In his sermon "Therefore, Consider It In Your Heart," Scott Brown explores the first speech of Moses in Deuteronomy, which covers chapters 1 to 4. Brown emphasizes the importance of Deuteronomy as a book beloved by Jesus, due to its themes of God's leadership and Word. He discusses the significance of history as a means to understand God's guidance and calls for renewed obedience, highlighting the role of specific words such as 'land,' 'inherit,' 'possess,' and 'hear' in conveying the message. The sermon outlines the structure of Moses' speech, which includes recounting the history of Israel, illustrating God's fatherly kindness, and exposing human depravity. Brown connects the Old Testament teachings to New Testament writings, underscoring the continuity and relevance of Scripture. He urges the congregation to see themselves in biblical narratives and to heed God's call for obedience, while discussing the dangers of adding or subtracting from God's Word. The sermon concludes with a call to action, encouraging listeners to trust in God's promises and guidance.

Well, this morning we have a great privilege of engaging in a speech about a speech in many ways. We're going to be reviewing Moses' first speech. As you know, if you've been tracking with us, that the book of Deuteronomy is composed of three different speeches. The first one goes from chapter 1 to chapter 4, the next speech goes from chapter 5 to chapter 26, and then the final speech goes to the end. And so what we find here is a speech that summarizes the heart of God toward His people in many ways.

Here is the secret of life. God desires to lead His people, and He leads His people by His Word. If you want to know how your life should be conducted, then be comforted today because God has given us His Word that He would lead us. How would God lead a little child by His Word? How would God lead a family by His Word?

How would God lead a church by His own word. That's the principle that we find here in this book. Why was it that Jesus seemed to so love the book of Deuteronomy? Because it is full of the things that he loved to speak about in his earthly ministry. The Lord Jesus quoted the book of Deuteronomy more than any other book.

It was the book that Jesus loved. And so why would he love it so much? Well, the first reason he would love it so much is because it was his own word. He quoted himself. Every word of scripture is a word of Christ.

Obviously, he would quote from his own word because he loved it so, and he knew that it would be a blessing to all of his people. And so, we are a people now being led by this word that's here. This first message of Moses to the children of Israel is God's message to us. Why are we here? Why are we listening this?

Why have we spent the last few weeks going line by line through this first speech of Moses? Well it's because we need to hear it. Every person here in this church is in a season of life in which this is necessary for them. We need to hear this. This is a message from Almighty God.

God has so arranged the church that he would lead his church by his spirit. The spirit of God would choose elders for the church, and those elders would seek the Lord, and they would try to discern what would be the most helpful thing for that flock at that particular time. I can come to no other conclusion but this, for some reason, God desires to send us through a season together. And in this speech here, we find two great, great themes. First of all, I would just like to suggest that God is sending us through a season to consider our history, to consider our roots, to consider what God has done, and secondly, to consider obedience in a fresh way, that we would see how important it is that we obey, that we would fulfill the cry of Moses as he said, oh, that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever.

I believe God is sending each one of us in this church from the littlest child to the oldest man in this church to consider a fresh obedience. How have I disobeyed? Let me consider it and turn to the Lord my God." So Moses is speaking to the children of Israel on the east side of the Jordan River. And he's recounting this 40-year history. He's looking back, and he's giving them a charge that would be like a power pack for them to help them understand where they've been and also where they are going.

You know, history without a message is dead knowledge. We should always be asking, what do these stones mean? And that's what Moses is doing. He has the children of Israel on the east side of the Jordan, and he is telling them what these stones mean. You might think of this same principle in your own life.

This is a 40 year journey that Moses is speaking of. How many of you are around 40, right? And you've been on around 40 year journey. That's what we see here. Look back, see the journey that God has had you on.

And what have you learned? What has God done in the past? How has He revealed Himself? How has He led you? What has He been telling you all your life?

Are there things that He's been telling you year after year that you've not yet obeyed? Obey them now before you go into the land, before you take another step, recall what God's commands are. So Moses has his people in the same way that he has us here today. We too are people in transition. We too are people who have a future and a hope ahead of us.

How will we conduct ourselves in the midst of all the occurrences that will come upon us in the next years of life that are coming to us? Now, how do we understand this message? What I'm going to say now really helps us to understand not just this speech of Moses, but every speech of Moses that he gives in this book. You can discern the message, the heartbeat, the passion that's being communicated here by looking at the high count words, the words that Moses repeats over and over again. What we learn here is that words are so important.

Have you ever found yourself singing a song and a word in a song just blesses you? It's this word compassion or something or whatever the word might be and it just takes you where you need to go. The words of Scripture that way, the words of ministry from a brother or a sister or a mother or a father in the faith of that way as well. But God has given key words in this book that I believe really help us to understand how He would have our hearts burn. What would He have us burning over?

And let me just give you a few of them. The land, God is giving His people a land. The term land appears 153 times in Deuteronomy. Inherit, 36, God desires to give his children an inheritance. It's a marvelous eternal inheritance, but it isn't just eternal in the heavens.

It's here right now. God desires to bestow upon his people many blessings in this life that we might have life and might have it abundantly. Then there's the term possess. There's a work to do. 65 times this word appears.

There's a land to possess. There's territory to take. There's ground to claim and reclaim as well. There is the term hear 44 times. Hear the words of the Lord.

God desires for us to hear And then the word hearken 27 times that has to do with obedience to obey and then the term heart To consider these things in your hearts and to obey them from the heart to love them from the heart and then the term to love the Lord your God. And so if you string all these words together, the high count words, I think it really gives you a sense of what Moses is trying to communicate in this first speech and then also in the entire book of Deuteronomy. So it goes like this. If you obey and observe and keep the law of God, if you go in and possess the land and love him with all your heart and trust him in your heart by hearkening to His commandments. If you love Him, if you obey Him, then He will bless you for many generations.

That really capsulizes so many of the themes that are in the book of Deuteronomy. So what season are you in in life? I would just suggest that you and I Should be very careful to understand that we're in a season of life right now. God has put us in this church He is calling us now to carefully harken Under his voice to renew a sense of obedience to check our hearts to check our lives, to diligently pay close attention to our lives now. And not to just live our lives one day at a time randomly, but carefully consider all of these things.

So this is the method that Moses is using. He's recounting history, but it all has a purpose. All of history has a purpose. You know, one of the tragedies about studying history, when you study them among the pagans, which I did for many years, I was a history major in college, you study history, but it really doesn't have any meaning. But as a believer, you see that everything has meaning.

Everything that happened in history is a work of a sovereign God. And so it has meaning. If you study history and cannot assign meaning to it, forget it. And this is why so many people can study history and not remember hardly anything, because it has no meaning. They're just memorizing factoids.

But that's not what Moses is doing. He's taking history and he's showing us how we should understand the history of the world that God has placed us in. So the method that he uses is recounting history. Now, let's talk about the structure of this speech. There are two parts to this speech, as there are in so many of the books of the Bible.

It's really amazing to consider how this book is structured and how so many other books are structured. We just finished with the book of Romans. Deuteronomy is structured the same way. The first part of the book of Romans is an explanation of the love of God, the power of the gospel in people's lives, working in everyday life. And then there's the application of that gospel.

And the same thing is in Deuteronomy. We have three chapters of narrative that really explain the gospel and God's love for mankind. And then we have the didactic portion that gives specific commands for the Christian life. So it's structured in these two sections. There's a historical section and then there's the didactic section.

The focus of the book is very clear. The words of God applied. That is the focus of the book of Deuteronomy and this first speech. This speech begins and ends with the importance of words. In the first few verses the setting is very clear and that is that Moses is delivering words.

He is explaining, he is expositing, he's going to work through and dissect the words that apply to his people. And that's the focus of the Book of Deuteronomy. And it's obedience to the words as well. This week I had the privilege of reading a short section of one of the great English Puritans, Thomas Watson's, writing on the Ten Commandments. He speaks of the issue of obedience before he dives into the Ten Commandments.

Here's what he says, obedience without knowledge is blind, and knowledge without obedience is lame." He says, our obedience must correspond with the word as the copy with the original. I love the way he captured that. You see just so the importance of heartfelt obedience and that we are copycats. We don't copy the world. We don't copy our family.

We copy Almighty God. He is the copy of which we are constantly referencing off of. And this law, this second statement of the law, this copy is also our copy that we might continue to reproduce. The message is the gospel of salvation. I'd also like to make just a comment here about the continuity with the New Testament that this first speech has.

There are many allusions, phrases, words that Moses uses in this very first speech. And I'd just like to give you a few examples, just so you can see how New Testament writers used this first speech in their own ministry. In Hebrews, chapter 11, we read, Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude, innumerable as the sand of the seashore. And in Deuteronomy 1, 10, Moses says, the Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today as stars of heaven in multitude. May the Lord God of our fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are and bless you as he has promised you.

Here the writer of Hebrews hearkens back to this principle that Moses picks up, that he picked up really from Abraham. And then we find James speaking of the principle of partiality that's declared in Deuteronomy chapter 1. He says, but if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. So James is saying there's a law and if you show partiality you're breaking that law. It's the law of God and it's the law of God that is spoken of here in Deuteronomy 1 verse 16.

He says, then I command your judges, hear the cases between your brother and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with you. You shall not show partiality in your judgment. Now, that's a law, right? This is a law for all time. Does the Old Testament somehow pass away?

James didn't think so. He harkens right back to it, and he says, if someone comes into your church and they're dressed in fine clothing and you treat them with partiality, you're breaking the law of Moses that was declared in Deuteronomy chapter 1. Yes, the law does apply every single day in the church of Jesus Christ. James believed it did and so should we. But James tells this amazing story of how love grows cold in a church, how we show partiality to people as they come into the church and the tragedy that that is a tragedy because it destroys love and of course every breaking of the law of God is a destruction of love because the whole law is summed up by the word love.

So here we find not only the writer of Hebrews, not only James harkening back, casting back into the law to prove the testimony of the gospel. There are the statements of Stephen in his great sermon as he was being stoned in Acts chapter 7, as he's telling the story of the Exodus and then further behind in the call of Abraham. And he says, and Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Heron. And from there, when his father was dead, moved him to his land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on." Interesting phrase.

Stephen is quoting Deuteronomy chapter 2 that they were not given one footstep of the land of Esau. Here we find Stephen pulling back. He uses the same terminology because he's taking what was written before and applying it to the time of today. We find in Revelation chapter 22 the end of the testimony of Scripture where John says, I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book.

And if anyone takes away the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take them away, his part from the book of life, from the holy city. So John is making it clear that it is unlawful to add or subtract to the law. He picks that up from Deuteronomy 4.2. He uses the same terminology that Moses used. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." Here we find John using the words of Deuteronomy to prove his point regarding the importance of the word of God.

We find Paul in the book of Romans doing the same thing. In Romans 3, chapter 2, he says, what advantage then is the Jew or what is the prophet of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. Here what we find the Apostle Paul doing is saying there's enormous value in what the Jews have been invested. The law has had a marvelous effect upon them.

In Deuteronomy 4, Moses says the same thing. He says, for what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And he speaks about how the law and the testimony, the commandments have made the children of Israel a mighty and wonderful people, a people like no other. We could go on and on. We could go to Hebrews, chapter 12, and see allusions and words that Moses uses.

We could go to Romans 1, 23, and speak of how Paul uses the teaching of images in this first speech in chapter four. We could go to Mark chapter 12 and see how the Lord Jesus Christ used Deuteronomy 435. All to say this, that in this first speech, there are several places that New Testament writers use. Why is that important? It's important because there really is a great, I'm just going to call it a heresy at work today, where people believe the Old Testament means nothing.

But the Old Testament meant a lot to the New Testament writers, and so much so that Jesus would quote Deuteronomy more than any other book that he quoted. It was the book that Jesus loved. So should we. So those are just some general sort of introductory comments about this speech. I want us to see a few of the sort of general points that can be made about this speech.

Now, let's look at the speech itself. There are eight stopping points. There are really sort of eight mountain peaks I want us to bump over as we go through this, as we try to grasp what God is saying to us. God is saying this to us. He is speaking to His people now through this word.

How would we respond to it? Okay, The first mountain peak of this speech is the fatherly kindness of God. Moses reviews the fatherly kindness of God, and he speaks of how he has cared for his people. He says, I carried you, as a father carries his son. This is the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That he would rescue his children and he would carry them as a father carries his son. This is what God is doing with his people. This is what God is doing with you. He's carrying you. Did you think that you were cast out in this world alone?

Did you think that you repented of your sins and now you're on your own baby? Absolutely not. You're being carried by Almighty God. He will carry you every nanosecond of your life while you sleep, when you get up. He will carry you every decade.

He will carry you until your death, and He will take you into heaven by His own arms. This is God's great kindness that is communicated here in this first section. There's so much here to deal with. We could talk about the fact that Moses is talking about a 40-year journey that really could have only taken 11 days, because they were only 11 days' journey away from the place that God wanted them to go, and how much wasted life there is in this heavenly journey, yet God still carries his people. It's absolutely astonishing to think of how God loves sinners and He cares for them all their life long.

But this journey, how many journeys have you been on that could have been 11 days but ended up taking 40 years. Well, we have them, don't we? But Moses' appeal is obey, stop, listen to the words of the law and obey them and don't make an 11-day journey a 40-year journey. So there's that we could speak of in this expression of God's fatherly kindness. We could talk about how important it is to change and to move on.

He says in verse 6 of chapter 1, you've dwelt long enough on this mountain. It's time to move on. It's time to obey. It's time to be led by the Lord and to move into new territory. You know, it's very challenging to make a change in your life, to change a habit or a pattern.

Isn't it so discouraging how slow, how slow we are to change. And yet God commands us to move on. Leave this mountain, you've been wandering around this mountain too long. Now change. Is there anything that God is pressing upon you now?

It needs to change. It needs to change. I have a few things going on in my life right now that we absolutely need to change. I pray God's help for it. But what is it for you?

You've been on the same little treadmill all your life. Now it's time to do business with God and to obey. There's the whole area of responsibility. Go in and possess, verse 8. See, I have set the land before you.

Go in and possess the land. Go out and do it. Get it done. That's the message. And continue in fulfilling this call.

There's so many elements of God's fatherly kindness in this first section. The multiplication of God's people, the leadership that God gives His people, and the imagery that He's giving them to help them to know how to think about their lives. In this first speech, there's something really fascinating that happens at the end of the speech. Lots of history has been recounted, right? We've gone through all kinds of difficulties, you know, moments of obedience and disobedience, battles, challenges, all kinds of historical accounts.

And Moses gets to the end of this speech as he calls his hears back to former days in chapter 4. He sees all of history as just the pallet of God's mercy. But there's something very striking in chapter four. God is speaking to his people as if they had been present in all those events that he's talking about. Guess what?

They hadn't all been there. Some of them were there, but most of them were not even present in the events that he's speaking of. And he says, remember how you did this? Remember how you did that? Well, they weren't there at all.

But Moses is making the works of God your history and my history. He say, you might not have been born yet, but this is your story. This is for you." He says in verse 34, the things which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt. For you? What do you mean?

I wasn't even born yet. That's what a lot of these people were thinking when they heard this. In verse 35, you were shown these things. Well, wait a minute. Everybody wasn't shown these things.

That's the idea. Here's the point. We are on every page of this text. When we read this, we should say, that's me. What is there that is in me?

We should always be asking ourselves that question. This is so wonderful if you understand how to see this in your life. And little children, let me just look at you now. Please listen to this. This is so important.

You're going to spend many years reading your Bibles. Be very careful how you read these Bibles, because here's how you should read your Bible. You should say, I am Elijah. I'm the one out of hope, I'm out of energy, I'm the one that God sent the ravens to. I'm Sarah in Barren.

I'm a barren woman. I am that woman. I am Hannah. I am the childless woman in the story there. You should always read your Bible and say, I'm the woman at the well.

I'm the Pharisee. I'm the man born blind. That's who I am. Always read your Bible and say, I'm the woman at the well. I'm the Pharisee.

I'm the man born blind. That's who I am. Always read your Bible and say, what is in there that is in me? Always read your Bible that way. And let God transform your life.

And be Zacchaeus. Be Nicodemus, who must be born again. Be the rich young ruler. You are the gathering demoniac You were insane until Christ saved you and he clothed you and he put you in your right mind. You are Mary and Martha.

You are Daniel in the lion's den. You are Moses at the edge of the Red Sea. You are the children of Israel and Baal-Peyor. We always have to see ourselves that way. That's what Moses is doing in recounting this history and as he's explaining the fatherly kindness of God here in this first section, this is the heartbeat of it all.

He's taking us back to our own roots. When you read the Bible, you read the story of your own life. It tells your story and my story. And of course, this is absolutely wonderful, isn't it? I am David, the boy who killed Goliath.

I am Joseph, who was hated by his brothers, and yet I glorify God in the midst of all of my sufferings." Well these are the ways that we should understand history. Moses is helping us to see how to understand the words of God and how we should understand history. The first great mountain peak in this speech is the fatherly kindness of God as a father carries his children. And then the second mountain peak here is the depravity of man and it's exposed in many of its facets. There is rebellion, a picture of depravity.

It's a picture of men driven by fear of obedience, driven by fear of consequences. If they obey, what will happen to them? That's the question that they're asking. And there they are in Kadesh Barnea being called to go into the promised land. And spies are sent out, and they come back.

And the people have at least four different excuses why they can't obey God. They're all very reasoned excuses. This is what we do. We make reasons for why we shouldn't obey. We project outcomes that really are wrong.

Our sinful hearts give us the wrong outcomes and we do the wrong thing. So here in this place of failure was this reasoned obedience. They said, our brethren have discouraged us. Secondly, the people are greater than we are. We can't do this.

Thirdly, the cities are big. And fourthly, the giants are there. Any reasonable person would not go in there. Let's be reasonable about this. I'll lose everything if I go in there." That's what the devil does with us.

He says, if you obey, you'll lose everything. Wives, if you submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, you'll lose everything. Husbands, if you give your lives for your wives, everything will fall apart. If you truly nourish and cherish them, you won't get everything done that you need to get done. Have you ever had that thought in your mind?

That you're going to delay obedience because you fear an outcome. Well, that's what the children of Israel were doing. This is the great depravity that is upon us. I was in my office with a man this week, appealing him to escape the wrath of God, eternal judgment upon him, because he kept saying, someday I'm going to get my life together. He feared the near-term outcomes of rejecting the devil and the work that he has so loved all these lives.

But what Moses is exposing here is this thin. We think that we're walking on solid ground, but we're not. We're walking on rotten boards when we refuse to obey. And that's what Moses is saying here. And yet Moses continues to appeal to his people in the midst of it.

He knows why they didn't obey back then 40 years ago and why they're reluctant to obey right now. And so he comforts them. It's remarkable what Moses does. He comes and He says, the Lord has blessed you in the work of your hands. You have lacked nothing.

He says the Lord will fight for you in verse 30. He says the Lord goes before you. Don't you realize that? Don't you realize that you lose nothing when you obey God? You fear that you'll lose everything, but you lose nothing.

You receive all the favors of God when you obey. And so the same thing for us, we need to understand God's great kindness toward us. That in All of His commandments are for our blessing, all of them. Moses speaks of God's protection and God's surveillance over everything. If you obey Him and you step out into the Red Sea, He will part it.

That's the idea. One of the most important verses to me in my family is the verse that says, the Lord goes before you. This verse, Deuteronomy 2.30, really is a help to me. It was a verse that My grandfather quoted to my father when he was getting ready to go off to fight the Japanese in World War II. The last time he saw him before he went into combat, he handed him a Bible and he said, son, the Lord goes before you.

Now that is something that must be passed on. Moses is passing this on to the children, all the children of Israel. We all need to know that, that the Lord goes before you. There's nowhere that you can step that God has not already covered and He knows your footsteps before you take them. He knows your thoughts before you have them.

And in the midst of it, Moses is declaring the faithfulness of God. At the same time, there are consequences. There are damaging things that happen when we make the wrong choices. Moses recounts it right here. He not only recalls the sin of the people, he also recalls his own sin.

He confesses his sin here, that he was commanded to speak to the rock, but he struck the rock, because his heart had grown hard toward God at that moment. So there are dangers here. There are dangers of your own heart. There are dangers of the collective group of people. Think of this.

Think of the dangers of negative people who would discourage you from obedience. Worldly wisdom that comes from people that you love and know. Some of them are church people, and they say things that sound really reasonable, just like the people said here. We need to understand how dramatically important it is that we speak the words of God to one another. The dangers of leading people astray and being negative are dramatic.

We know from the book of Proverbs that there are seven things that the Lord hates. He hates a proud look. He hates a lying tongue. He hates hands that shed innocent blood, he hates a heart that devises wicked plans and feet that run swiftly to evil and a false witness who spreads lies. But then there is also one who spreads discord among brethren, And that's what these spies did.

They spread discord among the brethren, and they discouraged their brethren, and they caused them to sin. He says this one is an abomination. He calls it an abomination. That's how the sinfulness of sin worked its way out in the children of Israel There at the front end of the promised land in contrast You have the holiness of Caleb in verse 37 in chapter 2 who followed the Lord wholly Here we find this beautiful picture of discipleship. Moses is walking beside Joshua and we find evidence that Moses is not only encouraging Joshua, he's also calling the people to encourage him, because Moses knows that because of his sin he will not enter the promised land.

Moses will not enter the promised land until Jesus Christ takes him there on the Mount of Transfiguration. He will go up onto the mountain and he will die. But some day he will enter the promised land, but it won't be in his own timing. So we see this great picture of disobedience, the disobedience of Moses, the disobedience of the people, the holiness of Caleb in contrast. And also we find a picture of repentance, but it's a false repentance in 141.

There are tears of regret because they did not enter the promised land and they try to make amends, but the truth is it was false repentance. They cried, but they weren't repenting. Have you ever known anybody who cried for their sins but didn't really repent? They cried, they wept, they swooned, and there was no change. It's false repentance.

And that's what we see here. In this scheme of sinfulness that Moses is recounting, to warn the children of Israel, we see a whole range of dealings with sin. And then the third mountaintop that's here are the blessings of obedience that are illustrated through some really tough encounters. In chapters 2 & 3, what we find is that Moses is recounting the encounters that God brought to the children of Israel. We bump into the sons and daughters of Esau when we come to the principle, bless your enemies.

How do you deal with those who are around you? You deal with them according to the commandment of God. And the sons of Esau are encountered, and there are specific commands that are given for how to treat these nations. And then Moab and Ammon. These are the sons and daughters of that terrible liaison with Lot and his daughters in the cave.

The children of the cave are here. The wicked, depraved children of Moab and Ammon. A terrible family line that wreaked havoc among the people of God. The children of Israel are going to pass them by. What are they going to do?

God tells his people, be content with what you have. I gave them their land. Do not covet their land. I gave it to them. Yes, they are wicked, but I'm in charge of this world.

And so there are particular things that you need to do in your relationship with them as you go by them. Then we find the encounter with Sihon, the king of Hashbon. And really, what I think is a brilliant example of what do you do when you find those who have been hardened against you and your people. You're doing the right thing, but their hearts have been hardened. And that's what happened with Sihon.

The children of Israel went up and said, we don't want to harm you, we want to pass by, and God himself hardened Sihon's heart, and so the children of Israel prevailed. But this will happen in this life. God will harden certain people toward you. What will you do? You have to obey the commandments of God, treating them correctly.

And so we find this toughening that's going on where there are evil offspring of evil families on the one hand. How do you walk through that? How do you walk through situations where someone's heart has been hardened against you? And then there's the whole issue of dealing with giants. You have Og of Bation who pops up.

Og, this giant of a man who sleeps in this gigantic bed. And he's a giant in the land. And the children of Israel are commanded to go wipe him out. It just happens, they wipe him out really very, very easily. Sihon, king of Hashbon, Og, king of Bashan, these are just pop-up giants.

They just pop up, they're put there before us by God. But God expects us to move through them in a faithful way. We find that all these encounters have strengthened the people. These encounters have worked to prepare the people to go into the promised land. And he uses these pop-up giants who come up in our way so that we would deal with them in a godly way.

Don't think that if you just do everything right that you won't have pop-up giants. Doing everything right has nothing to do with the way God is discipling you. We have the mentality that, well, if I would do everything right, everybody would treat me right. Nope, not true. That's not what the Bible teaches at all.

In fact, quite the contrary. Scripture gives you many reasons to assume, just to assume, that you will have conflicts. You will have giants. You will have problems. Your soul will be tested.

You will be tempted to sin. You'll be tempted to react wrongly. And so we have the scheme of these pop-up giants, these nations that are there, ominous situations. And then, interestingly enough, we see Moses' desires are withheld. He cannot enter the land, as it's revealed in chapter 3.

And then we come to the next mountain peak in this and that is a call to obedience is issued. And here we come to that famous section, you shall not add or subtract from the law. Obey what God has said And don't go and invent your own life. Listen, observe, and possess is the message here. And also remember bail of peyote.

Remember the great temptations. So there's this dramatic call for obedience. And perhaps one of the most important issues of life and that is is it lawful for me to invent any kind of church I want to invent is it lawful for us to invent family life after our own image and desires is It lawful to conduct your work life just out of the hat of your own experience or the latest business book that you read? No, it's not. God's people have one source of authority and that is Holy Scripture.

Adding and subtracting is dangerous, dangerous business. And then fifthly, the making of a wise and understanding people is explained. And here we see a call for carefulness in obeying the law. Take heed to yourselves and the words and teach them to your children. That's what he's saying.

You should care a lot about yourself. What are you doing with yourself? Take heed to yourself and teach your children. That's the message in this section. Sixthly, there are warnings about images in chapter four, 15 through 40.

And there are two huge issues here that are presented. One is that God has revealed himself in words. He says, you saw no form, but you heard words. Christianity is a word-based religion. It's not a religion of forms.

And here we find really an introduction to the second commandment, which says, you shall not make any image that would assist you in the worship of God. We live in a culture that's very, very insensitive to this, where people are comfortable looking at pictures of Jesus. We are called here very specifically to reject images of God. Anything designed to help you in the form of an image to worship God is dangerous for you. And then he also speaks of the dangers of images generally.

That they cause your heart to rise up with an inappropriate attraction. So those are the two main things that are there in that section. And then we find the cities of refuge are defined, and then the Ten Commandments are introduced in the last section. And what does it all mean? Well, it all means that God is so kind to his people who are depraved, who need to repent of their sins.

It does mean that God calls his people to obedience to all the things that he has said. It does mean that God is building a wise and understanding people. It means that there are warnings that need to be heeded regarding images and the way that we think and what we look at particularly. And then he introduces this whole matter of the Ten Commandments. One of the things that we see here is this, is that God only blesses obedience, but He does it in a big way.

He blesses obedience with tremendous care and thoughtfulness, and he causes it to last from one generation to the next. And so here we find in this first speech a tremendous call to obedience and it's all framed in the testimony of history and it's the story of your life and my life. There are so many things that we could say here that we can grasp from this text, and of course I always wish that we had more time to grasp what's there. Here are just a few things in closing. You might look at the things that are before you now and say, it's impossible.

But God says possess the land. Jesus says all things are possible with Him. You might be saying I'm too tired. But God says I will carry you I will give you rest says the Lord Jesus you might say nobody really loves me like I Deserve to be loved and God says I have loved your fathers and I have loved you here in Deuteronomy 1-4. You say, I can't go on.

And Jesus says, through Moses, do not fear, the Lord will fight for you. And the apostle says, my grace is sufficient for you. Or you might say, I can't figure things out. I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life. And God says, these are the statutes and the commandments and the judgments which I'm giving to you today.

That you might observe them in the land which you're crossing over to possess. We find Solomon saying of the Lord, I will direct your steps. You might say, I can't do it. And God says, I will never leave you or forsake you. You can do all things through Christ.

And you might say, it's not worth it. And God says that He will be with you forever and He will take you to every good result. Now this is the message of this text. I can feel the passion of it. Moses is constantly urging his people.

And I would just say that God has us here for a reason. Let's don't let this first speech pass without catching the urgency of it and allowing it to change us and allowing it to call us to the places that God is using Moses to call us to now. I pray that God would give us a heightened sense of this, be careful to observe it, that you read so many times in this speech. Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, we pray that you would help us to observe these things in the land which we're crossing over to possess.

Thank you for giving us a history and the meaning of it as you have here today. Amen. Thanks for watching!