The sermon, titled 'Our God is a Consuming Fire,' delivered by Jason Dohm, explores Deuteronomy 4:15-43, emphasizing the theme of God's consuming fire and jealousy. Dohm revisits the first part of the chapter, which underscores the sufficiency of Scripture and the importance of adhering strictly to God's commandments without adding or subtracting. The sermon discusses the significance of God's nearness to Israel and the importance of teaching God's statutes across generations. Dohm highlights the dangers of false worship, particularly idolatry in the form of image worship and creation worship, and urges believers to take heed against these temptations. The penalty for sin and God's disciplinary actions are addressed, using Moses' exclusion from the Promised Land as an example of God's impartial justice. Despite human unfaithfulness, God's mercy remains constant, grounded in His promises to the patriarchs, and extends to all who seek Him with sincerity. The sermon concludes with a call to recognize the privileges of knowing God and the responsibilities that come with it, encouraging believers to live as a holy and set-apart people.

Bill just read all of chapter 4. The sermon this morning is on verses 15 through 43. And I believe the heart of this is verse 24, which is, For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Before we get too much into the text today, the first 14 verses of the chapter are what have been covered the first two weeks. And it's been a busy chapter so far.

We're only on verse 15. We're just starting, really, the body of the chapter. But I wanted to go back through and do a quick review by pulling out some of the phrases from the first 14 verses to help us understand where we've been in the chapter. The first one is this, verse 2 of the chapter. You shall not add to the Word which I command you, nor take from it.

You may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." What a fantastic verse on the sufficiency of Scripture, on trembling to either add or take away from the things that God has given to us. And we should always be careful when we find ourselves doing something that does not have a firm footing in Scripture. Then verse 7, for what great nation is there that has God so near as the Lord our God is to us? So the scene here is that Israel has been given the statutes and judgments of the Lord and they're actually observing them and the merging of these two things, them having been given these wise commands And then them actually observing them has caused the nations around them to acknowledge that they're a wise and an understanding people, which is what we see in verse 6. And how good it is when a people has been given the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and they honor God and they observe them.

They demonstrate love for God in observing them and how much reproach it brings on God when the people have been given these commandments and they do not observe them. Next, we see from the first part of verse 9, only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself. Only take heed to yourself and diligently keep yourself. Taking heed to ourselves is a theme that we come back over and over and over again in Deuteronomy. This thought appears four times in this chapter, three times in the text that we'll be drilling into today, but one time here in verse 9.

And on this, Matthew Henry said something which is really helpful. He says, considering how many temptations we are compassed about with, and what corrupt inclinations we have in our own bosoms, we have great need to look about us and to keep our hearts with all diligence. Those cannot walk aright that walk carelessly. And here we have a warning from God's word about walking carelessly and a charge to keep ourselves diligently. Next, in the second half of verse 9, we see this, teach them to your children and your grandchildren.

We see the transgenerational purpose of God, that He desires not only to be reforming us and our hearts, but also that these things would be passed to our children and to our grandchildren and that we would teach them to teach their children after them. In verse 10 We see that. And then finally, we see in the second half of verse 10, that they may learn to fear me all the days they live on the earth, that they may learn to fear me. And this is a great lead into this chapter because really the text that we have today is about the fear of the Lord. And so the sermon is titled, For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

And what the author is trying to do, Moses being the author, but really ultimately God being the author of Deuteronomy, is to develop in His people, not just the Israelites at that time, but His people now and His people forever, to develop in us a fear of the Lord. We live in a time where the fear of the Lord has fallen on hard times, where God is only our friend and He's only our Father and He's nothing else. He is our friend, absolutely He's the best friend that any man, woman, boy, girl could have. And He is our Father. He does have much mercy towards us, but He's much more than that.

And when we leave these things out, we leave a God who is awesome in the modern sense of the word. He's awesome, He's our buddy. But God never pretended to be that in the words of Scripture. He said that he is a consuming fire and a jealous God. So in the text, in verses 15 through 43, we see three things and these are the things we'll cover today.

First We see the danger of false worship. There's a danger out there in its idolatry. It's placing worship where it doesn't belong. Secondly, we see the penalty for sin. God disciplines His children and He consumes His adversaries.

There is a penalty for sin. And we interpret God's mercy wrongly when we think that He'll never cause a penalty to be had for sin. And then finally, the mercy of God towards sinners. Even though His people are unfaithful, He is a very faithful God, and He draws His people back into relationship with them even when they sin. He's faithful to His people and His faithfulness does not depend on us.

It depends on His own good pleasure. So these are the three places where we'll spend our time this morning. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the text that you've given us today. And we pray, Lord, that you would use it in a mighty way to teach us to fear you.

We thank you that you're a loving God, that you're a God who is full of mercy. But we desire to think about you rightly and to have a full picture of you as the scripture gives us. That you are a consuming fire, that you're a jealous God, you consume your adversaries, that you pay penalties for sin and that we would have a righteous fear of you, not one that would drive us away from you, but one that would draw us to you in love. And we ask these things in Jesus name, amen. First we'll tackle the danger of false worship.

And in this passage, Moses addresses, God addresses, two types of idolatry. And they are this, one, worship of images, and secondly, worship of the creation. Worship of images and worship of the creation. And he starts out by saying, take heed. We see this phrase in verse 15 right at the start.

We see it in 19. We see it again in 23. We see it three times. And each time it's in connection with idolatry. And so God is repeating himself to make sure that his people understand what he's communicating them.

The terrible dangers that we have in front of us about idolatry. We tend to think about idolatry as a little brass Buddha, a little fat guy that we would rub his belly. No, idols are not like this at all. They can be that. That's such a small slice of what real idolatry is.

And so the warning is for us. And the warning is repeated by God because it's so critical. We're headed to chapter 5. And that means that we're headed to the Ten Commandments and the first and the second commandment. No other gods before me, the first commandment and no graven images the second commandment will give us an opportunity to drill in on this.

This text today is a great primer for where we're headed in the Ten Commandments. So first, worship of images. Worship of images is what we're being warned against. Or worship using images. And this is a continuation of what began in verse 12, where we read this in verse 12.

And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. You only heard a voice. And Moses is starting to build his argument here. And he's saying essentially that our worship is to be informed by words.

God has revealed Himself to us what He's like and how He desires to be worshiped through words. And our worship is not to be informed by images because images are a distortion and we'll talk about that. And we're going to look in detail at verses 15 through 18 because it talks about the worship of images and what I've done in these verses, we'll put them up on the screen, but I've highlighted The words any and the words likeness, because in these four verses they appear five times. They each appear once in 15, they each appear twice in 17, they each appear twice in 18. And so when you look at this you think, is there something special that the Lord would like to communicate.

I think a five-time repetition would have us go straight to the heart of what God is communicating. Verse 15-18. Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act correctly and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. So first we have the term any and it's repeated five times, any, any, any, any, any, any And what is God doing with that? He's making it so clear that there are no exceptions to the images clause.

There are no loopholes. There are no images which are appropriate to inform us in our worship. Here's a quote by Charles Hodge who was president of Princeton University in the mid-1800s when this institution still feared God. And he said this, idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images. Now the Reformation was largely fought on this battleground because the Catholics were saying no, no, we need all these images to inform us in our worship.

It helps us worship. And the reformers came to passages like this and like the Ten Commandments to say, no, it's forbidden. Our worship is not to be informed by images. And the golden calf, the account of the golden calf, which I'm sure in the coming weeks we'll look at in great detail, substantiates this. In other words, it was not a false god that the golden calf was intended to be.

It was an image of the true God. And how do we know this? Well, because Aaron, when the golden calf has been fashioned, says this, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. This is your God that brought you out of the land of Egypt. I'm not making up the new God.

I'm not distancing ourselves from the true God. We're giving you an image, something that's tangible, which is what the people were after. Give us something tangible. The thunder and the lightning scares us. We'd like to have something tame and tangible before us, but God will have none of it.

The second word, likeness. Likeness, likeness, likeness, likeness, likeness, five times repeated in this passage. And this gets to the heart of the problem. The word itself tells us what we need to know, likeness. And God refuses to be put into any small box like this where we would say, God is a golden calf, God is a bird, God is a great oak tree, God says no.

And the clearest expression of this that I've come across is found in Isaiah 40. And this is the voice of God directly through Isaiah. And he says this, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him? The workman molds an image.

The goldsmith overspreads it with gold and the silversmith casts silver chains. Whoever is too impoverished for such a contribution chooses a tree that will not rot. He seeks for himself a skillful workman to prepare a carved image that will not totter. Have you not known? Have you not heard?

Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes to nothing.

He makes the judges of the earth useless. Scarcely shall they be planted. Scarcely shall they be sown. Scarcely shall their stock take root in the earth, when he will also blow on them, and they will wither, and the whirlwind will take them away like stubble. To whom then will you liken me, Or to whom shall I be equal?' says the Holy One.

Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, who brings out their hosts by number. He calls them all by name, by the greatness of his might and strength of his power. Not one is missing." So when we liken God to something by using an image, we equate God with that thing. Did you catch that? When we Make an image to liken God to it.

We equate that thing with God. And Isaiah says as much here, or God says as much through Isaiah, to whom then will you liken me, or to whom shall I be equal? Now the thing about words is, you can put disclaimers and caveats. The whole Council of God gives us many metaphors about what God is like. But it's clear from the words that that's only a sliver of the picture, not so with an idol.

When we see an idol, it is an equating with God, and God will have none of that. God is in heaven above. He is the maker of heaven and earth. He spreads out the heavens like a tent to dwell in. He's not like any image that we could make to represent him.

And he despises the equality with the images that we make. Isaiah 42, 8 says this. Again, this is just two chapters away from what we read. I am the Lord, that is my name, and my glory I will not give to another, nor my praise to carved images." God is not willing for something so small and something so frail to be praised as if it was Him. J.I.

Packer in his book, Knowing God, argues based on scriptures such as this, that using images in worship does two things. One, it dishonors God, and we definitely see in Isaiah 40 that that's true. Making images to inform us about God dishonors him. And secondly, that it misleads men. It dishonors God on one hand and it misleads men on the other.

And this is exactly what we see in our text today. Look at verse 16. Lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves a carved image. Now the King James Version renders this instead of, lest you act corruptly, it renders it, lest ye corrupt yourselves. In other words, there's something corrupting in the act of making and then associating an image with God.

Lest ye corrupt yourselves. And it's repeated in verse 25. We see another repetition in the text. Lest ye corrupt yourselves. Images are corrupting.

They distort. They twist. They stretch and elongate in some areas and they compress in other areas and it ends up being like the funny mirrors at the circus. Have you ever looked in that? They've made, they've stretched and they've made curves in these mirrors so when you look at it you don't even know what you're looking at because you're super tall or you're super fat and you're nothing like what you would look at.

This is what images do. They are corrupting, which is what is being said in verse 16 and verse 25. Lest ye corrupt yourselves. Matthew Henry says this, for to see God as he is is reserved for our happiness in the other world. And to see him as he is not will do us hurt and no good in this world.

This is the summary statement. To make an image is to see God as He is not. To see God as He is has been reserved for our time with Him in heaven. We will see Him face to face then. We will see Him as He is.

But making an image is to see Him as He is not. It's corrupting. It corrupts us. It gives us the wrong view of God. It has us thinking about God wrongly.

It has us worshiping somebody who's not God at all. Now this is a good time to talk about the nature of images in general because this is an important implication of the text. The meaning of this text is that we should not use images for worship. Our worship should never be informed by any image. Never, Never, never.

I should say it five times, shouldn't I? Never, never. But the underlying assumption, which has a much broader application, is this. Images matter. Images have a disproportionate effect on us.

They have an impact that goes beyond many of the other things that we encounter. And this is why David says in Psalm 101 verse 3, I will set nothing wicked before my eyes. David understood that there's not a neutral zone here where we can look at images that are not right and not be defiled by them. We tend to think we're above this. I'm mature.

I'm well taught. I know the Lord well. I can look at whatever I want to and I won't be defiled by these things. But no, David said, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes, because David understood that images have a disproportionate impact on us. When we see it, we're changed by it.

We're colored by it. Now, Will viewing the wrong images cause wholesale apostasy the next day? No, it might be easier if they would cause that, because then you would see it, you would be sensitive to it, you could repent from it. But images color, they shade, and They give us degrees off, a few degrees off, and it ends up where we don't even catch the distortions over time because of the image. And this is why when God haters want to change the culture so that people accept as good the things that God says are bad.

They don't write white papers on the virtues of homosexual marriage. They make sitcoms about homosexuals who are funny and who are sensitive and who are caring and who are regular and who are quote unquote normal. This is how the culture changes, isn't it? It's not a frontal argument of words, because we would catch that, and we would analyze that, and we would dissect that, and we would compare that with the Word of God, and then we would reject it. But when it comes in a little bit at a time where it's normalized through images, images disarm for whatever reason.

They disarm the warning bells that we have. Our natural alarm bells are disarmed by images. And this is how it works. And this is why it's so important that we take this text in Deuteronomy 4 and we take it as an exhortation to ourselves to be careful about the images that we let our eyes see because images have a disproportionate impact. Now, shifting to worshiping the creation.

We just talked about the use of images in worship and any image is forbidden. Any, any, any, any image is forbidden. No likenesses. So now we shift to talking about worshipping the creation. And specifically, it's talking about the host of heaven, the sun, moon and the stars.

Verse 19, and take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven. And when you see the sun, the moon, and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you feel driven to worship them and serve them. So again, we see the phrase, take heed, pay attention, be sensitive in this area. Because it says, when you lift your eyes to heaven, you'll feel driven. Isn't that an interesting phrase?

You'll feel driven to worship and to serve these things. This is why we need the words of God. We are driven to worship. Do we agree on that? We are driven to worship.

There is something in the heart of man that drives us to worship. And our only hope is that God reveal to us who He really is and how he desires to be worshipped. Isn't it? Can our own minds contrive the right way? Is this the system, this the system that we see in Scripture, the system that we would contrive if we would leave ourselves to our own devices?

No, of course it isn't. And so God has revealed Himself, what He's like and how He desires to be worshiped, in the words of Scripture. So this is the heartbeat of the passage, that we would take heed and be careful because we're driven to worship things. And we're not innocent bystanders to the images that we allow. They have an impact on us and we're growing affections by what we let our eyes see consistently.

We're growing affections. We may not think we are. We may think we're strong enough to exist but we're growing affections and so Moses says take heed. Lest you lift your eyes to heaven, lest you fix your eyes on something, and you'll be driven to worship it. We're growing affections by the things we let our eyes consistently see.

And then in verse 24, we see the title of the sermon. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. God hates that we would turn away from Himself to worship something of lesser value. He is a consuming fire. He is a jealous God.

We see Paul say this in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 11 through 14. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear. For the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire.

And the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned he will suffer loss. That he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire." So Paul says that for the Christian, there is only one foundation, and that foundation is Christ. If you're building on some other foundation, I don't know what you are, but you're not a Christian.

There is only one foundation for the Christian. And yet, when we're Christians, we're all building on this foundation. And what Paul says is, we're able to build with different materials. Some will stand the test of refining fire, some will not stand the test. And Paul's exhortation is that We build with materials that are consistent with the foundation the materials that are consistent with Christ the foundations Will stand the test of refining fire those that are not consistent with it will not you may be saved But it will be as through the fire our work will be tested And this is what we see in Deuteronomy 4.

We see, for the Lord your God is a consuming fire. We see in verse 35, the Lord Himself is God. There is no other beside Him. There is no other beside Him. We see in verse 39, therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath.

There is no other. Here's another repetition. God is a consuming fire. There is no other. There is no other.

There is only one God. And He is consuming everything else. He is a consuming fire. He's a jealous God. Now, I don't know of anywhere that would mirror what is being said by God in Deuteronomy any better than in Romans 1.

In Romans 1, Paul talks about the wrath of God against those who do not worship Him as God and who are not thankful. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.

Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their heart to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanges the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. Amen." So at the beginning of this, Paul starts out by talking about creation and how creation relates to worship. So it's not that creation has no relationship to worship, it's that creation can have a very wrong relationship to worship. Paul says that God's invisible attributes are understood by the things that are made. Not represented by the things that are made, but understood.

In other words, is there a way that we can look to the skies and see the sun, moon, and stars and understand the eternal attributes of God? Yes. But it's looking through the things that are being made, not looking to them. There's a difference. It is legitimate to look to the sun, moon, and stars and say, what a great eternal God must have made these things and this would cause us to worship God.

Jonathan Edwards did this. He loved nature, but he did not worship nature because he saw through nature to eternal, almighty God who made the heavens and the earth. This is what is being said in Deuteronomy. He talks about the sun, moon, and stars, and then he says, this is a heritage. The things like the sun, moon, and stars, like the trees, like the things that we can see that are made, are our heritage.

They're a good gift from God, not to be worshiped, Not to be equated with Him, but to be seen through to the eternal Almighty God who made them. Idolatry is different than looking through the created things. Idolatry is looking to the created things. And Paul says that it's an exchange. We were made to glorify God and be thankful.

And when we don't do this, when we exchange that for something else, a life of looking to God, glorifying Him as God, and living a thankful life, we exchange that for something else. And we enter into this corrupted downward spiral that we see in Romans 1. How many people do you know that you've seen enter this downward spiral where they were upstanding and moral as far as you could tell, and yet they did not worship God as God, and they did not live thankful lives, and they entered this spiral that ends up in just the most awful debauched places. We're not to worship God through images. We're not to worship images, and we're not to worship the creation.

We're to worship its creator, to see through the creation to Almighty God. Finally, the penalty for sin. We see this in a couple of different ways. We see it first of all with Moses. Moses talks about the penalty for his own sin in verses 21 and 22.

And God has forbidden Moses to enter the promised land. And this harkens back to Numbers 20, verses 7 through 12, where Moses is commanded to speak to the rocks so that it would give water for the people, and he's mad. And he strikes the rock twice, and he blesses out the children of Israel, which he also had not been commanded to do. And God said that he had not been hallowed. He wanted to be hallowed through these circumstances, but he was not hallowed.

Moses is forbidden to enter the Promised Land. And Moses says, �The Lord was angry with me for your sakes.� �The Lord was angry with me for your sakes.� That�s interesting because we�ve already hit this once or twice in Deuteronomy already and he always when he brings up this topic of him not entering the promised land he uses this phrase, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes And that will either mean one of two things. It either means, you made me do this, you stiff-necked people. It was your sin that caused me to sin. So they would understand that they had a significant part in this thing that was such a grief to him.

Or, which I think is more likely the case, I'm going to lobby for this, that this judgment is an example for you. He was angry with me for my sin, and he imposed this penalty for you so that you would see that God has no favorites, that God does not show partiality and that God imposes a penalty for sin. God could not overlook Moses' sin because of what that would communicate to the rest of his people. I think this is the interpretation that we should adopt. That when Moses says, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, that we would see that even if Moses could have the penalty for sin imposed upon him, a man whose heart was turned to God in many, many ways, a man who was repentant.

Had Moses been forgiven of this sin? Absolutely. Had Moses repented of this sin? I'm confident that he had. And yet the penalty remains to show God's people that God is no respecter of persons, that if a little nobody like me or you would sin, He imposes a penalty.

If His chosen servant, Moses, would sin, that He would impose the penalty. That we would fear Him, that His people would fear him, that they would know that he's a consuming fire, that they would know that he's a jealous God. So we see the penalty for sin for Moses in verses 21 and 22, and we see the penalty for sin for the people of Israel in verses 25 through 28. Now up to this point in Deuteronomy there's been a lot of time spent looking back and understanding what God has done to and for the people of God in the past. But now, there's a time of looking forward.

And we should notice about this, and we're looking forward to God penalizing the people of Israel for their sin and there's a couple of things that we should notice here one We should notice the certainty of God's judgment. There's no if and when There's a win and a will In other words, he's not saying if you do this, then I will do that. He's saying, when you do this, then I will do that. There is the certainty of God's punishment and His judgment for sin. The second thing we should notice is that the penalty is like the offense.

Isn't that strange? That there would be a connection between the offense and the penalty. What do I mean by that? Well, what is the sin that's being discussed in verse 25? It's that they make a carved image.

And what is the penalty for this sin? It's that they would be dispersed and that they would worship carved images. Judges 10, I love this verse because it shows so clearly exactly what God is saying. In Judges 10, God says this, you have forsaken me and served other gods. Therefore, I will deliver you no more.

Go and cry out to the gods which you have chosen. Let them deliver you in your time of distress. In other words, in future times, you will make carved images. Today, you have a God who is real, who will help you, who will have mercy upon you, who will forgive you. When you forsake me and go after carved images, I will give you to your carved images.

Cry out to them. See if they will have mercy on you. See if they will deliver you. It's interesting because we see this concept, the penalty, being like the offense or the sin in other places. Psalm 78 is a great example of this.

The people are in the wilderness, and God is giving them, supernaturally giving them manna from heaven. They don't plant. They don't harvest. They don't cook. They walk out the door, and they pick up breakfast, and lunch, and dinner.

They do nothing for it. God gives it to them and they begin to complain because it's too plain. And they begin to crave the food of their fancy and they're asking for meat and they're saying, oh, wasn't Egypt wonderful? How corrupt. So God says, you want meat?

I will give you meat. And this is the recounting of that from Psalm 78. And they tested God in their hearts by asking for the food of their fancy. Yes, they spoke against God. They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?

He also rained meat on them like the dust, feathered fowl like the sand of the sea, and He let them fall in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings, so they ate and were well-filled. For He gave them their own desire. They were not deprived of their craving. But while their food was still in their mouths, the wrath of God came against them and slew the stoutest of them and struck down the choice men of Israel." Sometimes, heaven forbid, that God should give us what we want. Sometimes He will give us our craving, and it will be the instrument of our judgment.

Sometimes God will give us our craving and it will be the instrument of His judgment. So what is God doing? Is He taunting His children? Is that what's happening here? May it never be.

He is taking the thing that we would substitute for Him. He's taking the thing that we would substitute for Him. He's taking the thing that we would substitute for Him and showing us how bankrupt it is. Sometimes if God would deprive us of the thing that we crave, we would never know What a great God he is. And so he gives us that thing to prove to us that it is bankrupt, that it is nothing like him, that there is no God beside him.

This is the jealousy of God, that sometimes he would give us the things that we're craving so that we would see that there is none like Him. Notice the increase of the infraction based on the knowledge given and the mercies shown. Notice the increase of the infraction based on the knowledge given and the mercies shown. What do I mean? Well, verses 32 through 38, if you look at it, it describes, it's a catalog of the privileges that God has showered on His people.

He's given them His judgments. They have knowledge beyond all the nations around them. And He's delivered them. Here's the list. They heard the voice of God and lived.

God took them from the midst of another nation by trials, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand, and great terrors. And then He says this. Search from one end of the earth to the other. Has this ever happened before? Has God ever done this for any other people?

Jesus says, for everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required. And to whom much has been committed of him they will ask no more." And what God is communicating in Deuteronomy 4 is that His people had been given much. Much knowledge, much provision. And that increases the heinousness of the infraction. It increases the unfaithfulness of the people because they knew He had given them His commandments and His judgments and He had provided for them out of His kindness and His mercy.

And this is when we turn the lens on ourselves and we ask, what about our privileges? What about our catalog of blessings? We have Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has paid the penalty for all of our sins. Our sins are like crimson, but they can be as white as snow. The wrath, the righteous wrath of God is turned on us and then turned away from those who would put their trust in Him because of Jesus Christ.

What about the Word of God? You can go anywhere and buy a great Bible for $5. It was not so in centuries past. What about freedom to worship? We meet here today.

The government cares less that we're meeting here today. We have no persecution from what we enjoy today. It has not been so in centuries past. We have a great catalog of privileges and this should make us tremble with a holy fear because He who has been given much, much will be required. And isn't this just what we're memorizing, Romans 12, 1?

I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. We have a reasonable service, and why would making ourselves a living sacrifice be reasonable? That doesn't sound very reasonable to me. Does it sound reasonable to you to make your body the living sacrifice? It's because of the mercies of God.

It makes it all reasonable, doesn't it? What is our sacrificing ourselves as a living sacrifice compared to the mercies of God? It is nothing. It is nothing. We have a great catalog of privileges and this should make us tremble.

As the hymn writer writes, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all. And finally, the mercy of God towards sinners. We've talked about the danger of false worship. We've talked about the penalty for sin, opposed on all alike, the great Moses and the small. And now we'll speak of the mercy of God towards sinners.

And we see this in verses 29-31. Look at verses 29-31. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, And you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God, He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers, which you swore to them." It starts out by saying, but from there you will seek the Lord. From where?

From exile, from being scattered, from being made few in number. Here's what Matthew Henry says, Afflictions are sent to engage and quicken us to see God, and by the grace of God working with them, many are thus reduced to their right mind. Isn't that true that many times we need to be reduced to our right mind? We're puffed up, we've exhausted ourselves, and we need to be reduced so that we'll be in our right minds. And this is what Matthew Henry is saying about this text, that the people of God will be scattered, they will be made few in number.

And what is the purpose of this? It is that they would turn to God, it's that they would be reduced to their right mind and see that there is a God in heaven who is full of mercy. Verse 31, for The Lord your God is a merciful God. Merciful, He's full of mercy. Verse 37, and because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them and He brought you out of Egypt with His presence with mighty power.

He says, my mercies are because I loved your fathers and I made promises to your fathers. Therefore I extend mercy to you. Isn't this amazing? In a couple of chapters we'll hit this in Deuteronomy 10. The Lord delighted only in your fathers to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.

Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer. For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. Our God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. And yet, he shows mercy to his people because he has made promises to our fathers. Yes, God made promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He loved them, and His promises to them guaranteed hope and mercy to their children, who Moses is addressing to their passage. And those who have faith in Jesus Christ are also sons of Abraham, spiritual sons, justified by faith as Abraham was justified by faith. And promises have been made to Jesus Christ too. Jesus Christ has been given to people by God. And this guarantees mercy for His people.

Not that we can sin that mercy should abound. May it never be, says Paul, but so that we would have hope even though we are a corrupt people to know that God has made promises to His Son that those whose His Son calls to Himself, He will safely deliver to Heaven. Not because of our faithfulness, though we should be faithful, though we should be holy, though we should be a peculiar people, but God's mercies are contingent upon the promises that He's made to His Son. Isn't this a comfort? He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.

Praise the Lord. Finally, in verses 41 through 43, we see the cities of refuge. I'm going to spend almost no time here. Three Cities on the far side of the Jordan before they enter the promised land are designated as cities of refuge. When we get to Deuteronomy 19, the first 13 verses of that chapter are devoted to cities of refuge.

The long explanation of cities of refuge can be given there. But the heart of that is that the land would be protected against the shedding of innocent blood. The city of refuge was for those who had killed someone without malice in their heart. And when we get to Deuteronomy 19, verses 1 through 13, the example that's given is, you go out with your friend, your cutting wood, your axe head flies off and kills your friend. No malice in your heart.

It happened, but you were the instrument through which it happened. You have a place to flee so that the avenger of blood, the people who love them and want to take your life for the taking of his life, if they were to find you and kill you, then the land would be defiled because your blood is innocent blood. That's the heart of the cities of refuge. We'll defer the rest to do Romney 19. In conclusion, three points.

There is a great commandment. We'll hit it in two chapters, but it's so relevant to this chapter as well. God is a consuming fire. He is a jealous God. And this is our great commandment.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. And no images, no created thing, nothing in heaven on earth must come between us and God. He is a consuming fire. We're called to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength. Don't you love these categorical words?

There is no wiggle room. All your heart, all your soul, all your strength. There is nothing left over for rivals for God. He will have no rivals. And this is why we are warned about the danger of false worship.

We must not lean on images, they dishonor God, they mislead men. We must not reverence creation, it was given to us as a good gift, as a heritage, says verse 19. We must Diligently keep our souls for God and God alone, loving Him with all heart, all soul, all strength. Secondly, God judges sin. God disciplines His children.

We're wrong if we interpret the mercy of God, the long suffering with God, to mean that God will never repay for sin. Yes, there is the blood of Jesus Christ to cause us to have a right standing before God. That does not exempt us from penalties on this earth for our sin. Moses is our example for this. Moses undoubtedly had been forgiven of his sin and yet he cannot enter the promised land.

The penalty stands. The eternal penalty is wiped away by the blood of Jesus Christ. The penalty on this earth sometimes stands and God is just when it does. Has much been given to you? Do you have a catalog of blessings?

Then much will be required of you and much will be required of me. Brothers and sisters, let us have a holy fear. Let us have a holy fear that we would be a people set apart for God's own purposes. And finally, the Lord your God is a merciful God. Verse 31.

Romans 2, 4, Paul says this, or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? We should look upon the goodness of God not as license to sin, but as something that would lead us to repentance, or we're despising the riches of His goodness. And finally, an exhortation. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, your mercies have made any sacrifice that we could make a reasonable service. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would press these things deep on our heart, that we would forsake All the things that stand between us and you, they are idols. We desire to be granted repentance from on high for these things and to be changed so that we would be a holy people set apart for your purposes. Oh God, I thank you that there is mercy for those who sin. We thank you for the blood of Christ.

We desire to worship you as God and to be a thankful people before you. In Jesus' name, Amen.