Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Deuteronomy 6:1-16 comments: the Israelites are told to love God, to recognize all He is doing for them

 

Deuteronomy 6:1 ¶  Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: 2  That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. 3  Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey.

 

Deuteronomy 6:4 ¶  Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: 5  And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. 6  And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: 7  And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. 8  And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. 9  And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. 10  And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, 11  And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; 12  Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 13  Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. 14  Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; 15  (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. 16  Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.

 

Jesus referred to this verse as the first commandment. It regards the unity of God.

 

Mark 12:29  And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

 

John Gill, the famous 18th century preacher, noted in his commentary, which is freely accessible online;

 

…the Lord our God is one Lord;
the doctrine of which is, that the Lord, who was the covenant God and Father of his people Israel, is but one Jehovah; he is Jehovah, the Being of beings, a self-existent Being, eternal and immutable; and he is but one in nature and essence; this appears from the perfection of his nature, his eternity, omnipotence, omnipresence, infinity, goodness, self-sufficiency, and perfection; for there can be but one eternal, one omnipotent, one omnipresent, one infinite, one that is originally and of himself good; one self, and all sufficient, and perfect Being; and which also may be concluded from his being the first cause of all things, which can be but one; and from his relations to his creatures, as their King, ruler, governor, and lawgiver.

 

I refer you to my remarks on Genesis 1:1 to study more in depth who God is.

 

Genesis 1:1 ¶  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

We are first going to discuss the answers to two questions that are very important for every Christian to resolve in their heads. There will by necessity be some repetition in my statements to reinforce what I am saying. First, we must ask, “Who is the God of the Bible?”

The testimony of the Bible is abundantly clear that the universe did not come into being by itself and there is no evidence that there are alternate universes. The universe is also not eternally preexistent like scientists before the Big Bang theory thought, as a time is given here, in the beginning, and an action by God as in God created.

It is impossible to believe the Bible and, at the same time, believe in the Big Bang theory where all matter and energy comes from the primordial explosion of the singularity, the size of a period in a sentence. Nor is it possible to believe in its antecedent belief, the Kabala’s mustard seed that explodes into the universe, or the Hindu’s cosmic egg that explodes into the universe and believe in the God of the Bible. The physical universe is a production of God as all matter, energy, and time can be attributed directly to Him. He has no beginning and no end and is beyond our ability to finitely reason.

Modern man, since Isaac Newton, has come to believe in reductionism where, for instance, in biology the whole is defined by its parts. It is a bottom-up belief. However, the Bible teaches a top-down structure of the universe. The parts are determined by the context. As an example, the words rite/right are defined by their context in a sentence in phrases such as, “a religious rite or ritual,” or, “turn right,” or, “your legal right.” So, genes and their expression are determined by the organism they are in. I share the same genes with a fruit fly but we are vastly different creatures because there is a design, a mold, an idea that makes me different from them. Many different buildings are made partly with bricks; the University of Pennsylvania’s Golkin Hall, my house, and the local high school. However, they are all different buildings because of their design plans.

So, biology and all reality, to be understood properly, should be understood by the fact that it is all based on a design formed in the mind of the Creator. Then, the smaller parts and their place in the scheme of thing come more into focus.

God is not the subject of science because He cannot be experimented on or called into an equation. Science can only study what they can see or measure and all unseen theoretical entities are simply modern myths even if a scientist defines seeing in a different way than a non-scientist does. Saying that they have faith that one day they will prove something they cannot prove merely moves that scientist’s faith into the realm of religion. Faith is not science and science is not faith. Science has limits. Faith is only limited by God’s will for that person having the faith. One can study the mechanism by which a thing is done but no one can study God unless He chooses to reveal Himself as He has done in the Bible.

God’s creation of the universe is not only confirmed by Moses, writing Genesis under the inspiration of God, but also Isaiah.

Isaiah 42:5  Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

Isaiah 45:18  For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

King David;

Psalm 33:6  By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

And the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Mark 13:19  For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be.

Science requires that if you put forth a proposition, a statement of presumed fact, that you should be able to make certain predictions from it. This verse says that God created. So, one could logically assume that since an intelligent entity created everything that a certain degree of design and order must be present in it as in our experience order does not come from disorder without intelligent guidance. This is, indeed, the case. Physicists are looking for a unifying “theory of everything.” Well, it is right here in front of us. He is the God of the Bible. His existence explains everything from how the universe is held together to the moral sense of human beings as you will see in the following study.

Who is God? He is the uncreated person and entity who created all that is. He simply is, as He said Himself, I AM THAT I AM.

Exodus 3:13  And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? 14  And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

It is a nonsensical question to ask who created God. Such a question is a philosophical absurdity. It is like asking; could God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it? Such questions are the pure gibberish of the skeptic whose mind is blinded by the god of this world, Satan.

God is the source of all reality; seen and unseen. In Job God states that everything from dust forming into a clod of dirt in a farmer’s field to lions catching their prey, with the movements of distant galaxies to rain happening in places on earth where there is no man are all direct results of His direct actions. Read Job, chapter 38. God is not a watchmaker winding up the clock and walking away or standing to admire His work. He makes the hands move and the tick-tock sound is part of His second-by-second control of all events. So, scientific thought, even with Christians since Isaac Newton, by reducing God to the ultimate first cause without an active role in every moment of our existence, is just simply one of the things that is in error about modern thinking. Nothing happens by itself without direction, meaningless and pointless, a result of blind chance. Absolutely nothing.”

Verse 5 is also reinforced by Christ in the same passage in Mark.

Mark 12:29  And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 30  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

 

This is the goal of faith, the end result of its perfection.

 

Matthew 22:34 ¶  But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35  Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36  Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38  This is the first and great commandment.

 

This was a command to place these words, these commandments in the heart, by the will of the individual Hebrew, the Israelite. But, there was a prediction that there would come a time when God Himself would place these words in the heart of a believer.

 

Jeremiah 31:31  Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: 32  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: 33  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34  And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

 

And what would be the condition for that placement of God’s words in the heart of the believer?

 

Romans 3:22  Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

 

Salvation now is predicated upon belief. In opposition to Calvinism man has no excuse and has the capacity to believe if he will. In fact, it is commanded.

 

Mark 1:15  And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel

 

The Calvinist preaches Total Depravity, which we understand, as man’s heart is depraved, but what they mean is Total Inability. Total Inability means that a human being cannot believe unless they were made to believe long before they were born, unless they are Elect, by way of the Calvinist definition. But, the truth is no person has an excuse not to believe, because they can, and they MUST, or they perish. No one was created for the purpose of sending them to the Lake of Fire. Their names, as I have shown previously, are written in the Book of Life and not removed unless they refuse to choose Christ.

 

Exodus 32:30 ¶  And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses said unto the people, Ye have sinned a great sin: and now I will go up unto the LORD; peradventure I shall make an atonement for your sin. 31  And Moses returned unto the LORD, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. 32  Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. 33 And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book.

Moses, to make his argument before God, offers to be damned in their place. Look at this verse from Revelation;

Revelation 3:5  He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Christ promises not to blot a person’s name out of the Book of Life. Either the following verses mean the people referred to can lose their salvation as God knows who will choose Him by His foreknowledge as noted in 1Peter 1:2 since the foundation of the world as per Ephesians 1:4;

1Peter 1:2  Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

Ephesians 1:3 ¶  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4  According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6  To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.

 

Now pay attention to these;

Philippians 4:3 And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.

Revelation 13:8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Revelation 17:8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Revelation 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works…15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Revelation 21:27 And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Revelation 22:19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

…or all human beings’ names are in the book when their soul was created, based on God’s foreknowledge and if we reject Him our name is removed. The latter seems more likely to me as when we are saved we are said to be sealed and the Holy Spirit is given to us as a deposit, earnest money, so to speak.

2Corinthians 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

Ephesians 1:13 In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Ephesians 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

So, it would be more consistent to believe that God’s Book of Life contains all human beings’ names and when we die physically the name is either left there or taken out based on what we have done regarding Christ…

Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

With regard to eternal life God deals with us as individuals. We must choose and if we reject Christ then our names are removed from His Book of Life. That is the only logical solution to this question of do we have the capacity to believe or are we helpless victims of our own biology and sin nature?

Read verses 7 through 9 here in Deuteronomy 6. This turned out to be a great failure for the Israelites as it has for many Christians in modern America.

Judges 2:10  And also all that generation were gathered unto their fathers: and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD, nor yet the works which he had done for Israel.

 

God does not tolerate worshipping gods and things other than Himself. Best that you worship not at all. But, then you would be worshipping yourself.

God warns the Hebrews about idolatry and their very precarious existence totally dependent upon His mercy and will.

No comments: