Before I get into the exposition of God's words tonight, I just want to publicly thank the elders, Ryan, Chad, and Ron, for inviting me for this internship and for being able to meet this wonderful congregation and serve over these past nine or ten weeks. It's been a great blessing to be here. I count it a real privilege to get a chance to serve the body here and meet wonderful families and friends. Build new relationships while I've been here So I really count as a privilege thanking the elders and then of course thanking the congregation for the blessed time I've had here by the grace of God and so if you would open up your Bible now to Deuteronomy 31 Deuteronomy 31 And I'll be reading verses 9 to 13 Deuteronomy 31 verses 9 to 13 and if you would stand with me as I read the word I Deuteronomy 31, 9 through 13. So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord and all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which he chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God. and carefully observe all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. You may be seated. Our Father, we come to you on the basis of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit, asking that you would help us now in this evening time of worship. We thank you that today we get to celebrate uniquely the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. My preaching and the hearing be edifying, and may those who are in the sound of my voice be encouraged and built up by your truth. May you bless this time, and may you help me preach in a demonstration of the spirit of power. In Jesus' name, amen. So some of the context of Deuteronomy 31, because we're just jumping right into Deuteronomy 31, because this is a standalone sermon. And so, Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law. That's the point of Deuteronomy. God is giving the law a second time to remind the people of Israel of their duty to the God who has rescued them out of the land of Egypt. And this is towards the end of Deuteronomy, and at the end of Deuteronomy, we get the account of Moses, the prophet of the Lord, who is about to die. And Moses in this account in Deuteronomy 31 is passing the baton off, so to speak, to his successor, namely Joshua. And he's reminding the people of Israel that God has rescued them out of the land, that God is with them wherever they go, and that Joshua, and by implication all the people, should be strong and of good courage, because the Lord is with them wherever they go. And so this is right on the heels of Moses knows he's about to depart, Moses knows because God told him he's not going to enter the promised land, and so Moses wants to prepare the people of Israel for when they go into the promised land. And that's the context of what's happening here. They're about to get in the Promised Land. We see that emphasized in Joshua 21, but Moses is telling these people through Joshua what they need to know and that they're promised that God is with them wherever they go. So some of you might be thinking, Deuteronomy 31 though, this is an Old Testament book. What can we get out of it as New Covenant believers? Well, as the people of God, as the one whom God has bought through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, how much more, if these people are remembering what God did bringing them out of Egypt, how much more we whom God has brought out of slavery to sin and are the people of God, the true people of God, the true Israel of God, Abraham's seed, how much more can we look at a text like this and say, passage of scripture was written for our edification. So as you hear the section of Deuteronomy 31, I want to say at the outset, don't think, well, this was for Old Testament people. We're New Testament people. No. All the Bible is for all God's people, whether from Genesis to Revelation. So this is, I like to say, Christian literature because all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. And Deuteronomy 31 is one of those passages in Scripture that is profitable for us. And may you hear in that lens that this chapter of scripture is written for our edification, because we are the people of God. So I have three points that I want to unpack in this text. One, Moses writes and gives the law. Second, Moses commands the hearing of the law from all the people. Third, Moses desires the fearing and obeying of the Lord from all the people. So the first point, Moses writes and gives the law. If you look at verse nine, so Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord and to all the elders of Israel. So Moses writes this law and gives it to the elders. So Moses is preparing the people to hear the word of God, but before he does that, he writes out a faithful copy of the scriptures and gives it to the priests that they might put it in a safe place for the time of the reading. So we see Moses saw it so important to keep the Word of God that he wrote it himself and provided a faithful copy to the priests. Because according to Romans chapter 3 verse 2, what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way, chiefly to them, chiefly to the Jewish people, was committed the oracles of God. And so God, through the national people of Israel, gave us the oracles of God. And they took it so seriously that Moses would write it and give it to the priests so that it would be kept safe. That the people of Israel were so serious about making sure that God's Word was preserved in all ages, that Moses would write it and make sure it was faithfully given to the priests. What this teaches us very clearly is that God, through His people, is very serious about making sure His Word is preserved. He's very serious about making sure that the Word of God is faithfully preserved. It's not as if somehow the Word got corrupted because people did something wrong and then we're trying to get it back to its original. No, God has given us His Word and based on the Old Testament priests and the priesthood of all believers in the New Testament, God has faithfully preserved His Word in all generations. And so we can trust that we have a faithful translation because we know God has providentially preserved his word. This is how it puts it in the Second London Baptist Confession, Chapter 1, Paragraph 8. God immediately inspired his word in the original languages, namely Hebrew and Greek. but he's kept it pure in all ages. And so we see that there, that Moses is the one who is making sure God's word is kept pure for the people of God. Because if you don't have a pure copy, you can't have a pure translation. If you don't have a pure translation, then you can't truly trust God's word. But the Old Testament priests were so serious about keeping the word pure that Moses gave it to them to make sure that God's word was preserved in all ages. Second point, Moses commands the hearing of God's law, or God's word, from all the people. If you look at verse 10, And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, at the appointed time in the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, in the place which he chooses, You shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear. And so we see, secondly, that Moses commands, as the prophet of God, that all the people would be gathered. And particularly, Moses wants them to be gathered at the year of release, at the Feast of Tabernacles. The year of release was the time every seven years when the people who were in bondage, or who were servants putting themselves in slavery because they had to pay off a debt, were released from their debt. There was a time of relief from the people who were embonished because they owed debt to freeing their debt, to canceling their debt. And the Feast of Tabernacles was five days after the Day of Atonement, celebrating what God had done for the people of Israel, reminding them of what God had done for them as he delivered them out of Egypt. And so these two events were times of rejoicing and celebration because they were celebrating what God had done for them by taking them out of slavery to Egypt into their own land and into the promise to come of the promised land. And so we see here that this was a particular time where God wanted the people to come together to be reminded of the word of God so that they would not forget the ways of God. that they would remember God who made them and had redeemed them from the land of Egypt. And so this was a very solemn, but also a serious time, but also a time of rejoicing before the Lord. And so in this account, we see that Moses wants the law to be read. But Acts 15.21 tells us that Moses was read every Sabbath, and Matthew Henry in his commentary says that probably Godly Jews had the law at times read in their own homes. But this was a particular time where the people would come together to hear the law of the Lord. Because what could happen is the people over this time might forget what God had done for them in the land of Egypt. As a side note, this is why it's so important that week after week we're coming to gather as God's people. Because what is the thing we need more than anything? It's not necessarily to learn new things. It's to remember old things. Think about 1 Corinthians 6. Do you not know? What is Paul saying there? Have you forgotten that you're a temple of the Holy Spirit? Have you forgot that you've been bought with a price? Have you forgot that you are no longer enslaved to sin? Have you not known that your body has been bought by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you not know? And so here, yes, they might learn new things, but they need to be reminded, yes, every Sabbath and every seven years, just like we every Sabbath must be reminded of what God has done for us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, that we might know him and that we might walk in faithfulness to him. Because our problem ultimately is that we forget things that we should know and hold dear. And we need to be reminded over and over again of what God has done for us, to save us, to redeem us, to keep us, to help us, to strengthen us, that we might be reminded of God's truth throughout our days. And so this was the time when Moses had all the people come together that they might hear during the year of release at the Feast of Tabernacles. And then when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, This also shows that when the Word of God is read, and the Word of God is preached by implication, not necessarily here, but just in general, we are coming before the Lord your God. You see in the text, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God, there is a coming together of the people to dwell in God's special presence when they are gathered in the assembly before the face of God. They are gathering before God. It wasn't just they were reading the word kind of abstractly, but they were coming to meet with God. They were coming before the face of God. And so just like in the Old Testament, God uniquely dwelt in his temple. That was the unique place of worship for the people. But what is the church? We are. the temple of the living God. And so when we read the scriptures and we preach the scriptures and we sing the scriptures, we're not just doing something because it makes us feel good. We are entering into the special presence of a most holy God because we are coming corporately, not just to read the word simply, but to read before the face of the Lord, our God. As we come together collectively, we are coming for the purposes of meeting with our sovereign God who has bought us, who has redeemed us, who has purchased us so that we might worship. Think about it in Israel. Why did God want to redeem the people? It wasn't ultimately for their sake. God redeemed them that they might worship him in the wilderness. Some translations say serve him. Those are synonymous. that they might be rescued to worship. Why have you been rescued from your sin? That you might worship before the face of the Lord your God, just like we see in this text. And so, as you appear before the Lord your God, which he chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. And from studying that, it looks like Moses has in mind, by inspiration of the Spirit, all five books that they would have from Genesis to Deuteronomy. They would read this law every seven years to be reminded of God's truth. And then he goes and say, gather the people together, men and women and little ones and the stranger who's within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God. And so Moses commands that all the people, so my second point, Moses commands that all the people would come to hear the Lord their God through his word. And we see specifically who does Moses wanna come? Gather the people together, the men, the women, the little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates. Moses wants this whole group to come because Moses wants the men to know the word of God. He wants the women to know the word of God. He wants the little ones to know the word of God. And he wants even those who are strangers, namely those who are not ethnically Jewish, to come into the worship of God by the reading of the word that they might learn and fear God himself. And so we see here that in this text that it wasn't just God wanted the men to come, even though some feasts it was like that in my study, but he wanted the men and the women and the little ones and the stranger. What this shows us very clearly is the church is not just old people. The church is not just middle-aged people. The church is not just even a church that reaches just 20-sums. That's not what the church is. When a church says, we just want to reach college students, I say that's probably not a church. Because the church in its very nature is multi-generational. The church doesn't say, let's reach this specific group of people. The church says, let's reach people no matter what demographic, no matter what age, no matter where they're at, because God wants the men and the women and the little ones and the strangers to come within the midst of the reading and the hearing of God's word. Some of you might be thinking, well, this is Deuteronomy 31. You're making such a big deal about the church being multi-generational from one text in the Old Testament. Well, let me give you a couple more witnesses then. When were the letters that were written by Paul or the other apostles, when were they read? In the gathering of the church, right? At the end of several of the letters he says, read this to the church. Ephesians chapter six, the reading of the word, children obey your parents. What was the assumption? Children were gonna be in the worship service. Colossians chapter three, Children, obey your parents. And so we see, even in the New Testament, this pattern of men and women and little ones being within the reading of God's word. And so Moses not only wants certain people, he wants all the people of Israel to know. And then some people might say, but if they're not believers, can they still come in? What if they're not believers, whether that's men or women or little ones or strangers? Well, just like if a husband has an unbelieving wife, we don't say, no, you can't come in because you're not a believer. We say, we know it's God's means of grace through the preaching of his word that brings people unto salvation. And so we want men and unbelieving women, unbelieving children, unbelieving strangers, even though the church is primarily for the saints, we don't kick people out if they're not in Christ. Just like if someone's singing and they're not in Christ, we don't say, you don't really mean that when you sing. You're lying when you're singing. No, we don't do that. Why? Because we know that the word of God sung or read or heard is the means of God bringing people to himself. And so we see here that Moses wanted all the people to come and gather before the Lord their God to hear the word of God read. And then third point, Moses wanted the reading of the word that the people might fear the Lord their God and keep his commandments. If you look at verse 12 and 13. Gather the people together, men and women and little ones and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law. And that their children who have not known it may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess. So the purpose of them reading the law every seven years was not simply so their mind could be filled with knowledge, even though every year they were going to be filled with new truths and knowledge and the word of God. The purpose was that the people of Israel might fear God and keep His commandments. That was the purpose of the law. That was the purpose of the reading, that the people who heard the law might fear the God who has made them and rescued them out of the land of Egypt. We don't just read the law to get knowledge, even though we do. We fear it for the purpose that we might fear our God. And according to Ecclesiastes 12, this is the whole duty of man. This is the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments, which is the whole duty of man. And that's exactly what this says here. Read the law that you may fear God and that you may keep his commandments, because that's your whole duty. You as the people of God, the people of Israel, you must be a people that fears God. Because if you don't, you'll go into all different worship and gods that are like broken cisterns that can't hold any water, according to Jeremiah chapter two. And so he desires that they would fear God. And this is the essence of what it means to have true religion. Fearing God is the emphasis of what it truly means to be. a true follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about a couple of texts. Proverbs 1.7, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. Proverbs 9.10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. And so that's why, in times past, when you wanted to talk about someone who was a believer, you would refer to them as, this is a God-fearing person. Why would they say that? Because knowing God and fearing God are so connected. That shorthand of someone who knows God is this is a God-fearing person. And so think about it this way, I love to ride roller coasters. Roller coasters are a lot of fun for me. Sad that I didn't get to Busch Gardens this time, but maybe if I come back I'll get a chance. I love riding roller coasters, but when I go on a roller coaster, there is a healthy fear that I must have, right? If I don't fear the roller coaster, I might stand up middle of the ride and start jumping. which would be utterly foolish. So there's a healthy fear that if I'm gonna ride a roller coaster, I must fear the roller coaster. Hopefully you're following what I mean. There's a healthy fear of something that big. But it's not a fear that leads me to run away from the roller coaster, because that's sometimes what we think about fear. We think about fear as makes me run away. But the fear of the roller coaster makes me respect how I use it. and my dealings with it. My dear friends, this is what it is to fear God. It doesn't mean you run from God, because those who truly fear God love God from the heart and want to be near God. But it means when they go to God, they don't go irreverently, and they have a healthy fear of approaching the most holy God. They don't go flippantly. They don't go in a way where it's, well, I mean, we're going to God. He's our buddy after all. No, no, no, no, no. Yes, God is our friend. But we don't go to God like he's some trinket or somebody that we just kind of hang around with. God is the sovereign of the universe and could snap his fingers and obliterate you in one second. This is the God in whom it says, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, Hebrews 10.31. But he's also the God, because we're in union with Jesus Christ, who we can go to as our father See, we go to him just like I would go on that roller coaster, but I go not flippantly. I go with a healthy fear. And so Moses wants the people of Israel to come to God year after year, day after day, month upon month, but he wanted them to go to God with a reverence and an awe. Yes, God is our father and praise God for that, but he wanted the people of God to go with reverence because their God is a consuming fire. And so we see this both and. It's not the fear of a bully. Believers should not have the fear that they do of a bully. But pretend you're a eight-year-old kid. Boys and girls, think about someone that might be bullying you or might be mistreating you. That fear is going to lead you to run away from them. If you see them, you're going to want to run as fast as you can the other way. But the fear of God is the fear that leads us to Him, but with respect and awe. And then he goes on to say that you may Fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law and that their children who have not known it may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess. Fear God and keep his commandments. And no one can say they rightly fear God, according to this text and others, if there is no desire to obey his commandments. Fearing God and commandment keeping go together. Not a commandment keeping to earn God's favor, because think about it. God saved the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt and then said, therefore, you shall know the gods before me. So as a rescue to obedience. So as new covenant believers, it's not, if you obey my law, I'll save you. That's what we call legalism. It's, I have rescued you. I have brought you out of slavery to sin. My son is the picture of the year of release in which your debts have been paid. You've been freed from slavery to sin. Your righteousness has been accomplished in the act of obedience of Christ. Your satisfaction for sin has been accomplished. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ, bearing your sin, satisfying God's wrath, taking your sin away as far as the east is, as from the west, and rising from the dead that you might have new life in Him. It's what God has done for us in Christ. Therefore, fear God and keep His commandments. It's so important that we get this. Because if you don't get this, you have a different religion. It's that serious. What we call indicatives and then imperatives. Indicative is what something is. Imperatives is what you should do with it. As an example, this is a microphone. That's an indicative. I'm just making a statement about it. An imperative would be speak into the microphone. And unless you know what God has done in the indicatives, namely that God has sovereignly saved you out of your sin, by the person and work of his son, applying that to you by the Holy Spirit. If you go to fear him and keep his commandments, you'll have nothing but slavery. But when you know the freedom of being rescued from your sin, rejoicing before the Lord because God has bought you with a price, therefore you can glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which is God's. If you get one without the other, we have problems. But the same dilemma is on the other side. If you say we've been rescued from our sin, shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? Certainly not. And so this answers both. The people of Israel were rescued sovereignly by God, not because they earned it or deserved it. You as a believer in Jesus Christ have been rescued, not because you earned it or deserved it, but God gave it to you as a gift because the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then therefore, you are now called to fear him and keep his commandments. It's so important, again, that we get this right. It's not either or, it's both and, it's you've been saved to obey. And think about the language of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the language of talking about Christ in Ephesians, in the Christ church relationship. Husbands love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church, that he might justify her. That's not what the text says. That he might sanctify and cleanse her by the washing of the water by the word. So Jesus Christ died that we might be a sanctified body who fear God and keep his commandments. That we might be those who stand in awe of God, come to God with reverence and awe, come to God as we would someone who we have great respect for and one that we want to please by keeping his commandments. Deuteronomy 31, though, probably had more understanding of keeping the words of this law because they were still under the ceremonial system of the sacrifices. They still had the civil laws, all these different things. But for individual believers, what our desire is, is to keep God's moral law summed up in the Ten Commandments. That's what we are obligated to keep. The law that's written in our heart as new covenant believers, the law that's been given to us as a rule of life that we might be pleasing to our Heavenly Father. And so when it says keep this law, it's not saying keep the ceremonial law because we don't make sacrifices anymore. but it's saying the law that God has sovereignly written on your heart, being made in his image and writing it in your heart savingly, according to Hebrews chapter eight, the 10 words, the 10 laws of the 10 commandments. And then it says, and that the children who have not known him may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land which you cross the Jordan to possess. We see here that the people are going over to The land. They're going over the Jordan. If you were in my Sabbath school class, I talked about what the land actually is for us as New Covenant believers. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount doesn't say, but the meek shall inherit the land of Canaan, does he? He says, but the meek shall inherit the whole earth. And for us, the land that we are looking forward to is the land whose builder and maker is God, namely the new heavens and new earth. The fleshly seed of Abraham was looking for this physical land, but the spiritual seed was looking for a greater land, a land that was a spiritual land in which we would have resurrected bodies in the new heavens and the new earth. So how much more, if these people were called to fear the Lord their God and keep his commandments, how much more should we, who are going to a greater land, who are going to a better land, who are going to a land in whose God is the maker, should seek to fear him and keep his commandments. And then some last application questions. Do you desire the word of God like we see it being done and explained with Moses? That these people would sit for probably hours. I mean, think how long it would take you to read Genesis to Deuteronomy. And these people were doing it over and over and over again every seven years because they loved the word of their God. May you and I be a people that love the word. As Pastor Ryan helpfully said this morning in his morning sermon, our services should be filled with the word because it's more important what God says to us than what we say to him. It's more important that God speaks to us than we speak to him. And the only place in the New Covenant, now that we have all the scriptures that God speaks to us, is in the 66 books of the Old and New Testament. So may you be a person like Moses, and like the people who were spiritual Israel, that love the word that God has given to you in the 66 books. That you might cherish it, you might obey it, that you might seek to make your life completely conform to it. Second, if Deuteronomy 31 is right, and I interpret it rightly about the multigenerational truth, do you see the church as multigenerational? Do you see the church as a group of body, young and old, of all ages, because the young people We don't, it's not helpful for us to be set apart because we need the older people desperately. People like me need wisdom from the older people who have walked 30, 40 more years in Christ. And the older people need the younger people to get spurred on with energy and vigor and excitement. And we help each other. This is why God has made the church multi-generational, because we need each other. And if we're, there's not a big church and a little church, because if there is, then there's two churches, but there's only one church of Christ. And this one church needs each other. The older need the younger, and the younger need the older. This is what Titus 2 is all about, the older women teaching the younger women, the older men teaching the younger men, that we might be built up as a body. Do you see this church like this? Do you see the importance of the church being this way, being marked by a unity of all the ages? because God wants the wisdom of the old and the strength of the young in one body. And then, is your life marked by this reverence towards God? Do you desire to have a reverence like this towards God? Do you see God, go with my analogy again, like you would if you enjoy roller coasters? That there's an enjoyment of being with God, just like if you like roller coasters, you enjoy the roller coaster, but there's a healthy fear in which you approach this massive contraption. And so we come to God with a reverence and awe. Do you have this reverence and awe? And is your life marked? Could someone say about your life, this is a God-fearing person? That's how they talked about the saints of old. This was a God-fearing person. I mean, could someone say that about your life? And then lastly, are you looking forward to that land that we're going to possess? The new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells. Are you looking forward to that day when we enter into that city with resurrected bodies? in the land whose builder and maker is God. This is all what we see in Deuteronomy 31, this promise, God giving his word as a precious treasure to the people, of God calling them to fear him and keep his commandments as a collective body of all ages, that they might enter the land. And how small it is, the land of Jordan, over the Jordan, the land of Canaan compared to the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness will dwell. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time, and may these truths be implanted in our hearts for the good of the church and for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.