#DailyDevotion Hey You! Listen To What The LORD Your God Says
Deuteronomy 4:1–2 “And now, Israel, listen to the laws and regulations I teach you to keep so that you will live, go in, and take the land the LORD, the God of your fathers, gives you. 2Don’t add anything to what I order you to do or take anything away from it, but keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I order you to keep.
Israel has gone through its forty year punishment of going through the wilderness until all those who didn’t trust him at the edge of the wilderness had died off. Now they are at the edge of the wilderness again. They are about to enter the promised land, the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The LORD is now about to review with this generation all that he had taught the previous generation who rebelled against him.
So he calls them to listen, Shema!, to the laws and regulations he is going to teach them. To listen means to pay attention, inwardly digest, make your own what the LORD is about to say. If they listen and do what he commands then they will live, go in and take the land the LORD, the God of their fathers was giving them. Unfortunately, we know once they get in and Joshua is gone they start to fall away and not listen to the words of the LORD their God. The book of Judges shows us how often God’s people turn from him and then repent when He inflicts upon them the people whose gods they start worshiping. What is 1 & 2 Kings, 1& 2 Chronicles, and all the prophets but a witness against this people who rebel against the LORD their God who saved them, gave them this land and blessed them?
Just last Sunday in the lesson from Mark chapter seven we see the Pharisees not paying attention to the LORD’s word here. He commands them not to add to his instruction or to take away from it. We see in the witness of the four Gospels how the traditions of the fathers, the Talmud and Mishnah both take away from the LORD’s instruction and adds to the LORD’s instructions. As such they fall into error, even though unlike their fathers before the exile who worshiped other gods, they still call upon the right God, though their hearts are far from Him.
This of course is a strict warning to us as God’s Holy People, the Church, not to follow in Israel’s ways. This of course does not mean we don’t explain and teach God’s word. But when we do the content needs to be the same. As an example take the number 9. You could say 3×3, 6+3, 3+3+3 etc. but you still have the same content. If I said 3×3+1 well that would be adding to and 3×3-1 would be subtracting.
So the Law of God stands there starkly warning, chiding, instructing, cursing and damning and we should not try to make it less harsh. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is merciful, kind, long-suffering, loving, and the like and we should not cause doubt about God’s sincerity in offering it to us freely demonstrating the LORD’s graciousness. We can add to the Gospel by adding our works or anything of ourselves into the mix. It causes doubt where God wants no doubt. We can subtract from the Gospel by saying Christ work is not enough. This also causes doubt. We can always make up whatever law suits us at the moment or say this doesn’t apply in our day and age. Thanks be to God we have Jesus of Nazareth who is our all in all over all for us.
Heavenly Father, give us ears that listen, believe and do all that you would have us as your beloved children in Christ Jesus. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.