Lessons from the Law

16 “The Lord your God is commanding you this day to follow these statutes and ordinances. You must be careful to follow them with all your heart and all your soul. 17 Today you have affirmed that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in His ways, keep His statutes, commands, and ordinances, and obey Him. 18 And today the Lord has affirmed that you are His special people as He promised you, that you are to keep all His commands, 19 that He will elevate you to praise, fame, and glory above all the nations He has made, and that you will be a holy people to the Lord your God as He promised.”

The OT Law set Israel aside as God’s Covenant People

There are over 600 OT commands that cover the religious, national, public, private, domestic, and personal affairs of the Nation.

Obedience brought blessing, and disobedience brought cursing. (See chapters 27-30)

The Law Demonstrates How Morality Looks

Deuteronomy 30:15–20 HCSB

15 See, today I have set before you life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16 For I am commanding you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commands, statutes, and ordinances, so that you may live and multiply, and the Lord your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not listen and you are led astray to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I tell you today that you will certainly perish and will not live long in the land you are entering to possess across the Jordan. 19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 love the Lord your God, obey Him, and remain faithful to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land the Lord swore to give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

To be sure, much of the book of Deuteronomy is peculiar to the Jewish people. Laws about ceremony, the priesthood, and diet. Punishments that were to be meted out dealing with civil crimes, etc.

But at its root we have to realize that the Book of Deuteronomy reveals a moral code, not based on common thought (every man doing what was right in his own eyes) but coming from The Lawgiver, God Himself.

We are living in a time of secularism where I hear much discussion about right and wrong. I’ve even been told you can be moral without believing in God. But that statement begs the question, “What is immoral and what is moral? How do we learn such things? Are we the author of what is right and wrong? IF so then right and wrong is shifty. Its generational. It changes from culture to culture. But if there is a law giver, then our sense of morality does not come from within, and it does not run with the crowd. It comes from without. From a God who made us, and loves us, and wants what’s best for us.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams

The Law Drives Home the Need for Grace

Galatians 3:10–13 HCSB

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written: Everyone who does not continue doing everything written in the book of the law is cursed. 11 Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith. 12 But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them. 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written: Everyone who is hung on a tree is cursed.

The law shows us how we fail. It reminds us that even when we want to please God, we are not able to fully do it.

Understanding the volume of the law, the extent of the law, the holiness of God as revealed in the law and the sinfulness of man in not being able keep the law, should drive us to our repentance and faith in Jesus.

Dr. Charles Carter- When did you get lost?

We need to realize what sinners we are.. how lost and undone..and without hope. But with Jesus...... Everything changes.

Related Media

Related Sermons