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The First Commandment: Statues and Precepts (14)
Deuteronomy 11.1, 2
1 “Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. 2 Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the LORD your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm…
God had just delivered His people from Egypt, graciously “remembering” His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 2.24). Now, on the plains of Moab, east of the land of promise, Israel was poised to begin enjoying the next phase in God’s covenant promises. And how would that happen? How would they gain further benefits from the God of grace? By looking to the promises and walking in obedience to God’s Law.
How thorough must their obedience be? Israel is to “keep” God’s charge, defined as His statutes, rules, and commandments. Exhaustive obedience to all the Law of God: this is the key to continued enjoyment of the promises. Let us keep in mind that obedience is not unto redemption. Redemption has already been accomplished and was all of grace. Israel – then and now – was not saved by works, but unto them (cf. Eph. 2.8-10). Obedience is to be out of gratitude for redemption, unto further realization – higher stages of realization – of the precious and very great promises of God, and is therefore by faith expressed as obedience.
The message to Israel on the plains of Moab was thus: Don’t lose sight of what God has promised, or of how He has thus far moved to fulfill those promises. And realize that further enjoyment of those promises is along the path God Himself has marked out in His Law. Believe, obey, and enjoy: here is a formula for blessedness.
This is “always” the way God brings His people to higher stages of blessedness. We must “always” walk in obedience to what God has revealed, beginning in His Law. There will never be a time when we will not be dependent upon God’s revealed Word in order to know how we must live before Him. Those, therefore, who scorn the Law of God, preferring to be “led by the Spirit” or to live “by the law of love”, are deceived. They would substitute for what God has revealed some subjective and sentimental standard of righteousness that seems right to them at the moment. Such has “always” been the way of death (Prov. 14.12).
T. M. Moore
The Law of God is the soil which, fertilized by the rest of God’s Word and watered by His Spirit, brings forth the fruit of Christian life. If you’d like to understand this process better, and how to make best use of the Law in your walk with and work for the Lord, order the book, The Ground for Christian Ethics, from our online store.
Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.