Deuteronomy 4

CHAPTER 4THEME: Moses admonishes Israel’s new generationThis chapter concludes Moses’ review of Israel’s wilderness journey. They have come up the east bank of the Jordan River and are near Mount Nebo as Moses gives his final instructions to the people. Only two of the people who made the entire journey stand thereJoshua and Caleb. Most of the people are buried out there in the wilderness, or their bones are bleaching under the desert sun. The new generation is ready now to go into the Promised Land, but before they enter, Moses reviews the wilderness experiences and pleads with them to obey God who loves them.

Deuteronomy 4:1

MOSES PLEADS WITH THEM TO OBEY GODThey are to do the Word of Godnot only to hear it, but do it. Notice that they were not to add to the Law, neither were they to take away from the Law. They were to obey it as God gave it. If Israel had kept the Law, what a blessing it would have been. But we find here a demonstration in history of a people who were given the Law under favorable circumstances but who could not keep it. No flesh will be justified before God by the Law. Why not? Is it because God is arbitrary? No, it is because the flesh is radically wrong. That is the problem. As I have already indicated, this book emphasizes two great themes: love and obedience. Maybe you never realized that love is a great theme of the Old Testament, but it is. Here, in this fourth chapter, Moses is pleading with this new generation, and he is giving to them reasons why they are to obey God.

1. God wants to preserve and prosper Israel. This first verse tells us that they are to obey the Lord and hearken to His statutes and judgments “that ye may live, and go in and possess the land.” Obedience to God is the only basis on which He can bless them. He desires their obedience because it is His desire to bless them.
2. Israel’s obedience would show their gratitude to God. Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments…. Keep therefore and do them…. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? [Deu_4:5-8].God had so marvelously blessed them that they are to show their gratitude through obedience.
3. God’s love should prompt their obedience. And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt [Deu_4:37].This is the first time in the Bible that God tells anybody that He loves them. God has demonstrated that He loves man from the very first of Genesis, but, up to this point, He hasn’t said anything about it. This is the first time He mentions it. He gives this as His motive for what He has done. He has already delivered them out of the land of Egypt, and He is going to do greater and mightier things for them. The basis of it all, the motive for it all, is that God loves them. This is something which every person today needs to recognize. I don’t care who you are, God loves you! You may not always experience the love of God. Our sins put up an umbrella between God and us. In spite of our sin, God loves you and He loves me. He has demonstrated that love at the Cross of Christ. When we receive Christ as Savior, we can experience the love of God.
4. They are to obey God because they belong to God. “Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead” [Deu_14:1]. Obedience to God is the first law of life, friends. Man has a natural, innate hatred of God. Man doesn’t want to obey God; in fact, he is very much opposed to God. All the way through the Word of God we find that there is a resistance on the part of man against God. We find that in man even today. I am rejoicing in something I heard recently. After I preached in a little church, a lady came up to me and said, “I was saved listening to your program, but I have never been able to get my husband into a church. I have never been able to get him interested, and he has always resisted. Now he is beginning to listen to your program, and it is the only thing he will listen to.” If the Word of God won’t break down the resistance of a man, nothing else will do it. If Israel had only kept God’s Law! What a blessing would have come to them!

Deuteronomy 4:3

RESULTS OF OBEDIENCE AND OF DISOBEDIENCEHe is referring to the time when Balaam was called upon to curse Israel, and he could not do it. The fact of the matter is he could pronounce only blessings. But he did make a suggestion to the king of Moab that since he could not curse Israel, the king should let his people go down and intermingle and intermarry with the children of Israel. This would introduce false worship among them which would bring God’s judgment down on them. This is exactly what happened, as we saw in chapter 25 of Numbers. This was to be an example to this new generation. It is to be an example to us also. There is a reward for obedience. Those who did cleave to the Lord were kept alive and would enter the land. God reminds them again that obedience brings with it a blessing.

Deuteronomy 4:5

Obedience would bring the blessing of God. They would go into the land to possess it. And their obedience was to serve yet another purpose:

Deuteronomy 4:6

Israel was to be a witness to all the world. Israel was to witness to the world in the opposite way from the way the church is to witness to the world. We are told “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel …” (Mar_16:15). That command is given to every believer. Every believer in Christ should have some part in getting the Word of God out to the ends of the earth. Now, very frankly, the nation Israel was never asked to go as missionaries.

They were to invite, “Come, let us go up to the house of the Lord.” Their obedience, their faithfulness to God, would cause the other nations to hear these statutes and to notice that God’s blessing made Israel a great nation. Then what would they do? What did the Queen of Sheba do? She came from the ends of the earth. There were no jet planes at that time. She made a long, arduous, hard trip.

If a woman would come that distance under such circumstances, don’t you think some men would come to see? And they did. That was the way Israel witnessed to the world. If they would obey, God would bless them, and they would be a witness to all nations. If they would not obey, and if they would turn from the Lord, then God would bring judgment upon them.

Deuteronomy 4:9

God gave to the nation Israel the great burden of a teaching ministry. They were to obey God, and they were to teach these things to their children and to their grandchildren. The greatest undertaking of any nation is the education of the young. Probably the greatest failure of any nation is the failure in education. Look at America today and see the dismal failure we are making in this matter of education. Now I am not blaming the colleges and the schools. Do you know where the problem lies? It is right in the home.

God tells these people, “I want you to teach your children and your grandchildren.” The failure to teach is the failure of Mom and Dad in the home. This was the great responsibility which God placed upon every father and mother in Israel. Friend, if you are going to bring a child into this world, you are responsible for that child. Our problem today is not foreign affairs or national economy; our problem is the home. God will hold divorced and preoccupied parents responsible for the vagrants of the world today who never knew the instruction and the love and the concern and the communication from parents. What a responsibility parenthood is!

God makes this very clear to Israel. When that nation failed, it failed in the home, and God judged it.

Deuteronomy 4:12

The Lord Jesus stated it very clearly: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (Joh_4:24). People were never to have any likeness of God whatsoever. The Lord Jesus became a man, but the Bible does not give us any physical description of Him. Now you will probably think I am picayunish, if you haven’t already come to that conclusion, but I do not believe in pictures of Jesus. I know that many lovely people feel that a picture of Jesus helps them to worship Him. Let me tell you what was said by an old Scottish commentator: “Men never paint a picture of Jesus until they have lost the presence of Him in their hearts.” We need Him in our hearts today, not in color on a canvas.

These are tremendous and eternal truths which God is giving us in this chapter. The instructions which were given to Israel in that day are great principles for us to carry over for ourselves today, because truth is eternal.

Deuteronomy 4:24

That nation is still a witness to the world today, a witness in their disobedience. They are scattered over the world today. Why? Because they did the thing God forbade them to do. I know someone will point out that they are back in the land and they are a nation now. Yes, but they are in trouble, aren’t they? When God brings them back into that land as He predicted, they won’t be having the trouble they are having today. The nation of Israel is still under the judgment of God today because it has turned its back upon God. Judgment will come upon any nation which rejects Him. This is a tremendous lesson for us today.

Deuteronomy 4:30

This is the first mention of the Great Tribulation which is ultimately coming. “In the latter days” is a technical term in the Old Testament which refers to the Great Tribulation period. God sets up a condition: “If thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto His voice.”

Deuteronomy 4:31

Will the Lord scatter them because He is a big bully or because He is being harsh? No, listen. God is merciful. “He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee.” The reason Israel has not been consumed is because God is merciful. That is the same reason you and I have not been consumed. If you are saved, it is not because you are nice and sweet; it is because of the mercy of God. He is merciful to us as well as to Israel. Moses goes on to show them the evidence of God’s great mercy to them.

Deuteronomy 4:33

God did all these things before the very eyes of their fathers. God does not want them to forget that. God has been gracious to them, and He wants them to remember it.

Deuteronomy 4:37

God did it because He loved them. That is the explanation. There was no good in them, but there was good in God. God loves us today. But He does not save us by love; He saves us by grace. He couldn’t just open the back door of heaven and slip us in. He couldn’t be righteous and do that. A sacrifice for our sins had to be made. His love sent Christ to die for us, and Christ loved us enough to die so that you and I might have a pardon. The Bible does not say, “God so loved the world, that he saved the world.” It says, “…God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son …” (Joh_3:16). He did this that whoeverit makes no difference who it is"believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."