Deuteronomy 10:12-22 – “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you except to fear the Lord your God by walking in all his ways, to love him, and to worship the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul? 13 Keep the Lord’s commands and statutes I am giving you today, for your own good. 14 The heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet the Lord had his heart set on your fathers and loved them. He chose their descendants after them—he chose you out of all the peoples, as it is today. 16 Therefore, circumcise your hearts and don’t be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the Lord your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty, and awe-inspiring God, showing no partiality and taking no bribe. 18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the resident alien, giving him food and clothing. 19 You are also to love the resident alien, since you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt. 20 You are to fear the Lord your God and worship him. Remain faithful to him and take oaths in his name. 21 He is your praise and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awe-inspiring works your eyes have seen. 22 Your fathers went down to Egypt, seventy people in all, and now the Lord your God has made you numerous, like the stars of the sky.”
Are your beliefs in agreement with the Bible? You might be thinking that I am asking a silly question. Perhaps you think that all your beliefs are completely in agreement with the Bible. But how often do you examine your faith to be sure that your beliefs are all in line with God’s Word? In a survey of American Christians, it was discovered that most Christian people do not fully believe what the Bible teaches. In fact, many people actually believe false teachings. Even though people say that they believe in the Trinity, many people think that Jesus is not equal to God the Father but is a being that God the Father created. That is a false teaching known as Arianism which was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. Even though many people say that there is one true God, many people also think that God accepts people of all religions. This goes against the words of Jesus that he is the only way to heaven. There are many examples I could point to which show that many people don’t truly believe what the Bible says. This is why it is so important for us to hear the encouragement before us today. According to the Words of Deuteronomy, it is important that we Fear the Lord and Walk in All His Ways.
If I were to give you a quiz about your Bible knowledge, do you think you would get 100% right? The reason that many of us would struggle is because we are influenced by the false ideas which are all around us in our world. The devil is working every day in order to get us to doubt the truth. He is trying with all his might to try to get us to fall away from the truth. He does not want us to believe the truth.
Think about whether you would agree or disagree with the following statements: 1. Absolute moral truths exist. 2. Such truth is defined by the Bible. 3. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. 4. God is the all-powerful and all-knowing creator of the universe and he still rules today. 5. Salvation is a gift from God and cannot be earned. 6. Satan is real. 7. A Christian has a responsibility to share faith in Christ with other people. 8. The Bible is accurate in ALL of its teachings. If you figured out that all those statements are facts about the Bible that we should agree with, you did well. In our world today, not everyone who says they are a Christian would agree with the statements I just listed.
Perhaps, when I told you that all those statements were true, you were wondering about how that could be for a few of them. There is a way to know but I will come back to that later. For right now, let’s look at verses 12 and 13 of our reading. There it says, “And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?” There is a lot packed into these verses. Let’s start with how faith can be seen through actions. It tells us to “observe the Lord’s commands and decrees.”
God has given us many commands and decrees. We have the 10 Commandments as our starting point but there are many decrees which expand upon the 10 Commandments. When we are obeying the commandments, people often can see that we are doing that. At times this is evident by what we have not done. If there is no evidence that we have done something like stealing or something worse like murder, then people would assume that we have not done those things. Other times, people see what we are doing. If we are obeying the speed limit, people might notice because they feel like we are driving too slow and they will pass us the first chance they get. But are these actions an evidence of faith?
Look at the example the rich young man who came to Jesus. He thought he was following all the commands. He approached Jesus simply looking for confirmation that he was living correctly. His focus was on what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus listed a few commandments. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do not give false testimony. Honor your Father and Mother. After hearing that list, the young man claimed that he had done those things since he was a boy. At that point he was probably feeling pretty good about himself. He thought he had earned heaven.
Jesus knew the problem. He confronted the man’s heart. He told him to sell everything he had and give to the poor. The man could not do that. The man had a problem with his heart. In his heart, he valued his possessions more than he valued God. He was able to do certain outward actions. He might have even been willing to sell a few of his possessions. But his sinful heart stopped him from selling them all. He was not worthy of eternal life because he did not want to turn away from his sin. He wanted to value possessions more than God.
At times we struggle with similar temptations. Perhaps we do all kinds of outwardly good things but in our hearts, there is a struggle. Our sinful heart fights against putting God first. At times we might even confuse our actions with a genuine faith. We might think that because we do certain activities, it is not that important for us to grow deeper in our faith. For example, we come to church, we give our offerings, we volunteer to serve occasionally, and we spend time caring for our family. That is good enough, right? We don’t really need to spend time in personal devotion. It is no big deal if we don’t go to Bible Study.
But those two things – personal devotion and Bible Study – they are two ways to solve the problem that I mentioned earlier. You can know the truth about all those statements I mentioned earlier, if you spend time with God’s Word. God isn’t going to give us a test on our way to heaven. We don’t have to score 100% to get in. But think about this – by confessing that we are Christian, we are saying that we have the most important message in the Bible which gives us eternal life after this life. Shouldn’t we want to know more about this message? Shouldn’t we be able to speak with knowledge if someone talks to us about this Christian faith?
It is important for us to grow in our Biblical knowledge. If we don’t grow in our understanding we might lose the truth. We might appear religious but not have a genuine faith. That is what happened to the Pharisees and Sadducees at the time of Jesus. Those groups were very religious. They certainly appeared to be on the path to heaven. But they were not. Jesus confronted them and said, “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” (Matthew 23:33).
We pray that God continue to preserve us so that we don’t end up like those Pharisees and Sadducees. We want the kind of faith described in verse 20 of our text. “Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him.” We receive a strong faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. He takes us back to the gracious gospel so that we can see how Jesus has forgiven us for our sins.
We see how Jesus actively obeyed the law for us. For all the times that we have neglected to make use of God’s Word, we see Jesus spending time in prayer and meditation. We even see the 12 year old Jesus at the temple discussing God’s Word with the teachers. He wanted to focus on that important message. He made it so much of a priority that he forgot to go home with his parents. They had to come back to Jerusalem to find him. His obedience earned us forgiveness.
I also think about the Bereans in the book of Acts. They were so appreciative of the forgiveness of Christ that they thoroughly examined the Scriptures. They saw that Christ had saved them from their sins and they wanted to learn more. When the Apostle Paul spoke to them, they compared what he said to the Scriptures. They wanted to be absolutely certain that it was the truth. That is the kind of attitude we can have. Examine the Scriptures. Compare what your pastor says to what the Bible says. If your pastor is being a faithful pastor, there will be agreement between his words and the Bible.
As we grow in our understanding of Scripture, our faith becomes stronger. We are better able to defend our faith. We are able to speak up when people speak incorrectly about our God. We continue to grow in this knowledge of the Word because if we don’t, the devil has a better chance of leading us into false beliefs. He wants to destroy our faith. He wants us to be on that path toward hell. He knows that even a little bit of error can start to unravel our entire faith.
We need our time in the Word so that we are built up in our faith. An athlete would not expect to get better by eating junk food and never practicing. That would be silly. The athlete does what is necessary to achieve their goals. We eat spiritually healthy food when we read the true Words of God. We exercise our soul as we spend time with the message of Jesus Christ. As a Pastor I can coach you and tell you the importance of being in God’s Word. I encourage you to follow through. Make use of your Bible.
Earlier, I mentioned a survey of American Christians. The results were quite poor. Many said that faith in Christ alone was the path to heaven. However, many of those same people said that everyone will go to heaven. That is a false teaching called Universalism. It is actually contradictory to think that all people will go to heaven and faith in Christ is the only way to heaven. There are people who will NOT go to heaven. Because of this, we need to know the message which leads to heaven. As we spend time in God’s Word, we see more clearly what Jesus has done to save us. We also become better at sharing that message with others. After we ourselves have been strengthened through the Word, then we are able to help others. May God help us to grow and to share his message of salvation.