Deuteronomy. Day 42, Fear The Lord And Serve Him

For the past several days we've been studying a speech made by Moses in which he cautioned the Israelites not to forget that they have sinned against the Lord in several major ways after He brought them out of Egypt. They are to remember how merciful the Lord has been to them in forgiving their mistakes, including the golden calf incident which broke the covenant they'd entered into with the Lord before Moses even returned with the tablets of the covenant. They are to be thankful that the Lord gave them a second set of tablets and that He is still taking them to the promised land just as He promised. The Lord is faithful to His promises even when man is not; therefore man owes Him his reverence and obedience and love, which is how Moses concludes this section of Deuteronomy.

"And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Him, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord's decrees and commands that I am giving you today for your own good?" (Deuteronomy 10:12-13) In the original text the word translated as "fear" means "to revere, to stand in awe of, to respect". Moses is telling Israel to give the Lord the honor due Him for the great things He has done. Honoring the Lord in this way is the duty of man in return for the Lord's goodness toward human beings. King Solomon said something very similar in the book of Ecclesiastes: "Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind." (Ecclesiastes 12:13) The prophet Samuel, in his farewell speech to the nation of Israel, urged the people: "Be sure to fear the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things He has done for you." (1 Samuel 12:24) The author of Psalm 112, who was most likely King David, pointed out that the one who fears and obeys the Lord will be blessed by the Lord, "Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in His commands." (Psalm 112:1) The prophet Micah worded it like this when he reminded his fellow citizens that they owed the Lord their allegiance: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8) 

To love and respect the Lord is the least we can do, when you think about it, in comparison to all the things He has done for us. He is not asking us to do something impossible. He is simply asking us to do our duty. He is asking us to pay Him the reverence due Him. And He is telling us to do this for our own good, not because He needs our love or praise. Loving the Lord will help us to escape many a snare in this life, for we'll choose to do what He says instead of doing what our carnal minds tell us or what the fallen world tells us. As Moses said in verse 13 above, the Lord gave His commands and decrees for people's own good. If we love and respect the Lord, we'll naturally want to abide by His commands and decrees. In our human weakness we won't be able to perfectly keep them all but the Lord looks on our hearts and knows whether the desire to do right is within us or not. As the Apostle Paul said, the Lord accepts our willing spirit even when we are not able to do for Him all that we would like to be able to do. (2 Corinthians 8:12) 

The Lord does not need anything from man, yet He wants to have fellowship with the human beings He created. "To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set His affection on your ancestors and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations---as it is today." (Deuteronomy 10:14-15)

The friendship between the Lord and human beings is very one-sided because the Lord loves the most and gives the most, yet it gives Him great joy to do wonderful things for mankind. Moses reminds his fellow citizens that the Lord needs nothing from them (and there is little they can do for Him in their human weakness other than to reverence Him) but He chose them anyway and longs to do them good. He chose them not because they were sinless or because they had always displayed a heart filled with respect and love for Him; you might say He chose them in spite of the fact that they didn't always do those things. We could say the same thing about ourselves. The Lord has been good to us not because we have always done a good job of honoring Him, but in spite of the fact that we haven't always done a good job. 

Considering how merciful the Lord has been to them, Moses appeals to the Israelites to yield themselves to the authority of the Lord. This is the least they can do in exchange for His goodness. "Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer." (Deuteronomy 10:16) Circumcision was the outward sign of the covenant the Lord made with Abraham and his descendants. But a person could have the outward sign of this covenant on his body and not be in covenant with the Lord in his heart. Moses says, "Give your hearts fully to the Lord. He wants relationship, not religion. Don't simply go through the motions. If you don't build a relationship with the Lord---if you don't love Him---the rituals of your religion will be a chore to you. But if you love Him, obeying Him will be a delight to you."

The Lord is good and is worthy of our love and obedience. He is not like man, who sometimes shows partiality. He is not like man, who may accept a bribe to pervert justice. He is not like man, who might turn a blind eye to the needs of others. "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt." (Deuteronomy 10:17-19) The same God who created one race of people created all the other races. He values every life and every soul the same, so if anyone wants to join the congregation of Israel and convert to Israel's God, no one is to refuse them due to a different skin color or different background. The Israelites were victims of racism in Egypt and they must keep in mind how much they suffered  from the Egyptians' prejudice so they will not perpetrate prejudice upon others. One of the ways we show love to God is by showing love to the people He created---all people. 

The Lord is the only God. He is the God who created all things. He is the God who brought Israel out of Egypt and made her into a great nation. It should be a joy to serve Him. It should make the people's hearts glad to obey Him. They owe Him their love and respect. It is the least they can do in exchange for all the Lord has done for them (and it is the least we all can do for everything the Lord has done for us) so Moses sums up his sermon like this: "Fear the Lord your God and serve Him. Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name. He is the one you praise; He is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky." (Deuteronomy 10:20-22)