Deuteronomy 4:15-40

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we are at Numbers chapter 4 verses 15 through 40. We're going to talk about the warning against idolatry. So Moses' warning against idolatry. Deuteronomy chapter 4 verses 14 through 40.
Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a joy it is to serve you, the living God. Lord, we pray that you would please help us to walk in your ways, to follow you. Lord, please instruct our hearts, teach us the paths we should go. In Jesus's name. Amen. All right. So we are at Deuteronomy chapter four, beginning at verse 15. Here we go.
Take careful heed to yourself, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourself a carved image in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, or the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, or the likeness of any fish that is in the water beneath the earth. and take heed lest you lift your eyes to heaven and when you see the sun the moon and the stars all the hosts of heaven you feel driven to worship them and serve them which the lord your god has given to all the peoples under the whole heaven as a heritage But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt to be his people and inheritance as you are this day.
Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me for your sakes. for and swore that I would not cross over the Jordan and that I would not enter the good land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. But I must die in this land. I must not cross over the Jordan. But you shall cross over and possess that good land.
Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. When you beget children and grandchildren, and have grown old in the land, and act corruptly, and make carved images in the form of anything, and do evil in the sight of the Lord your God, to provoke him to heaven, to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but you will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And there you will serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul.
When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey his voice, for the Lord your God is a merciful God, he will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which he swore to them. or ask now concerning the days that are past, which were before you. Since the day that God created man on the earth and ask from one end of heaven to the other, whether any great thing like this has happened or anything like it has ever been. Did any people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard and live? Or did God ever try to go and take for himself a nation from the midst of another nation by trials, by signs, by wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great terrors according to all that the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes?
To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord himself is God. There is none other beside him. Out of heaven he will let you hear his voice. that he might instruct you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his words out of the midst of the fire. And because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their descendants after them. And he brought you out of Egypt with his presence, with his mighty power, driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you to bring you in. to give you their land as an inheritance as it is this day. Therefore know this day and consider it in your heart that the Lord himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath and there is no other You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time. Man, is that a fiery speech from Moses, a sermon to be remembered.
This is where we have to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? What's this about? Moses has just gotten through this part where he's saying, don't forget the Lord. Don't forget your God. Don't forget his law. Teach it to your children and grandchildren. And now he goes on and he's telling them, you got to be careful. You got to be careful because when you go into that land, I'm not going to be able to go, but you're going to go.
You're God's inheritance. But when you go, you got to be careful because there's going to be a temptation towards idolatry. where you may go and you may think that you should go start making images of God that look like people. Or maybe images of God that look like animals. Or maybe you might look up into the sky and you may see the sun or the moon or the stars and you may be tempted to go and to worship them.
If you do that, Moses is telling them, if you do that, God is going to gather you amongst the nations. He's going to send you. He's going to exile you. He's going to humble you, right? Because he's the jealous God. There's no other God beside him. That's it. It's just Jehovah. That's it.
So he says, so if you go and you play spiritual adultery, you go and you do idolatry, you're gonna get cast out. But he won't forget you forever. You'll cry out to him, you'll hear, and he'll bring you back. He's a merciful God to those who repent, but you won't have the glory that you once had. You won't have the same glory. You'll be a smaller nation, a weaker nation. but he loved your forefathers. So don't go worshiping any other idols.
I alone am God, he says. What's the best verse to summarize this one? In my Bible, I have verses 23 and 24 underlined. 24, I have double underlined. Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make for yourself a carved image in form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord, for Jehovah your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
I think that gets at the heart of this. It's a last seat calling. What are we called to do? We worship the one true living God and we serve him only. We're tempted all the time towards idolatry. Idolatry that comes up in our own hearts and idolatry that comes up in the world. Right? We're tempted with idolatry all the time. And so you need to remember this too, right?
We don't serve an angry God of the Old Testament and a loving God of the New Testament. No, Jesus Christ will not share his glory with any other. This is what makes Christianity so radical that many people in our modern tolerant society don't like it. Because Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So if you're trying to find your way to God, other directions, it's not going to work.
We still serve this one true living God. We still serve this one God of the covenant, the same God of grace and the same God of justice, the same God who is jealous, even zealous for his own glory. And he won't share his glory with any other. This monotheism has been held for centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries and centuries. And you know what God is true to.
He he did exile them. God kept his word here, the people did turn to even worshiping the starry hosts and bowing down to Baal and Asherah and Molech and the starry hosts and everything else. And God did exile the people out of the land. Jerusalem was destroyed. And they repented in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah during Zerubbabel's reforms, and they came back. But they've never had that same glory that they had under David and Solomon, under Joshua and the original conquest.
We should take it seriously. We serve him and we guard our hearts against idolatry, that we remember how good the Lord is, how wonderful he is, that he has made us his inheritance. Even us wild Gentiles who he's engrafted into the tree, It's because he has loved us and keeps his covenant. He loved the patriarchs and he's fulfilling his promises to Abraham.
So don't go make yourself an idol. He didn't appear in any form. Theophany of Sinai, he didn't show up as an animal, he didn't show up as a man or as a woman or as any type of thing created, but he displayed himself as the creator of heaven and earth. The closest thing we get to God displaying himself is Jesus Christ, who is the exact image of his being. And so that's why we worship Christ, who is one with the Father, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three in one, the monotheistic God who made us in his image.
Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would keep us from idolatry. We pray that you would keep us from going the way of where we know our hearts would naturally go. Lord, we pray, knowing that you are a jealous God, We pray that you would keep us faithful to you and that we would follow you all of our lives. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. May God bless you. May you have the joy and peace that comes by Jesus Christ. May the Holy Spirit keep you rooted and grounded, anchored in your faith. And may you flourish all the days of your life. I'll see you next time. Bye.