The Four Speaches of Moses - Part 1

Listen and Observe, That You May Live
Deuteronomy 1-34

This is the last sermon on Deuteronomy given by my elders in Hope Baptist Church. This sermon, by Mr. Brown (one of the elders at Hope,) is a review of the book of Deuteronomy.

The first of Moses' sermons can be found in Deuteronomy, chapters 1-4. The Lord desires to have control and authority over our time, our energy, our thoughts, our actions... even though all these things are His already. The Lord also wants to carry us through the wilderness...the times of trouble in our lives that we have to go through to get to the promised land. We must also take and let the Word of God change and take control of our lives.

Six things about the book of Deuteronomy:

1. Going through and studying this book, we can see that it covers our whole life.
   
2. It confronts the "sufficiency" of the "wisdom" and feelings of our heart and life.
   
3. It shows our deprivation: (spiritually and physically).
4. We can find the picture of the Gospel and the glory of God throughout it.
5. It shows the superiority of God and His ways.
   
6. Lastly, it causes us to love what Jesus loved.

The second and longest speech can be found in Ch. 5-26.
The laws given in chapter 5 are given to us to protect and guide us in a land of idolatry. And since these laws come from God we must obey them. But the ultimate protection and guidance comes from God.

The first of the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God is that you shall no other god but Him (God). There are many "gods" in this world and all have worshipers. There's entertainment, security, money, nature, "toys." All these things are gods that people can worship. There are many more Gods of this world, hundreds and thousands of more things that people can worship or take as a god. Our security should be in God, not in this world or the things that it can offer. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also(Mathew 6:21). We can see this played out in chapters 6-11. This is the first and greatest commandment.

The second commandment is that we should not make any image of God. I take this in a literal sense. I believe that we should not make any drawing, painting, or image of Christ. Why do people do this anyway? To try to make us "see" what Jesus did or looked like. It's also a way to worship the picture instead of the real God. Take, for example, the movie, The Passion. The creators of the movie tried to picture what Jesus did and how He died here on earth. When people watch this, they get emotional because they think that this is really how Jesus lived and was killed here on earth. This is simply not true! No one on earth can possibly picture how Jesus looked and how He was beaten and tortured. It is proud and disrespectful to think we can make an image of God. This is also true when people make images and miniatures of Jesus on the cross. The reason that Jesus suffered so much was not because of the abuse of men, it was because when He was dieing, He suffered the extreme wrath of God. He took all the punishment and guilt of every sin ever committed by every person ever born or to be born when He died. That was the true terribleness of the death of Christ and since this commandment connects with the first commandment, we, as Christians, are called to conquer all "gods" and images of God in this world. We see this in 12:1-13-13:18

The third commandment is that you should not take the Lords name in vain. There are many ways to take the Lord's name in vain, not just by swearing. One way we take the Lord's name in vain is when we call ourselves Christians and act like the world (14:1-21.) If we say we are a Christian we are to act and live like a Christian.

The fourth is that we must keep the sabbath day holy. This is the day that the Lord has commanded to be a day of rest. This is a day where we are to meditate on the word of God and to bring glory to God. When it says that we cannot work, it doesn't mean that we cannot prepare food or clean up from our daily living. If it will bring glory to God you are allowed to do it, for example having someone for dinner and cleaning up afterward. On the sabbath we are not supposed to sell or buy anything. We can find all of these guidelines in ch.14:22-16:17.

To be continued in Part II.