The Lord Alone Is God

If you'll turn in your bibles this morning to Deuteronomy chapter four. Deuteronomy chapter

four, would you pray with me this morning, Father, God, would

come before you this morning, Father, to study your word. We come

before you as father, humble listeners to what you have to say to our

hearts this morning. Lord, we pray that you would bring to life your

word that you've given us. Father, teach our hearts, teach our minds,

that we would be transformed, that we would be sanctified Father by your

word this morning. Father, I pray that you would be with me,

Father, be with my voice my words. Lord, that I would only

speak truth. Father, guard me from error and let me, Father teach

what I have prepared this morning, what you have given me. Lord,

I pray that your Holy Spirit would be here with me to bring these words

out of me. Father, that you would speak to your people. Father

opened our eyes, that we might behold wonderful things out of your law.

In Jesus name, we pray Amen. In the book of Deuteronomy, we

find God's people on the edge of the Promised Land, attempting to enter it

for the second time. The first time they were going to enter it was

immediately after the Exodus, after God's rescue of his people out of Egypt.

But we see that because of Israel's faithlessness and their sin, they weren't allowed

to go into the Promised Land right away. They were actually they were sent

to wander in the desert for forty years so that the generation who had sinned

against the Lord would pass away before they would enter the Promised Land. And

so because of their unbelief, that was their punishment. So at the beginning

of Deuteronomy, we have this older generation, how now passed, and Moses

is taking the opportunity to speak to this next up and coming generation, to

remind them of the promises of God, of the covenant that they have made

with God, and to challenge them encourage them to obedience as they go into

this new land. And in the passage of Deuteronomy leading up to our text

this morning, Moses is encouraging the Israelites to obey the Lord and follow his

commandments. He remember, he reminds them that they have been taught the commandments

of the Lord, the expectations of the Lord, and now that they are

to obey him as they travel into the Promised Land. Now, remember Moses

won't be going into the promised land with them either because of his sin when

he struck the rock instead of speaking to it. But with the new leader

Joshua, they will be able to enter the new land that God has promised

to their forefathers and has continued to us them. But Moses spends time here

exhorting them to obey the Lord's commandments to remain faithful to him in their new

land. So in four chapter four, verse fifteen, this is still leading

up to where we're getting to today. We're actually going to be in verse

thirty two through forty, But in verse fifteen, Moses says, watch yourselves

carefully. So he urges them to remain faithful to the Lord and not let

themselves be led away into sin when they come into the new land. He

tells them in verses twenty five through twenty seven, if you act corruptly,

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. So Moses tells

them that if they go astray, if they abandon the commandments of the Lord,

the Lord will punish them. The command is to obey the Lord and

the consequences are stated if they don't obey. We see in verse twenty eight

israel is in disobedience and the Lord is punishing them. But look what happens

next in verse twenty nine. But from there you will seek the Lord your

God, and you will find him if you search after him with your whole

heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation and all these

things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord

your God and obey his voice. I see hope right there. The Lord

is telling them, like, if you go astray, you will come back

to me. That's a huge piece of hope that we can take from God's

word right that he promises them. He assures them that they will turn back.

Maybe not all of them, but as a general rule, the Israelites

will turn back and want to seek him, and they will see the error

of their ways. And how does the Lord respond. I see that he

has two options here when they come back, either forgives or he does not

forgive. Verse thirty one says, for the Lord your God is a merciful

god. He will not leave you or destroy you, or forget the covenant

with your fathers that he swore to them. This is who the Lord is.

He doesn't leave Israel in their sin and their unfaithfulness and their disobedience when

they repent and run to him for forgiveness, because he is a faithful,

steadfast God to his covenant. What we learn in this passage, what we

learned today in our passage, is that he wants to have a relationship with

them. What I want us to see is that the Lord has revealed himself

to us so that we would know him and believe that he alone is God.

The Lord has revealed himself to us so that we would know him and

leave that he alone is God. And that's what we start seeing here in

verses thirty two through forty. So we as we read here, I want

you to look for I want you to look for these first part is Moses

is calling for witnesses. He's saying, I need a witness to these events

that have happened over the whole time of the earth since creation. So he

says in verse thirty two, for ask now of 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 such a great

thing as this has happened, or has ever happened, or was ever heard

of. So Moses is challenging Israel to find a witness to a time when

a god spoke to a group of people such as this right spoke to a

group of people. And so he's saying, look all the way back to

when the man, when man was created on the earth, as far back

as creation, and look from one side of the earth to the other side

of the earth the whole creation. Has such a great event ever happened as

the Lord's covenant with Israel, He says, try and find a similar relationship

between a god and a people that is like what you have with the Lord.

Then he cites a very specific event in Israel's history. He says,

did any people ever hear the voice of a god speaking out of the midst

of the fire as you have heard and still live. Moses challenges Israel to

find a witness to another encounter like they had with the Lord at Mount Sinai.

After he rescued Israel from Egypt. They exited Egypt or it was the

exodus, right, they crossed the Red Sea, and they came up on

the other side, right, and sort of the next event, they made

their way towards Mount Sinai, and Mount Sinai is where God met with his

people. He met with Moses, was up on the mountain, and he

was meeting with the Lord to receive the covenant, to receive the commands of

the Lord, the law that Israel was supposed to keep in order to be

faithful to the Lord. And we see, we see that the people were

afraid. They were terrified. They knew it was the Lord meeting with them

and with Moses, because in Exodus twenty it says when the people saw the

thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet, and saw the mountain and smoke,

they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses,

speak to us yourself, and we will listen. But do not have the

Lord speak to us, or we will die. So they fully reckon ignized

that God, the Creator was speaking to them. Out of this cloud,

out of this fire, there was smoke. There was all of these signs

that God was present. And these are called theophanes. Right, this is

a theophany. This is God showing himself to his people, and he usually

does that by cloud, by smoke, by fire right, And so we

know that God showed himself to his people and he spoke to them. And

so Moses here in Deuteronomy is saying, Israel, try and find another event

in history from the beginning until now, across the whole face of the earth

where a God has spoken to a people like this. And the implied answer

is you won't be able to find that, because only our God has spoken

to us this way, He has chosen us. Moses tells of another event

in verse thirty four. He says, or has any God ever attempted to

go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation? By

trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty

hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of

which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes, he

says. He challenges them again, find a witness of someone who has seen

a god speak to speak to a people and rescue them from underneath the grasp

of another nation, who has rescued them out of Actually, probably the strongest

nation in the time, Egypt was so strong, and they were militarily equipped

that they could have taken Israel easily. Now we know that Israel has grown

and has multiplied, but they are very beginning of a nation. Right,

They have less than great leadership at this point. Moses as their leader,

but he's not a military leader. He is a prophet from God speaking to

his people. Right. And so we have God who has delivered Israel from

Egypt, from this nation. He's basically like snatched them out, and right,

we see how he did this by trial signs wonders. All of those

plagues that he poured down on Egypt, all of those things showed that someone

other than Israel was at work here. Right. And it's reported in scripture

that Egypt knew, the Egyptians knew that it was their god. Israel knew

that it was their God. And all the surrounding nations had heard about this

event with Egypt, right, and they attributed it to Israel's God. They

had rescued them from the grasp of Egypt. And so Moses is saying,

try to find another witness, try to find another event like this in history.

And again the implied answer is you won't be able to find it.

You won't be able to find it. There has never been a god who

has done this anywhere else. The Lord has revealed himself to Israel so uniquely

that it's never been heard of with another nation. So I think Moses's point

here is to inspire his people, inspire the people into obedience, and remind

them of their privileged position they have with the Lord that they didn't earn that

God freely gave them because he chose their forefathers and now remains faithful to them

the future generations. The Lord is a unique God and has revealed himself uniquely

to his people, and they are called to obey him and to be faithful

to him, but they seem to have lost the wonder their God. A

few years ago, UM, I was having some some stomach issues and lots

of you know that I'm I'm allergic to gluten right, so um, stomach

issues have been my life forever, and so several years ago, UM I

had to go on this pretty strict diet where I wasn't eating any sugar or

any like simple carbohydrates right like rice, potatoes, any of those things.

So I was trying to lower the amount of sugar in my body, and

I did that from about August until March, and that was a very hard,

very hard time. Um, those of you who have you done keto

or the Atkins diet that used to be around, it was, you know,

similar to that, although I wasn't eating like some other things too,

So it was a really hard diet. But after I kind of I never

lost my sweet tooth. By the way, I never lost it. It

stayed there. I just had to like mask it somehow with I think like

salty nuts was the only thing you know, that sort of crate or like

satisfied that craving or ever it up enough where I didn't want cake. So

so over those five months, m I all the sugar in my body,

you know, was gone. I'm virtually all of it. And so come

to March. Ut Nikki's birthday is in March, and so leaning up to

that, I was like, all right, I want to make her a

cake. And I had never made this cake before, and I was I

was making it was a salted caramel cake, and it was like I had

a lot of sugar in it, right, So just by the name caramel,

it had lots of lots of sugar in it. Because I had to

take the sugar. I poured the sugar in the pot and like made caramel

out of it right to add to the cake and to the frosting. And

so once I made the cake, um, and I didn't taste any of

it while I was making it. And then the day came for her birthday

and the cake was there, and I wanted her to eat some, and

I was like, I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready to eat

some cake now, right, some sugar. And so I have to tell

you that that was the best cake I've ever had. It was the best

cake I've ever had. And it's because I had been deprived of sugar for

the longest time. Right. I swear that if I made that cake again

today, it would not taste the same as it did back then, because

I was so ready for sugar. And I think, you know, the

diet ended that day too, because once I tasted it, I couldn't go

back the other way. But it was so good because it was so sweet

to me. I remember I remember talking about how sweet it was to Nikki

and some other friends who were there, and I think they were just like,

this is just normal sweetcake. But to me, it was amazingly sweet,

because I hadn't had it in so long, right, And so that

that made me realize that for a lot of my life, when I have

sugar, when I enjoy things like that, your senses get dulled a little

bit the more you have it, right, And my senses were extremely awakened

when I had taken a break from it. And so I wonder if Israel

is sort of in this place where they have had this covenant with the Lord

for a while now, and they've had this law, they've had this these

expectations of the Lord to obey him, but they've sort of they've they've been

jaded now over after the exodus, kind of over these maybe forty years,

right, And so there their desire to obey the Lord is not as great

as it was before. And so Moses is here trying to help them see

the importance to obey the Lord and to remain faithful to him, because he

has remained faithful to them in his covenant with them. And I wonder has

that happened to any of us in our walk with the Lord? Right?

Maybe we've been in church for so long that things have come dull and automatic,

we've lost our excitement for our relationship with the Lord. Right now,

I'll say that time spent in God's word actually is the opposite to this,

Right, I wouldn't also say that, you know, you read or the

word of God every day, and so you get dull of it or you

get less and less excited, right with the sugar, Like you know,

if you drink soda every day, then soda just maybe you have to have

more soda to get the same effects sort of, right, the caffeine or

the sugar. But I don't think that's true of the Word of God.

The Word of God should be like the more we have of it, the

more we want, and the more it transforms us on the inside. Right,

it actually does the opposite. We need to We need to feast on

the Word of God every single day so that we are transformed by it.

Right. The more we commune with our Father, the more we enjoy him

and love him and want to be with him. But it seems like Israel

loses the wonder of their special relationship with the Lord, and Moses is trying

to remind them of it. As we continue through this passage. Here we

come to verse thirty five, which is a big one. This verse shows

us why the Lord revealed himself to Israel. Verse thirty five says, to

you, it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God.

So the first two verses thirty verse three, verses thirty two through thirty four,

he's saying, find a witness of a God who is like this,

and there is none. And then in verse thirty five he says, this

is why it was revealed to you. He says, so that you may

know that the Lord is God. Moses helps Israel to understand why the Lord

revealed himself to his people and to break down this verse for you, because

there's more than what we just see on the surface in English. So first

Moses says that you might know. This phrase tells us the purpose of the

Lord revealing himself. The Lord desired for his people to know him. Another

way of phrasing it would be so that you would know. So the Lord

desires to be known by his people. But know what, what about the

Lord? So it was shown to Israel that they might know that the Lord

is God. This shows us what he wanted them to know. And this

is the this part is the most important. We see. The English words

here say Lord in all capital letters is God. So the Hebrew word for

Lord here is a proper name. It's a proper name for the name of

this being, right like a person's name. It would be like saying,

Devin is human. That's what this phrase is similar to, Devin is the

proper name, and human describes Devin. So in the case of the words

in the scripture, the Lord is his name, it's Yahweh or somewhere else,

it might say Jehovah. That's his name. And Moses wants Israel to

know that he is God. The word God comes from the Hebrew word Elohim,

which means supreme ruler, divine ruler, or deity, divine being.

So what Moses is saying here is that the Lord revealed himself to Israel through

Mount Sinai and the Exodus, so that Israel would know that he is the

supreme being. He is God. And the verse ends with this, and

there is no other besides him Man. So this unique God who has shown

himself revealed himself to his people out of a mountain and out of this rescuing

this nation, small nation, out of this large nation. This unique God

who has shown himself in unique ways wants this people to know that he alone

is God, and he loves them, and he wants them to know him.

No one can compare to him. There are no other gods. This

supreme being is not just a distant creator who made you and me and who

sits back and watches time tick bye. He is an intimately loving God who

desires to have a relationship with his creation, with you. He humbled himself

over and over to show Israel how much he loved them. He humbled himself

to make himself known to them in ways that they could understand. He wants

to communicate his deep love and faithfulness for him, but they have forgotten him.

Moses reminds them here just before they enter the Promised Land, that this

god has a name. His name is Yahweh, the Lord, and he

wants to love his people if they would only obey him. Today's graduation Sunday,

right, and on graduation Sunday, maybe during times of graduation, we

want to celebrate those who have graduated, right. And I know, families,

you want to have people recognize, like, hey, look what my

son or daughter did, Look what my spouse did? Right, And you

want people to know that they are graduating. You want people to know that

they have done a great thing right. Just like that, these important events

that the Lord has placed in Israel's life are to make known who he is

and what he has done for them. Right. On another way, this

year at BCA, it was my first year at BCA, but every morning

we would have Miss Brown mostly or m or Miss Allan down come across the

intercom and they would announce birthdays right, And so each kid was like so

excited when it came to their month or their week when they got to say,

you know, it's Michael Whirfield's birthday today, right, or like,

you just get so excited when when people know about things that you've done right,

have this not colledge? We get excited and we want to make that

known. And so the Lord likewise wants to make himself known to his people

so that they will love him and obey him, and he wants to love

them as well. God makes himself known to us because he wants to be

known. The passage continues in verses thirty six through thirty eight, with Moses

emphasizing the Lord's unique revelation to his people. It says, out of heaven

he let you hear his voice, that he might discipline you. And on

earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard his words out

of the midst of the fire. And because he loved your fathers and chose

their offspring after them, and brought you out of Egypt with his own presence,

by his great power, driving out before you nation's greater and mightier than

you, to bring you in to give you their land for an inheritance,

as it is to this day. So Moses explains that God revealed himself from

heaven to his people that he might discipline them. And this word discipline doesn't

always mean to punish or to castigate. It. It might also mean to

train, to train and discipline right. It's one of the things that I

battle with daily. I need to be disciplined to study and to read and

to prepare the things that need to be prepared, and not be distracted by

everything else. I need to focus on using my time wisely right, growing

in discipline. And so that's what the Lord has done for Israel. The

Lord taught them the law and commandments to train them how to live, how

to be set apart for the glory of God. He revealed this to them

at Mount Sinai, and Moses continues describing here in these verses how the Lord

spoke to them through both Mount Sinai and Exodus. In verse thirty eight,

we see how special this was for Israel. The Lord not only promised them

to bring them into this promised Land, he cleared out the promised land for

them. Right, that's what he was planning to do, it says,

driving out before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in

to give you their land for an inheritance. Right. The Lord's preparing the

way for them. He's preparing to remove the Canaanites from the land of Canaan

so that Israel can possess it. They're right at the edge of the Promised

Land they're about to enter, right, And just like that. When we

think about graduation, graduation is the finishing of one stage of life and advancing

to the next, getting ready to advance to the next. And those of

you who have graduated this year, you either have advanced to the next or

you're preparing to, right, And so just like that, the Lord,

the Lord is preparing Israel for this next stage inheriting the Promised Land. And

the Lord is going to be that faithful to you, that faithful to you

to prepare you for what's coming next. Maybe you can't see it. We

can't always see the future and what the Lord has for us. But he

knows who you're going to meet at college. He knows who you guys are

going to meet in your next place of work, and he has you there

for a purpose. He is with you, and he's going before you,

just like he's going with Israel. In verse thirty nine, Moses makes a

conclusion. He has summarized God's self revelation again through those historical events, and

now he gives God's purpose again. He repeats verse thirty five. He says,

know, therefore, today and lay it to your heart that the Lord

is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath. There is no other.

He alone is God. What a privilege it is for Israel to know

that He has loved them, He has revealed himself to them. He's loved

them that much. Moses wants Israel to know that Yahweh is God, not

Bail the Canaanites, not Dagon of the Philistines, not Allah of the Muslims,

not Shiva, or Vishnu of the Hindus. Yahweh Jehovah is God and

we worship him. So that right there, I want to show you that

that was God showing Israel a unique revelation of himself, the unique God showing

a unique revelation to a unique people because He's chosen them right. And then

lastly, today Israel is called to a unique obedience, a unique obedience,

and verse forty, Moses makes his second conclusion based on the Lord revealing himself

to Israel, so that they know that he is God. What should they

do? In verse forty, it says, therefore you shall 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 that the Lord your God is giving you for all time.

As Israel is about to step foot in the New Land and the Promised

Land, Moses challenges them to obedience again, to a life of serving God

and honoring them with all of their lives. In the past, they had

fallen short of God's covenant. They turned away and forgot about him. They

complained begrudgingly in the wilderness like we should have just stayed in Egypt. It

was better there. At least we had food every day. But Moses says,

the Lord has revealed himself to you in mighty ways in your life to

show his love for you. He hasn't done this with any other people across

the face of the earth since the beginning of the earth. So know that

he is God, that he loves you, and so you should obey him.

He deserves your obedience. So wherever we are in life church, whatever

we're doing, whether we're graduating or moving to the next step of life or

continuing in the work and raising our family, that we have done the call

from this passage is to obey God because we know who he is, to

serve him with our lives, and it includes a blessing that it may go

well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong

your days. That's an amazing blessing and a hope for us that if we

obey him, we continue in serving Him with our lives and an obedience,

it may go well with us. That doesn't mean that we're not going to

get sick, doesn't mean that difficult times are not going to come. They

will. But our ultimate hope is that the Lord is with us. He

is with us to give us hope and strength and endurance and all of the

difficulties that we have in life. The Lord is so good that he wants

to bless us those who are obedient to him. So for Israel, God

revealed himself by appearing to them through Mount Sinai and through the Exodus. And

we can surely read about these events, and we can know him through those

events. But He has revealed himself in a much more profound way to us,

and that's through his son Jesus. God has revealed himself in human form

to us. The author of Hebrews shows us that we today have a much

clearer revelation of God in Jesus. In Hebrews one, verses one through four,

it says, long ago, at many times and in many ways,

God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days He

has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all

things, through whom through whom also he created the world. He is the

radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and

he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purifications of

sin, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

having becomes as much superior to angels, as the name he has inherited is

more excellent than theirs. Notice, like Hebrews, one one says, God

spoke to our fathers by the prophets, who was a prophet, Moses.

So God was speaking through Moses to his people Israel. Right. But the

author of Hebrews says, but we have even a greater revelation than that.

God has spoken directly to us in human form, by giving his son Jesus,

to be born of a virgin, to come and live with you,

to show you that he is God, and to die for you on the

cross. That's how He's revealed to us. He's spoken to us throughout his

son, Jesus. It says, Jesus is the radiance of the glory of

God and the exact imprint of his nature. So when we know Jesus,

when we see Jesus, we see God. He's not inhibited by the cloud,

he's not he's not veiled in fire. He's not up far away on

a mountain. And we have to receive a prophet to teach us. He

has spoken to us by his son Jesus. And when we know Jesus,

we know God, and we can see him, and we know him,

and God wants us to know him. It's it's echoed in the New Testament.

In First Timothy, chapter two, Paul tells us that he wants all

people to know him. He says, Paul says, pray for all people,

because God our Savior, desires all people to come to the knowledge of

the truth and be saved. For there is one God. Notice the repetition

here from Deuteronomy through to Timothy that there is but one God. That's why

Church we are a monotheistic Christianity. We believe that there is one God,

and all the others who claim to be God are merely shadows. They're merely

figments of their imagination, trying to find God in ways that he cannot be

found. Right, so all the other gods pale in comparison to the one

true God. They are but idols. God our Savior, desires all people

to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is

one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ,

who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the and this is

mind belonging. The Lord showed me this, which is the testimony given at

the proper time. Remember, Moses was encouraged his people to look for a

witness. Can I get a witness of who has heard of a God speaking

to a people and rescuing them out of a nation? No? Well,

Jesus is the testimony that God has appeared to us in flesh and loves us

so much that he sent his son for us to trust him and be reconciled

with him. The Lord still wants us to know him, and he testifies

by sending his own son to die for you and for me. Jesus Christ

dying on the cross is the testimony given at the right time, the testimony

that shows us God's great love for us. Can I get a witness here

today? Amen? So, as I closed today, I call on you

to look at Jesus, to recognize Jesus as God's son and the revelation of

himself to us as God's word of love to you. Jesus lived a perfect

life, took the penalty of sin and death, and rose from the dead,

that we might trust in Him and be forgiven of our sin, that

He might be our substitute on the cross. It should be us, but

He took our place, and through that substitution we can be saved and forgiven

of our sin. We can be made righteous, not by our own strength,

but only by the righteousness of Jesus that he gives us by trusting in

him. So Israel was called to obey God his covenant with them so that

they could inherit the promised land. We are called to obey God by repenting

of our sin and trusting in Jesus, that we might inherit eternal life.

We're just like Israel, and God has revealed himself to us that we might

obey Him and serve Him with our lives. Will you believe the testimony given

to you today here in this church? Today? Will you believe that testimony

of who Jesus is. He came from God. Will you trust in Jesus

Today? Israel was called to obey God. Will you answer the call to

be obedient to Jesus and surrender to him. He desires that you believe the

truth and be saved. Let's pray together, Father God, we come before

you this morning, seeing that you have revealed field yourself to us. You

have revealed yourself to this world, Father, because you desire us to come

to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Father. For that gift

and that blessing, we are ever grateful. Lord. I pray that today

we would see your unique revelation to us, fine, that we would obey

you to glorify you with our lives. Lord, I pray for everyone who

can hear me this morning, whether they're online or hear in person. Lord,

I pray that you would speak to their hearts Father and convict them of

sin, that they might respond in obedience to you, to submit to you

all of their ways, their life, their sins, Father, maybe for

the first time to be saved and cleansed and be made righteous by the blood

of Jesus Father. Or maybe it's a sequential time after they've been saved,

Lord, that they need a recom amment to you. They need to fall

before you and say, Lord, I've sinned against you again, and I

need forgiveness in Jesus. I need forgiveness because there's distance between you and me.

There's distance, and I need new forgiveness Today Father, Would you speak

to our hearts today in Jesus name, We pray Amen.