Morning Light – Deuteronomy 6

[Deuteronomy 6] Coming into the Muchness of God. In this chapter God simplifies His expectations with the commands to “love the Lord with all your heart, soul and might”. God is not interested in you living some convoluted, complex religious lifestyle. His purpose is to increase you and prolong your days upon the earth. He wants you to reap the benefits of His Lordship and find your identity in Him.

[Deu 6:1-25 KJV] 1 Now these [are] the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do [them] in the land whither ye go to possess it: 2 That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do [it]; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD: 5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8 And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9 And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 10 And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, 11 And houses full of all good [things], which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; 12 [Then] beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 13 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. 14 Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which [are] round about you; 15 (For the LORD thy God [is] a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. 16 Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah. 17 Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. 18 And thou shalt do [that which is] right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, 19 To cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the LORD hath spoken. 20 [And] when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What [mean] the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you? 21 Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh’s bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: 22 And the LORD shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: 23 And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. 24 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. 25 And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us.

In the chapter Moses rehearses commandments that Jesus stressed very heavily in His own ministry hundreds of years later. These commandments Moses attests that once received they would result in the people fearing God. You would think fearing God would come first and then obedience but rather it says “here are the commandments that you might fear the Lord…” In our culture we place emphasis on thinking before acting. Jesus said in Luke 17:20,21 that the kingdom doesn’t come with observation. You have to do something. The word of God is our guideline not just for our thinking but our acting. James 2:17 says faith without works is dead. In other words you have to act.

Christians struggle with faith saying “if I just understood things would be better or breakthrough would come…” The bible doesn’t say that we will be led by understanding or rationale. Isa. 55:12 says you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace. Phil. 4:7 says that peace passes understanding. Do you want peace or do you want understanding you can’t have both. So in verses 1 and 2 the verses declare to us that the commandments come to establish in our hearts the fear of the Lord out of which obedience is worked out in our lives. The fear of the Lord is present in our actions not our sentiments. Sentiments are fleeting. Our actions reflect our true character.

The verse says we are to KEEP the commandments. The word “keep” means to “keep as a garden….” God always goes back to the garden. God put you in your life like He put Adam and Eve in the garden. You are a tender and a keeper. Your life is your jurisdiction and the boundaries within which your accountability to God is worked out. Your experience with God begins and is framed in your personal life not the artificial environment created by religious infrastructure. The ancient Christian Celts understood this. They decried the idea of what they called “the inside God” confined in the artificial environment of cathedrals and monasteries. They lived their faith in the farms and fields and villages where their own lives played out.

What is the fear of the Lord? The word carries the meaning “to tremble. To hesitate with awe”. Adam and centuries later the people of Israel feared God in an unwholesome way and withdrew from and avoided His presence. This fear that Moses speaks of is a fear by which we draw near and acknowledge with awe God’s presence and our reverence for God’s presence gives us pause in every choice we make. In other words in every word or deed the fear of the Lord becomes our frame of reference because we acknowledge and check with the inward witness of God’s Spirit in all things.

Verse 3 tells us that God’s purpose in walking in the fear of the Lord is that we increase mightily. The wording “increase” here implies that God wants you to increase exceedingly much. He wants you to have much, be much and do much. He wants your life to be increased with “exceeding muchness”. This is not what Christianity teaches. Christianity teaches us to be content with poverty and accept lack and loss as part of God’s ineffable, mysterious will for our lives. We need to learn to scorn and hold in contempt this kind of thinking for even though it comes wrapped in the guise of religious wisdom it comes from the pit of hell. God wants your life to be lived out in blessing and increase and length of days – that your days be prolonged in the earth.

In v. 20 there is a mandate to never forget where you come from. Never allow people around you or religious culture to manipulate or control you. Do not allow the primary influences of your life to arise from religious culture or worrying about what people think. The important thing is that you LOVE THE LORD with all your heart and soul and might. Notice it doesn’t say love the savior. We all love God when He bails us out of our troubles. In this passage the emphasis is on loving Him in His Lordship. Love Him in His sovereignty and superintendence over our lives. God leads us often into situations and many things that challenge us. He delights in bringing us out of our comfort zone and demonstrating His purposes in our lives even when it isn’t convenient for us. He chooses to lead us in directions that others look askance at and disapprove of because they don’t understand they are not to be in charge, God is in charge. He wants us to love Him in His Lordship not just in the things He does for us.

In vs. 13-17 we are warned about swearing by the name of the Lord. What does it mean to swear by the name of the Lord? It includes but is more than using God’s name as a profane byword. Your name is your identity. This speaks of exchanging self-consciousness for God consciousness. Before the fall Adam was so close to the woman God gave him that it never occurred to him to give her a proper name. He didn’t call her Eve until after the separation caused by the fall. As Adam with Eve, Jesus is our bride-groom and we are the bride. He wants us to be so close to Him that His name is all that matters and we find our identity and security and authority in Him and not any other thing. This is what Jesus meant in John 15:1-4 when He exhorted us to abide in the vine – to abide in Him. He is the vine we are the branches we find ourselves in Him and rely on Him and rest in Him and not any other false dependency.

In v. 18 there is a commandment to do the will of God. God wants you to be a doer. Verse 18 says “thou shalt do…” It is in what you do not what you think that your relationship with God is worked out and manifested. James 1:25 says doers and not merely hearers only are blessed. So if the preacher in his message says “are you blessed” by what is said our answer should be “not yet” because we haven’t incorporated what is taught into our lives by our actions yet.

God wants things to go well with you. He wants you to move from where you are into a “good land” a good place. Are you in a good place in life? No? Then you know what God’s plan is. To bring you into a good place. He wants you not to visit there once in a while – He wants you to POSSESS the land of blessing. He wants blessing to be the spiritual geography your life gets worked out in. Further He wants to cast out all your enemies. Not everyone thinks of you as God thinks of you. The person that looks at you differently than God looks at you has enmity in their heart. They love what they want you to be. They are committed to their idea of you but that isn’t God’s idea of you. God told Abraham He would curse those that cursed him. That meant in the original wording that God would “execrate” from Abraham’s life those that even “trifled” with him. We see that in Lot’s example. He allowed his herdsmen to quarrel with Abraham’s servants. How did it work out for Lot? He was destroyed and his destiny became an abortion because he thought nothing of trifling with God’s covenant friend. The interesting thing is that Abraham was emotionally conflicted about Lot. Lot reaped the rewards of his actions and Abraham came along to bail him out of the consequences he brought on himself. There is no record that Lot ever showed gratitude for what Abraham did for him. We need to use wisdom in guarding ourselves against ungodly and soulish relationships with those around us who don’t see us as God sees us and don’t rejoice in God’s first right of refusal in our lives.

Again in the passage we see another admonition to remembrance of God’s faithfulness. We need to remember our Jesus stories. There are times when every day is a miracle and God moves in powerful and awesome ways. Then there are months and weeks where life simply carries on. Those can be frustrating times. Don’t forget and don’t allow those around you to forget your Jesus stories and the goodness of God in your life from times past. God is a good God and what He did for you in times past He will continue to do. We must remember and help others to remember so that we don’t deviate from His blessing or forget all He has done for us.