Hear to do God's Word

Israel. Here are the laws and decrees. They are there for a purpose. They are there that you might appreciate God’s wisdom.’ He goes on: ‘Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.’ He didn’t give them the commands, the laws and the decrees just to give them. He gave them as guidance for them and direction. Moses reminds his people to follow them. He tells them why. They are going to be a benefit for you as you live in the Promised Land. He reminds them that it is the God who made this promise to their fathers who is giving these laws to them. Now they are going to enter into that Promised Land. We call it the Promised Land because God had promised it to their forefathers—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Now the people were going to enter there, and God says, ‘Here are my laws’. They are important, they are valuable. They are so important and so valuable, He gives them these directions, ‘Do not add to what I command you, and do not subtract from it.’ God’s commands are good enough there is nothing more to add. God’s laws are good enough we don’t want to take anything away from it. This, Moses says to the people of Israel as they are about to enter that Promised Land. He says do not add to it, do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.
God in His wisdom gave the people of Israel the Ten Commandments. Before that time, the law had been written in man’s heart, in his conscience. We remember Moses going up on the mountain and coming back with the Ten Commandments so that they would have them written down for them. Yet in that short time, from the time they had gotten the commandments and in less than one generation before they got to the Promised Land, they broke them time and again. They forsook God. In fact, when Moses came down the mountain the first time, what happened? He found the children of Israel worshipping false gods already. In the short time Moses had been visiting with God on top of the mount, Aaron and the children of Israel created the golden calf from gold. In anger, Moses broke those first tablets of stone.
Now, you and I are removed many generations, not just one generation from that giving of the law, that writing of God’s commandments on the tablets of stone. We come to the natural conclusion that certainly in between those generations, we might be tempted to add to what God says. We might be tempted to subtract from it, thinking we know a little bit more than God Himself. Isn’t that the society in which we live? People, in reality, have put themselves in the place of God. They think they can determine their own destiny. They are the masters of their own fate. They add to what God’s word has to say. It’s an age-old problem. We heard a little bit of it in our first lesson this morning…Jeremiah, wondering about the people, if they were ever going to listen. Wondering about God’s people, if they were hearing what God had to say. That will always be a question to the very end of time. Will God’s people listen and do God’s word? “To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.” (JEREMIAH 6:10)
In our day and age, we find many who