The sermon 'Do Not Add or Subtract' by Scott Brown explores themes from the book of Deuteronomy, focusing on God's gifts and commands to His people. Moses' first speech in Deuteronomy highlights God's kindness, human sinfulness, and the importance of obedience. The sermon emphasizes the significance of unity among God's people and the principle of 'not adding or subtracting' from God's word, which is crucial for both personal and communal reformations. This principle is linked to the Gospel, as only Jesus Christ perfectly upheld the law. Historical examples, such as the events at Baal Peor, illustrate the dangers of idolatry and the necessity of adhering to God's commands. The sermon urges believers to listen, observe, live, and possess the teachings of God, emphasizing that true righteousness comes from Christ, despite human failings.

This text that Oliver just read is another beautiful demonstration of the nature of God in that he's always giving gifts to these people. He's always pouring out blessings for them. And as you have been following with us in this series in Deuteronomy, you know that what was just read is coming toward the end of the first speech of Moses, among three speeches in the book of Deuteronomy. And In this speech, God is declaring specific things to His people. Imagine the people gathered together and then a message is given to those people.

It's a message of fatherhood and kindness. In this first speech we've seen that in the first 18 verses, the goodness and the kindness of God and all of the wilderness wonders is presented. Then in the second part of the speech beginning in verse 19 to the end of chapter 1 is a disclosure of our problem, the sinfulness of our hearts. So not only is God's kindness displayed, but also the sinfulness of man, the sinfulness of sin, and the propensity to rebellion that we all have. And then In the next two chapters, chapters two and three, Moses reviews the different ways that God led his people by commands in the wilderness.

And these two chapters are beautiful, particularly because They express one obedience after another of the people of Israel. How when confronted with the Edomites and the Amorites and the Sihon and Og, God commands his people to behave in a certain way. And the encouraging thing is that they obeyed. They kept the commandments of the Lord. So there are these illustrations of obedience that Moses gives to the children.

So do you see what's happening here? We have this broad picture of the goodness of God, then the sinfulness of man, and then right after that, living illustrations of how God's people obeyed. So that's the speech so far. And now there's a change in the tone of the message. Now After giving these historical examples, Moses gets down to some specific commands to help his people know how to live.

And Moses is identifying requirements for a wise and a holy people. God is giving us the keys for how we would function in the world. And so he's continuing this message on. You know, it is the longing of every person here that we would lead lives that are full of peace and satisfaction. It's the desire of all of us here that we would be found faithful to God and we're all in search of this dream.

Now the good news is here in this text because if you want if you want your life transformed, if you feel that you've not lived well, if you feel that there's a silver bullet out there for your own benefit, you'll find it here in this text. All reformations of personal life are found here. The basis for all reformations of family life, church life, civic life are found here. The heart of the matter is right here. This is an enormously critical text here.

So after Moses has given this beautiful historical exposition of God's kindness to his people. He now gets down and comes to a phrase that is so critical for all reformations, for all healing of people's lives, for all repairing of families and broken marriages and everything. It's all right here. There's this one principle that is so critical that he gives here that it's absolutely amazing that he would do it. It summarized in this statement, 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." And this is very consistent with what is the heart of the whole book of Deuteronomy anyway, which I think is expressed in 529.

Oh, that they had such a heart in them, that they would always fear me, and keep all my commandments which I command them, that it may be well with them and their children forever." And so it is upon this principle that we find in verse 2 that we should not add to the word or subtract from it, that the entire Protestant Reformation rested. And it is the verse upon which all of our own personal reformations rest as well. This also too is the principle that the entire gospel of Jesus Christ rests. The keeping of all the commandments. How would you say could the gospel rest on this?

I thought the gospel was about grace. This is about the law. How can the gospel rest upon this? Will the gospel rest its entire weight on this? Because there is only one who kept all the commandments.

There is only one who never added. There is only one who never ever subtracted. Because you and I subtract and add every day. We've added and subtracted so many times today, we're not even aware of it. How many times did you add to the law today?

How many times did you subtract from it? How many times did you withhold what God would have you give? How many times did you not do what you were supposed to do? You added and I added and subtracted so many times today, probably we can't even keep account of how many times we added and subtracted to the law of God today. But the good news is this, there is one, there is one alone who never added or subtracted the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so the gospel, the entire gospel rests on this verse because Jesus Christ took the penalty for all of our additions and all of our subtractions. All of our sins were laid upon Him. This is why I say that the entire Gospel rests upon this verse. That Jesus Christ has come and He has made atonement for all of our sins in this area. And yet the gospel, though, continues to call us to obedience, but yet to rest and to trust in Christ at the same time.

It's not one or the other. It's both and. And so that's what we find in this text. Now, this chapter, I have it broken up into six sections. As we go through it, we'll spend three sessions on chapter four.

The first distinctive section is found in verses one through five. Do not add or subtract. That's what we'll focus on today. And then next week, we'll speak about the reason for it. And that is that God would have a wise and understanding people in the world.

And we find that from verses 6 through 14. And then from 15 to 24 are warnings against idolatry. And then next from verses 25 to 40, severe dangers for worshiping false gods. This whole section on idolatry will be very illuminating. And then what seems to be, in my mind, sort of an interruption to the train of thought, but I'm sure it isn't.

There's a reference to the cities of refuge that are offered in verses 41 to 43. And then the last few verses of chapter four are really an introduction to the Ten Commandments. And so we'll deal with that when we deal with the beginning of the Ten Commandments in chapter 5. We'll join the back end of chapter 4 with chapter 5 because it's a consistent thought there. That's how the chapter breaks down.

And what I'd like to do here this morning is give you three requirements for a wise and a holy nation. And if you have an outline in front of you, you'll see what they are. First of all, to listen, observe, live, and possess. That's the first requirement. Secondly, do not add or subtract.

And thirdly, remember, bail peor. Here we have before us some very distinctive commands and admonitions here for us. Now why is this so important? Why do we go through all of this study of the Old Testament? I thought it was the Old Testament.

I thought it passed away. Well, the New Testament tells us why it is so critical that we understand all of these things. They are examples for us, number one, and they are admonitions toward us, number two. 1st Corinthians chapter 10 tells us that they are a reminder of idolatry, That everything written then is for our application now. That every single event has an application for us today.

These things were written for an example. The word example in the New Testament is the term tupos, or type, or a figure, a pattern, prefiguring, like a model, or a prototype. These are prototypes for us. These are the things to help us to know what idolatry looks like, or to know what godliness looks like. These words that are here now are for our own admonition and they're very very relevant for us.

The words in verse 1 and now. Do you see it? Verse 1 in chapter 4 begins with the term and now. And this indicates that Moses is passing from recounting what God has done for them and the laws that he has for them. And now as we get to chapter four, we find a call to obedience.

God has been motivating his people to obey. Here's why you should obey. Think about the wilderness wanderings. Here are all the reasons in the wilderness wanderings that give you an example of why you should obey. That's the idea that he's presenting here.

And so he's motivating us to obey through the patterns, the types that are in the wilderness wanderings. The big picture now begins to be brought to bear in terms of the laws and the commands that God has given. And so in order to introduce the principle of the law, which is the subject of the rest of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking now of a body of revealed laws that would govern the people of God. That's the transition that's happening now. He's talked about the history and now he's beginning to set up the importance of these laws that God's people should live by.

And he will spend the rest of the book of Deuteronomy applying the laws of the Ten Commandments. So you see how Moses is beginning to turn the discussion toward the specific laws. He's given the history, the history of breakings and keepings of laws and many illustrations. And now he's coming down to move into this discussion of the law. In chapter 1 verse 5, we learn that Moses was expounding the law.

And so before he gives these expositions, He tells the people how they are to think about the Word of God and how they were applied and misapplied in the wilderness wanderings. We're moving to an understanding that God is desiring to build a people who are governed by specific laws. Yes, that's true. Well people hate laws today, but God desires to govern His people by His laws. That's why Moses says what he says here.

So there are three things that would make for a wise and law-keeping holy people. What is found here is true for you individually, you and your family, you and your church, and you and your nation. So what we find here is the first of the three things that make for a wise and a holy nation. Listen, observe, live and possess." That's a mouthful, isn't it? But that really kind of captures the heart of verse 1.

Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord your God of your fathers is giving to you." Now, notice first something we find all over scripture. This is so common. I'm just thinking back now in my mind how often I have said this. Notice the passionate appeal. Here we are again.

We're at one of those very passionate appeals. We're not dealing with small issues. He says, now, oh Israel, this is terminology of urgent appeal again. We're memorizing Romans 12. The same thing happens in Romans 12 I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God God is passionately appealing to his people God never approaches us with a shrug We should never read the Word of God with a sense of a shrug about it at all.

We should highly revere it. You know, when we read Scripture this morning, we stood in reverence to it because God does not approach us with an attitude of a shrug but with an urgent appeal. You know when we're reading scripture in our households, when we're reading it on our own, we should be very careful to revere the words that are there. It's not a time for silliness. You might find from time to time that you or maybe your children are prone to even recite the word of God to silliness.

We should be very careful with that kind of thing. These are very urgent issues that are in play when we deal with the word of God. God is appealing to his people. Let me also make an important observation or distinction here. The text here makes it clear that this is an appeal to a group, not to an individual.

This is an appeal to Israel. So let me explain this using our home church. You know there are two ways that I could speak to you. I could look into the eye of a young boy or an old man here as we're speaking, and I could appeal to them as individuals, or I could appeal to the whole group. Well, That's what Moses is doing.

He's speaking to the whole group. He's desiring that a whole people be gathered around in unity after these principles. That not just one of them would do it, but that all of them would do it. That they would say together, oh, that we have such a heart. That we would keep all of His commandments.

So there's this corporate sense about this command that's coming here, that all of God's people would be unified and say, yes, Lord, we'll do that. How important it is to have a unified body. The whole universe is structured on the principle of unity. There is unity between in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is unity between husband and wife which forms the structure of the unity of the family.

There is unity in the body of Christ which begins with first of all God in heaven and then her leaders unified and then her people unified together. This is the principle of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God's people would be moving together and he's established ways that they would move together. He gives the Church ahead, the chief shepherd, and then he gives the under-shepherds to the people and then all of the people move together That's the principle that's being played here The people of Israel are here before their entry into the promised land and they must be a unified people after this one thing They cannot be a people who do what is right in their own eyes, or they'll completely fall apart. It's the same thing with a family. Your little family is the same way.

You must be unified. Your marriage is the same way. You must be unified, or it cannot achieve what it would, what it could. And your church is the same way. And how would God unify his people?

Through his word and through the workings of the leaders that God gives them. That's how God does this. This is an equivalent of issuing a corporate appeal to the church. It's marvelous and right when an individual worships God and obeys God. And yet it is also a wonderful thing when a whole people together, covenant together and say we will serve the Lord.

So that's what we find here. This appeal is to listen to the judgments. The first thing here is to listen. To listen has to do with a heartfelt desire to acquire the words that are there. So there's this appeal to listen to the statutes and the judgments.

Statutes are the laws, the judgments are the applications, the things that you do, the things that you do about them. These terms, statutes and judgments, appear all over Psalm 119. Read it, look for those words, statutes and judgments. The law of the Lord, All the words that we find in Deuteronomy regarding the law of God are repeated in Psalm 119. And so our heart should be, oh how I love thy law, oh how I love to listen to your word.

You know, there are many stories of people on their deathbeds who, when they're getting ready to die, what do they want to hear? They want to hear the reading of scripture. They just want to hear the words. I know that this was in Moses's heart, that he was appealing to the listening of the Word of God. Listen to my words, how beautiful they are.

They are testimonies and precepts and judgments and commandments. All these things are there. Now here's what's happening. Moses is appealing to people to listen, because he's casting a vision of victory here. A vision of victory of all the ways of living, all the ways of governing, all the ways of doing business, all the ways of having a family are really implied here.

It's a formula for success. It really is. Success in God's eyes though. We often mis-define success, but there is a success that God would have his people have, that it may go well with them and their children forever. Yes, we should desire success, but what kind of success is it?

Certainly not a fleshly, worldly success, but a godly success. And that's the kind of success that's being spoken of here and that happens when we observe, when we obey the laws, putting them into practice. By the way, obedience to the law of God is not legalism. Calling for obedience is not legalism. When people reject it, that's licentiousness.

We hear and we keep the commandments of God. John says this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. The Lord Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And so our relationship with God is not an object of negotiation, where we pick and choose, no. God has called us to observe them.

This term observe is found many times in the book of Deuteronomy. You'll encounter it over and over again. Observe, observe, observe. That means do something about it. Don't just be hearers of the word, but be doers of the word.

We observe and then we live. That's the result. That you may live in verse 1 and that you may possess the land in other words you might go in and do your work that you've been called to do God has called every individual every family every church to do something to possess something to bring the dominion of God into their lives. And that's what he's talking about here, that that we would be a people who listen, who observe, who live, and who possess. That's really sort of a summary of much of what God is calling for his people.

And then the second thing that God is commanding that we would be a wise and holy nation is to do not add or subtract. So the first thing we do is that we listen, observe, and live and possess. That's the first thing we have to keep in our minds. Secondly, that we do not add or subtract. Verse 2 says, 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." Now this is the principle of the sufficiency of Scripture.

That Scripture is enough. That we don't need any more. We don't need new ideas. We don't need a fresh approach. New ideas are often the wrong ideas.

Fresh approaches are often the wrong approaches. There are many illustrations of how we add or subtract. How about one from American history? How many of you are familiar with the Jefferson Bible? Thomas Jefferson, founding father of America, had his own Bible.

He took out his scissors and he cut out the parts of the New Testament that had miracles in them. He just took his scissors and cut out the parts that were displeasing to him. And we have the Jefferson Bible. I actually have a copy of the Jefferson Bible. It's the New Testament.

He took the ministry of Jesus. He liked Jesus a lot. Well, not completely a lot. He just liked the parts that he liked. So there are ways that we add and subtract.

We are all like this, by the way. We are Jeffersonian at heart, every single one of us. This is not the sin of Thomas Jefferson. This is the sin of Scott Brown and the whole Brown family, and every person at whole Baptist Church. We are constantly sniffing at the Word of God.

We ignore parts. We may not have the boldness of Jefferson and actually take out scissors and snip them out. Imagine that. Can you imagine the wrath of God at the man who actually takes a scissors out to cut out his words. This is enormous an enormous rebellion against Almighty God and yet we do the same thing in our own lives.

We are familiar with some things and not with others. We sometimes keep ourselves in ignorance and in that way by not being diligent to find it. We end up finding ourselves subtracting from the Word of God. Of course, another illustration was the illustration of the Pharisees. They heaped up traditions of men and added all kinds of things.

They totally misunderstood the Sabbath and so they added all kinds of laws about the Sabbath that were not pleasing to God. And so we do that as well. We often add or subtract by misrepresenting Scripture, by not interpreting it properly, by saying it means one thing when it doesn't really. There are many out there, and all of us are in this boat to some degree or another, where we misunderstand or misinterpret scripture. We take a verse and we say it means something it doesn't mean at all.

It's wrong for us to do that. We would just counsel you really as elders of this church be very careful to listen carefully to those who are teaching. Examine it by the Word of God. Does that verse really say what that man says it does? Because often there is adding to the Word of God among teachers of the Word of God.

This is perhaps why there's a stricter judgment upon those who teach the Word of God. We all stumble in many things. He who's not stumbled in Word is a perfect man and there are no perfect men. But we have to be very careful as a people to listen and say does that verse really mean what that man said it did? And So we have to be good Bereans and study and find out whether these things really are true.

There are just gross misrepresentations, gross disfigurings of the Word of God. I'll just give you a couple that I believe are. Veggie tales. I think it's a despicable disfiguring of the Word of God, mixing up biblical stories and images and words with things absolutely absurd, insane, honestly. I highly recommend that believers do not listen to things like that.

It's a terrible disfigurement of the Word of God. We'll expand on this when we get to the second commandment. But I know when the movie The Passion of Christ came in, people were so longing to see the sufferings of Christ. They wanted to see what it was really like. Unfortunately when they went they didn't see what it was really like.

They did not see Jesus Christ as he was. They saw a representation of a Roman Catholic Hollywood actor, what he wanted the sufferings of Christ to look like. There are misrepresentations everywhere. There is adding and subtracting to the Word of God. And it's no small thing to add or subtract to it.

Here we find right here in Deuteronomy chapter 4 this admonition. And you find the last words of the Bible almost mirror this. You shall not add or subtract. When you go to Revelation 22, 18, and 19, we often invent our own lives. We invent the church in our own image.

There are different ways that we add and subtract to the Word of God. We should be very careful. Our hearts should be like this, oh Lord, help me not to add or subtract. But brothers and sisters, we are always adding and subtracting, and this is why the gospel of Jesus Christ rests on this verse because it is only through the blood of Christ that we are ever rescued from this problem. We see through a glass darkly.

We've all grown up with different patterns that have become grooves for us. As we attempt to escape those things, we always need to keep in mind the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That He has kept all. He has never added. He has never subtracted.

And He is our righteousness. If you think you can have a righteousness of your own by not adding or subtracting, you might as well perish the thought now. Because only Christ did not add and did not subtract. And so we find ourselves in the heart of the Gospel. You know, in our church we subscribe to the Second London Baptist Confession.

Here's what the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 says about the sufficiency of Scripture. Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in Holy Scripture, to which nothing is to be added at any time, either by new revelation of the Spirit or by the traditions of men. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word. There are some circumstances concerning the worship of God in church government, which are common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the Word which are always observed." That statement is written to help us understand that the Bible doesn't give us every single detail And so we have to take what Scripture has said and apply it as best we can.

And then the confession says, all things in Scripture are not equally plain in themselves, nor equally clear to everyone. Yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and revealed in some place in Scripture or other, that not only the educated but also the uneducated may attain a sufficient understanding of them by due use or ordinary means. So here, Moses is appealing to us not to add or to subtract from the Word of God. It's so easy to be in this trap. It's as easy as waking up in the morning when the adding and the subtracting begins.

I read an article recently written by a popular blogger and he he wrote an article on why you need to be in church on Sunday. So he laid out what the Bible says about why it is that people should assemble where pastors lead, where the word is preached, where the ordinances are observed, and where discipline is carried out. And he got lots of response. Some of it wasn't very happy response. And here's what he said.

He says that there were two common responses. One was to completely reject it, and the other one was to embrace it. And he said, let me summarize those who rejected my message. He says, those who said, but I've had bad church experiences. Or, but it's hard to find a good church.

Or, but it's hard for me to be with people. Or, the churches aren't friendly and welcoming. Or, I've really, really had bad, bad church experiences. Or, but I've known bad and abusive and lame and inept unfit pastors or that's just barking out commands and duty and not explaining how good it really is for me or but God just hasn't led me to a good church just to the internet or but the churches around here aren't that good. And then he says this, I'll be candid.

It looks like a fairly diverse list of eight or nine different reasons. But he says no, it's really just one reason. Every one of these excuses, though presented in a great deal of conviction, shares the very same fatal flaw. Every one of them views the Christian life as a process of negotiation. That we can just add or subtract any way we want.

That we can make it up. That we're negotiating with God on things. And that's the problem with adding and subtracting. In our hearts, we are lawyers. The inner lawyer comes out, and we're constantly negotiating with God about what we should do and what we should not do.

But here we are told keep it pure, do not dilute it, it's perfect. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. And then we come to the end of Scripture. This message is consistent All the way to the end where we read, for I testify to everyone who hears these words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in the book. And if anyone takes away from the words of this book, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city and from the things written in this book.

I would just say that the importance of this is enormous. We can't miss the enormity of the seriousness of this issue here. So of these three things that make for a holy nation, first, to listen and observe, second, not to add or subtract, and third remember Baal Peor verses 3 through 5. Verse 3 says, your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor, for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who hold fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord your God has commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you are going to possess." So here Moses takes them back to sins of the past. Remember the sins of the past. Remember the specific sin. I would just suggest that as we remember the sins of Bale of Peor, we should think back of our own sins as well. What are the things, the idolatries, the things that caused the damage?

That's what he's doing here. He's taking us back so that we should remember what the Apostle said, be careful if you think you stand, take heed lest you fall we're always just a hair's breadth away from Baal of Peor and the sins that were there and so we remember the sin of Baal of Peor what happened was Balaam was hired to curse God and to divert Israel. And he wasn't able to do it with his words, but he was able to do it by corrupting them in their hearts, By alluring them and leading them to women who would cause them to sin and to become immoral. It was with that that idolatry entered into the camp. It was the allurements of those lusts of the flesh and lusts of the eyes.

Those are the things that cause us to apostatize. We should always be careful for anything that our eyes see that are of immorality or impurity of any kind, because in those things is the allurement to our idolatry and our ultimate destruction. So there was a setting up of a false worship of God as a result of these allurements that came to the children of Israel. This incident is mentioned many, many times in Scripture. The story is in Numbers 24 and 25.

We find it here in Deuteronomy 4. It's already been mentioned in 3 28. Joshua speaks of it again in Chapter 22. Hosea speaks of it in chapter 9 verse 10. We read of it in Psalm 106 and in Nehemiah 13 and Micah 6 and 2 Peter 2 and Jude 1 and Revelation 2.

What we find here is sort of a prototype of rebellion. The way that destruction happens in the people of God is prototyped here in the sin of Bala Peor. And so Israel sinned by allowing affections for unholy things to destroy them. They were tempted. It was put in their face.

And then they allowed themselves to be lured along by it. Even though Balaam could not curse Israel, he was able to corrupt them through influences of pagan nations. This is what Satan often does. He can't get us to accept false doctrine. We're going to think rightly about Scripture.

And so what we do is we adopt the practices of the pagans around us while we still believe all the things that are doctrinally correct. So he says, have you seen, have you seen what happened at Baal Peor? And this should cause us to do the same thing, to look back and say, wherever the way is that the world has come and caused my destruction. And so here we find these three major issues that are brought to us in the beginning of chapter 4. That we would first listen and observe with a heart of listening and that we would keep the commandments and then that we would not add or subtract and then lastly that we would remember the way that sin enters the camp and that is through the worldliness of the world and how careful we must be.

Even though we may, as apparently the children of Israel seem to claim to have good motives about entering in to this worship, they were wrong And their following of the world, their desire to be pleasing, led to their ultimate destruction. And so where do we land here in these first five verses in Deuteronomy, chapter 4, in which we are beginning to be urged to obey all the law of God, all of it. Where are we? Well, first of all, we're left with this admonition, to be careful to know and to do the law of God. Absolutely, we must have our hearts there.

But secondly, to remember that there is only one law keeper and only one judge, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. In all of our addings and subtractings from the law, we have a Savior who has taken the punishment for every single moment that we have ever added or subtracted from the law. Thanks be to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly. That's what Paul says to the Galatians.

And so our righteousness doesn't come from the law. It comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet, at the same time, with one hand we are urged to obey all the law, and with the other hand to remember that righteousness is of Christ. Would you pray with me? Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for providing your righteousness for our unrighteous souls, for the many ways that we've added and subtracted.

And yet, Lord, we thank you that you bid us to come and taste, to come and see, to come and be cared for by your fatherly hand. And so, Lord, we thank you for this message that's here that both raises us up to a higher level of obedience and then yet also cares for all of our failings through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.