and the extension of certain teaching that is found in earlier books. One other thing that you may remember, and that is that this book was really the preaching matter of Moses just before the Hebrews went into the Promised Land, and because of sinfulness on his part he was prohibited from entering Canaan. He got the thousands of Hebrews in front of him in Moab on one of the plains.

Only a few miles away was the land of the forefathers of the Hebrews, the land of Abraham and of Jacob and so on, the land of the patriarchs, and Moses knew that when these people went back to the Promised Land there were certain dangers and temptations which would confront them. He'd had experience of their waywardness and of the manner in which they would become disagreeable in the years that had passed, and so aged Moses, the meek man, the loving man, sets down certain teachings which will help the Hebrews so that when they go into the Promised Land they might live to the glory of God and use the land as the Lord wants its various aspects to be employed. And you will also remember, as we engage in this piece of revision, that one word which is dominant to the book of Deuteronomy, which is a key word for understanding it, is the word contract or covenant.

God is in a covenant with his people. This covenant indicates that they are a special people, a chosen people, not as Deuteronomy makes clear because they were the mightiest people in the world at that time. That was far from the case, but God in his grace had set his mark upon the Hebrews and they entered into a covenant.

They would live for God and God would bless them in ways that other nations would not know, but they were to keep the various aspects of the covenant, the various regulations. Well, all these are matters that you're so conversant with that anyone could get up and give us a resume of the point, I'm sure, but let's push on. And you will recall that in introducing our topic last week, I said to you that there were three or four specific things which God gave the Hebrews which really were superb.

He gave them, for instance, a leader, Moses, a unique man, and we'll have a study on Moses later on in this series. Not only did he give them Moses, he gave them priests, pastors if you like, a specific group of people who are called Levites, and it was their responsibility to teach the Hebrews. But as we pointed out specially in our study seven days back, he gave them the land, the land of Canaan, a special land, a land on which the eyes of God, or to which the eyes of God, were always directed.

And fourthly, on top of these three super gifts was the law that God bequeathed to the Hebrews, a set of rules, regulations, which would govern their lifestyle in the land. And it's that topic that I focus your attention on right now, and we'll come to it again next week. I wonder what the word law conjures up in your mind.

When I taught in Tottenham, if you said the word law to any of our boys, they would think in terms of what in Tottenham slang they would describe as the fuzz, a rather derogatory term for the police. And unfortunately, and by no means in a justified fashion, some of my boys would feel that the police were always against them, and very often they would warrant the attention of the police for some of the things that they got up to at night. They would feel that the law, and all that the law represented was against them, and would rob them of certain privileges, would interfere with some of the pranks that they got up to.

And in other parts of the world, as I point out in the notes that I give you, the very word law itself is associated not always with pleasant things which are for the benefit of mankind. Now that misunderstanding of law is not only found socially in Tottenham, or in Northern Ireland, or in Southern Africa, it's sometimes wrongly grasped by Christian people. And there are those who come along and they tell us, well you know, we live in the New Testament dispensation, and as a result of this, the law has got nothing to do with us.

We are freed from the law. I remember reading a book produced by some brother in the charismatic movement some while ago, and this book, which ran to about 40 or 50 odd pages, had as its main thesis the fact that the law has been perfectly fulfilled in Jesus, and now we're not under its obligations at all. And I say from the teaching of Scripture, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, that that is a completely inaccurate conclusion.

The Lord Jesus Christ indeed kept the law, and fulfilled the law. But listen to what Jesus has to say about the law in Matthew's Gospel, the fifth chapter, and the seventeenth verse. Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets.

I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.

Now that doesn't seem to suggest that the law, the ten commandments, and all the other regulations, about two hundred of in the book of Deuteronomy, and the earlier books of the Bible, have now passed away, and have got no relevance at all to you and to me. Far from the law being done away with, Jesus says that not one jot, not one tittle, those are the two smallest letters in the Hebrew alphabet, or rather the two smallest characteristics, not one of those shall pass away. So far from the law being thrown on one side, because it's been completed in Jesus, the law stands as something that you and I as Christians have to face up to.

You're not convinced? Well, you remember a young fellow came to Jesus one day, and he'd got a problem. He wanted to be a disciple of Jesus, and he also wanted eternal life. And Jesus said, you know the law, you know the commandments, why don't you keep them? Because in the keeping of the commandments, at the end, if they're perfectly fulfilled in your life, then you'll enter into salvation and eternal life.

In no way did Jesus say to that young fellow, don't look to the law of Moses, don't look to the Ten Commandments, they've all been completed now, they've all been pushed on one side, I'm bringing in something that is so infinitely better, that no longer are the Ten Commandments required. Jesus didn't say that at all. So, far from the teaching of Deuteronomy, and the teaching contained within the Ten Commandments in particular, far from this being tossed aside by the New Testament, the importance of these commandments stands out even more.

But before I develop this further, let me put up another question. What's your approach to the law of God? What's your approach to the law of God? You know there are a class of people in church history, and they were nicknamed the Puritans. And if you see a picture of them, particularly if it's a sort of cartoon representation, as it really has to be, because obviously there's no photography available in those days, you see stern men with beards almost a yard long, and faces in a characteristic, in an expression that fits in with the style of the beard.

And the idea is that these men were so stern, so rigid, so unbending, they were legalists. And there are some people who believe that the law of God has been given to robbers of really enjoying life. So you've got these Ten Commandments, and all the other developments of those commandments, not only in the Old Testament, but the Sermon on the Mount, and the Beatitudes, and the ethics that are contained within there.

And the popular idea is that all these have been produced by some Puritanical God, who wants to rob you and me of real happiness. And nothing could be further from the truth. You see, the law is essentially a good thing.

Let me give you an understanding, an analogy to help you comprehend the reason for law. It's an illustration that perhaps you've heard me used before. Let's suggest that you're so well off that you feel the time has come for you to buy a coloured television set.

So you go down to the shop, and you decide whether Curry's have got the best buy, or Rayford's, and you give out the money. And you get it home. And as you're undoing the packet, let's assume that it's a portable one, you take out the instructions, and you think to yourself, the cheek of the manufacturer, why's he giving me these instructions? Why should I wire the plug up in the way that he says I should wire the plug up? Why should I ensure that attached to my roof is the type of aerial that he determines should be attached to my roof? I'm not going to do it like that.

I'm going to wire it up the way that I want. I'm going to select the aerial that I want. And so because you feel that you don't want your liberty curtailing at all, you're mad enough to go along with your own notion of how to set the electrics of your TV, and how to fix your aerial.

Now what will probably happen? Well, possibly the whole thing could blow up. Or if it didn't blow up, you wouldn't get a very good picture. And as a result of not getting the best out of the set, if you then write a letter to the manufacturer and complain, obviously you would have no justifiable reason for the argument that you put forward.

Why do I use such a ridiculous notion? Well you see, because it teaches us this, and sometimes we have to teach by shocking people. The reason why the manufacturer gave those instructions was because he wanted you to get the best out of your television. It was essential that the wires go into the plug, and the plug into the socket in the way that they were designed to go in.

And that the right aerial is placed up on the roof, and it's angled at the correct level, so that it's picking up the signal, and you're getting the best picture. In that illustration, law is definitely for your good. Similarly, the law of the Ten Commandments, and the developments of those commandments in the New Testament, and the whole ethical code of Christianity.

I wish those who perhaps, and I doubt whether there's anyone here this evening who would argue at this point in my meditation, but I wish that those who would argue against the necessity of the law of God could come and deal with some of the pastoral situations that I have to try, in my lack of experience, to cope with. People who've broken God's law all the way down, and have made an absolute mess of their lives. Just been dealing with a seventeen-year-old, and a nineteen-year-old, both young women, and what they've gone through, and what they've experienced, and the way their lives are breaking up, simply because they refuse to accept the law of God.

Well, it's beyond understanding. And place alongside them a seventeen-year-old, or a nineteen-year-old, here from the tab, who's confessed the Lord Jesus as Savior, and it's endeavoring to live their life by the ethics of the gospel, by the law that there is within the gospel. Well, you see such a contrast.

You see, one who's concerned to live up to the manufacturer's instructions, so to speak, and is beginning to get the best out of life, and others who are violating the manufacturer's instructions, and as a result, are really in a terrible, terrible mess. Well, that's the way to understand law. It's given not by some stern God who wants to rob you of happiness.

It's given you by a loving Heavenly Father who wants to build controls into your life, so that you will enjoy the best that life, which is His gift, has to offer. Now, why did we engage upon that particular meander from this study? Well, we weren't just being sidetracked, but rather I wanted to underpin this, that when Moses, through God, was given the law to the Hebrews, he was given it to them for their good. And you will find time and time again in the book of Deuteronomy, the words, the law and the statute, so whatever is the modern terminology of the Bible that you might be reading, you'll find these words employed.

For instance, in the first chapter, or rather the fourth chapter, and the first verse of the book, Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you. Turn on to the next chapter, stay with the first verse. Moses calls all Israel and says unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears.

Go on to the eleventh chapter, and again, still with the first verse, a similar phrase. Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God and keep his charge and his statutes and his judgments and his commandments always. Just three examples, and there are a couple of dozen that could be cited.

Why am I giving them to you? Well, because here you see, when Moses refers to law, he uses two or three other nouns, which seems to suggest that the law in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy does not quite accord with, does not quite agree with, the way that in the legal profession we would use the term law today. When Moses was giving these commandments by God, through God, to the, or on behalf of God rather, to the Hebrews, he was telling them about things which were going to embrace so many areas of their life. I mean, our law today, it will set up regulations concerning the way that I drive down the road, the speed that I go at, and we would accept that as being a reasonable thing about which the law ought to legislate.

But as far as the Hebrews are concerned, the law of God goes much, much further, and is not only to be called, not only to be understood in terms of the legal law that a judge might use for him to make a decision, if two people who've got an argument come in front of him, but it will touch on such thing as a style of dress. It will touch on how a person ought to treat his neighbour in certain situations. Many, many things that the law of God will touch on are discovered in the book of Deuteronomy, and so you get this wide description of law, not just in terms of law, but the law and the statutes and the judgments and the commandments.

And God wants His people to implement, to live out that law in their lives. Turn, for instance, to the 29th verse of the 5th chapter, and here we've got the Lord speaking through Moses, and He's saying that all these laws that He's giving, all these regulations are so much to the benefit of His people, and you get a cry from God's heart because He wants them to apply these laws in every area of lifestyle. Oh, that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children forever.

God is really concerned that the law is maintained and His regulations are practiced. Now, why is God so concerned? Well, because of the reason that I argued the manufacturer who makes His modern television set is concerned that you agree and practice His regulations so that you get the best value for money. And God is concerned that when the Hebrew people live lives by His laws and regulations, as they touch even the small issues of daily relationships, man-wife relationship, mother-father-children relationship, that they will get blessing as a result.

So, stay with the 5th chapter and come right down to the end of that chapter and what you discover. You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that ye may live and that it may be well with you and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess. God's purposes, you see, are for the benefit of those who receive His law.

Turn to the 6th chapter and the 24th verse and you get the same thing. And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that He might preserve us alive as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He hath commanded us.

So, these laws, they're designed for the general health, for the general well-being of the people. It's not so much that they're going to be blessed as a prize because they've kept these laws, but through keeping these laws, they will find blessing will come their way. If, for instance, to give you an analogy in case you didn't understand me there, if you discipline your body, you go jogging every night or every other night, you go for a swim, if you go for a nice brisk walk, well the outworking of looking after your body is the blessing of health, is it not? It's not a sort of prize which is superimposed on you because you have looked after your body, it's something that's basic to physical discipline.

Similarly in God's law. If a nation will live by His law, then those blessings which are innate within the law, they shall be outworked. And never was the Hebrew community better off than when the laws of God were implemented.

You think of the balmiest days, the best days in Hebrew history, the time when King David and King Solomon were reigning. In the early years of Solomon in particular, the empire of Israel was just expanding, and the laws of God were maintained, and the blessings that were innate within those laws, they were being used, they were being benefited by, the people benefited by them. So then, within the law is the graciousness of God.

He gives law for the benefit of people. And as I mentioned a little while ago, the sphere of law, it touches many, many things that ordinary law today doesn't touch. Such things as, excuse me, such things as sexual relationships, how to bring up your children, parental responsibility, dress.

It tells you also that if a man's in debt to you, and if he earns his living by grinding on a millstone, you're not to take his millstone from him, because he's in debt to you. If you did that, then he'd lose his livelihood, and that would be a very bad thing indeed. So many things that the laws of God touch on, and there are two or three in particular, which I mentioned from the book of Deuteronomy in your notes.

The laws of God touch on health. Now, the law of our land, not generally speaking at any rate, touches on health, does it? But here, there's legislation given about the leper, and if someone gets an infectious skin disease, then according to the law, they've got to be put out of the village, put out of the town. You say, well, that sounds a very harsh thing for a gracious God to legislate upon.

But it wasn't so long ago, and indeed I think we still have some hospitals called, we certainly did in the north of England, isolation hospitals. If people have got something that's infectious, they're taken away from the community. And in those days, the law was to apply, that the leper, the one with an infectious disease, would have to be moved out from his particular village or encampment because of the threat that his disease might have on someone else.

There's concern, you see, in the law of God, in Deuteronomy, for the physical health and well-being of men and women. But that concern is also reflected in the New Testament, isn't it? Is it not in the Gospels? In Romans, for instance, we're told to present our bodies a living sacrifice to the Lord. We're told that we're not our own.

Our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit and we are to take care. Well, these very principles are innate within the Old Testament. The law of God touches on such things as commerce and business transactions.

You remember Mr. Heath made reference some two years ago, three years ago, was it? Perhaps a little longer, to the ugly face of capitalism. Well, that's censured too in the book of Deuteronomy. It was wrong for a person in the redeemed community to lend money to his brother and extract interest.

He wasn't to do this. If his brother was in a predicament, then he was to loan what he could afford without interest being required. The dealings of commerce between nations and the principles there, they were to apply, that was all right.

But amongst God's own people, there was a different standard. And so in the New Testament, we find that amongst the disciples of Jesus, the followers of the Lord Jesus, there's a different sort of lifestyle which is to be cultivated. I make reference also in the notes to the fact that these laws of God defined in terms of the statutes and the commandments, they touch on marriage too.

The Old Testament has got a lot to say about marriage. Some people think that its teaching is not quite what it was or what it has become in the New Testament. And that observation is correct.

The Lord Jesus lifts the whole idea of marriage and puts it on a much higher plane. And He qualifies the ease with which divorce was allowed among certain classes of Jews. But even in the book of Deuteronomy, you find that at a time when women were very much the playthings of men and secondary citizens, that there are regulations built in by which the rights of a woman are preserved in Hebrew society.

The 24th chapter and the first verses of that chapter are the ones to look at if you want more information. So, what have we discovered so far this evening? Let's just go back in case you've lost the thread of the argument. The idea of law in Deuteronomy goes far beyond just the Ten Commandments.

It's developed into areas where human relationships are involved. It affects personal standards of hygiene. There are some very explicit commands as to how a person is to look after his body and his bodily functions.

There is a law laid down about the burying of corpses, because if human flesh decays, then the possibility is that disease and plague might break out. The law of God embraces far more than the law, as we use that word, does in the 20th century. And the reason why the law was given was for the benefits of the people, so that within the Hebrew community, as they applied the laws of God, they should know blessings untold.

Well, what final conclusions can we make from our study this evening? Well, that there is an authority in law, in the law of God, which is to be recognized. Look at the second verse of the fourth chapter. You shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall you diminish aught from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.

In other words, this law is so important, and it's got such authority behind it, that you're not to tamper with it, says God through Moses. And does not that apply to the whole canon of Scripture? Scripture is God's revelation, that's not to be tampered with. It's a holy revelation, by which men and women are to live their lives.

So important, I work out in your notes, is the law of God in Deuteronomy, that this special class of people, the Levites, have as their professional calling in life, to remind the people constantly of the law of God. So in the 33rd chapter and the 10th verse, referring to these Levites, we're told, they shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law, they shall put incense before thee, and so on. The people were constantly to be reminded of the legislation which God gave to Moses.

And the Levites were the folks who would help. But not just the Levites, parents, they had a responsibility to their children. And parents were told, on many occasions, that when a child asked why the Hebrews did such and such, that they responded, because this is the law of God, and this is what He has told us to do.

So in the 6th chapter and the 7th verse, we get an instance of that cited. And thou shalt teach your children diligently, thou shalt teach these laws diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them, when you sit in your house, when you walk by your way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. The laws of God are of infinite value.

So great is the legislation which God gives the Hebrews, that when Moses sums it all up, in the 32nd chapter of this book, he makes one of the most startling pronouncements in the 46th and 47th verses. And Moses said unto the Hebrews, set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe, to do all the words of this law. For it is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life.

And through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land whither you go over Jordan to possess it. That's perhaps the most significant statement in the whole of this book. Why did God give the Ten Commandments? Why were there other regulations deduced from those Ten Commandments? Because this was basic for the well-being of the people.

And they were to be able to say to other tribesmen and to people from other countries in the centuries that were yet to be, when they asked, why are you so blessed? Why is it that such remarkable things are happening in your land? They will say, well, we've got a law, a law which God has given us, and we're living by that law. In fact, that law has become so basic to us, it is our life. And of course it would have been.

But, but what? But the Hebrews didn't keep the law. And the Ten Commandments and all the commands which are derived from those Ten have been broken by men and women alas down the centuries. And the story of what happened to the Hebrews is, in capital letters, the story of what's happened to each one of us.

And this, you see, is the reason why we went to Galatians right at the beginning of our study this evening. You see, the law is a good thing basically, but it's got its limitations. You go back to our television set.

All right, so you made a mess of the manufacturer's instructions. Maybe you weren't so pig-headed as to do it deliberately, but you got the green wire mixed up with the brown wire as you were wiring everything up, and it exploded. Well, the law, the regulations, told you that it would explode.

But they can't help you at this moment. It's no use going to the law and saying, or to those regulations and placing them alongside the plug and say, can you sort something out? The law can tell you what to do, and it can tell you what not to do. But when you've done what you shouldn't do, then you've got a problem.

And the law can't help you. And you see, this was the reason, my friend, for the gospel and for the coming into the world of the Lord Jesus. Because men and women, including the Hebrew community, them in particular, have broken God's law.

And as a result, they're in a mess. And what is necessary is for someone to come in to this world and fulfill God's law and do repair work amongst those who are suffering because they've broken the very principles of God's law. And that's, in a word, what Jesus does.

Only it's not to be restricted to repair work, it's utter and complete renewal. And you see, a Christian is a person who comes to Jesus and says, Lord, I've broken the Ten Commandments. I've broken the ethical code of the Sermon on the Mount.

And I'm in a mess. I'm fused. I'm confused.

I'm really in an awful state. What does Jesus then do? Well, as we confess our sins, the Bible says Jesus is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to rid us of all unrighteousness. But what else does He do? Because if your gospel stops there, it's an inadequate understanding of the gospel.

Jesus then places within our hearts the Holy Spirit. Well, what does that do? Give us some exciting emotional experience. Well, that may be part of it, but that was never the final objective of the impartation of the Spirit.

He gives us power. Power to do what? Power to live up to the requirements of the law. So far from the Ten Commandments being rescinded by Jesus, they're fulfilled in Jesus, and He makes men and women new so that they can start again to fulfill, by the power which Jesus gives them, the very law which they have broken on previous occasions.

So, you see the reason why the Apostle Paul speaks of the law in terms of a schoolmaster. He's not being disrespectful to a schoolmaster, a very wonderful profession, but he's saying that the law disciplines you. The law, it aggravates you, it convicts you, it exposes you, it shows your areas of not just weakness, it shows your areas of sinfulness, shows you how condemned you are in the sight of God.

But thank God for the law, which makes you feel such an absolute heal, because when you feel so convicted, because you've broken this law, which was there for your benefit, then you go to the Lord God, and you fling yourself at the foot of the cross, and you ask for forgiveness. And God, by His grace, implants the Holy Spirit within your life. And He doesn't say, now go and live just how you want to live.

He says, now go and live how the Spirit tells you to live. And the amazing thing is this, my friend. The Spirit of God, when He is within the heart of a man or a woman, tells him to live in according, in accordance with the teaching of the Ten Commandments.

So, far from the Gospel pushing law onto one side, it grants the ability of men and women to be able to live up to the law. Ah, but you say, that's rather a problem then, for people who lived before Jesus. Well, it is and it isn't.

Because even people who lived before the Lord Jesus Christ came on earth, people who were listening to Moses preach, got some understanding, if they listened carefully, that even though in the days to come they broke the law, they could nevertheless fling themselves upon the mercy of God. And if they were truly repentant, God, in a way outside the law, would give them an opportunity to have sins forgiven, and to start afresh. So, in the 29th verse of the fourth chapter, if from thence, from the land of exile to which you've been sent, because you've broken the law, thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou shalt seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.

And again, on to the 30th chapter, Moses anticipating that people alas, will break the law of God, goes on to say, but if you confess your sins, verse 5, the Lord thy God will bring thee back into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers, and the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live. Why was the law given? To stop people from enjoying themselves, not a bit. It was given by a loving heavenly Father for the benefit of His children, and even when they broke the law, out of the graciousness of His heart, He made a way possible, and made it absolute in Jesus, so that sins could be forgiven, and broken personalities could be remade and renewed, and through the fullness of the Spirit, the law of God could be once again lived up to.

Now, Fathers, we've looked into one aspect of your Word, which may be difficult for some to grasp, but it's so important for us to comprehend. We ask for an even greater growth in grace, and in the knowledge of God, as a result of the time that we spent together, and help us, Father, not only to be men who meticulously try to keep regulations, but men through whom the Spirit of God flows, men who abound in the love and in the joy that Jesus brings. Father, we pray that to the faithfulness that we offer to your law, there may also be the jubilation of personalities that have been transformed by the Holy Spirit of God, for Jesus' sake.

Amen.