Lest You Forget the Lord

Deuteronomy 6:10-12 ESV

 

“And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

 

Under the New Covenant, for us who believe in Jesus Christ with God-given faith, we have also been delivered from slavery, but it is slavery to sin, and we have also been brought into a new place which is our new lives in Christ Jesus, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. We have been delivered from our slavery to sin so that we will now be slaves of God and of his righteousness, no longer living under the control of sin.

 

And we are also cautioned in the New Testament to take care that we don’t forget the Lord, and that we don’t fall back into slavery to sin and fall from grace and go back to wallowing in the mud and lose our secure position. In fact, we have all kinds of such warnings in the New Testament regarding not taking God’s grace for granted and not continuing in habitual sin and not returning to walking in sin and returning to our “vomit.”

 

[Lu 9:23-26; Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas 1:22-25; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; Rom 2:6-8; Matt 7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Jn 8:31-32; Rom 11:17-24; 1 Co 15:2; Col 1:21-23; 2 Tim 2:10-13; Heb 3:6, 14-15; 2 Pet 1:5-11; 2 Pet 2:20-22; 2 Pet 3:17; 1 Jn 2:24-25]

 

Deuteronomy 6:13-15 ESV

 

“It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.”

 

The fear of the Lord is taught to us in the New Testament, as well. We are not to fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather we are to fear him (the Lord) who can destroy both soul and body in hell. We are to show the Lord reverence and respect. We are to have the fear of him rather than living in unrighteousness and on a sinful course. We are to walk in the fear of the Lord, taking him and his word seriously.

 

For to fear God is to show him honor, respect, value, submission, and obedience. It is to take his word to heart and to not treat it lightly. It is to turn from our sins and to walk humbly before our God in full surrender to him and to his will for our lives. It is to believe what his word says, to not make light of it, and it is to give our Lord glory by all that we do and say in our daily walks of faith in him, in his power and strength.

 

[Matt 10:28; Heb 5:7; Rom 3:10-18; Ac 9:31; Ac 10:34-35; Lu 1:50; Php 2:12-13; Rev 11:18; Rev 14:7; Rev 15:4; 2 Co 5:6-11; Heb 12:28-29; 2 Co 7:1]

 

And we are to serve the Lord with our lives. And the New Testament speaks much on that subject, too, which also includes walking in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, going wherever he sends us, and doing and saying whatever it is he commands us to do and to say. For he is our Lord (owner-master), and we are his slaves (bondservants), and we are here to do his will and to live for him and not for ourselves.

 

And we are not to go after other gods, which could be anything or anyone we revere, respect, honor, and obey above God or in place of God, and to whom we give our love, passion, devotion, time, energies, and heart. For a god can be our possessions or entertainment or self or pride or talents or wealth or other people or our nations or politicians or careers or intellect or anything that we revere and give our obedience to above God.

 

For our God is a jealous God, and this is talked about in the New Testament, too. And Paul talked about how he was jealous for the believers with a divine jealousy and how he was afraid that their thoughts might be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ (1 Co 10:1-22: 2 Co 11:1-3; Jas 4:5). For this is all about our Lord’s desire to have our faithfulness to him alone, which is for our good, and for us to not be adulterous against him.

 

Deuteronomy 6:16-19 ESV

 

“You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah. You shall diligently keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and his testimonies and his statutes, which he has commanded you. And you shall do what is right and good in the sight of the Lord, that it may go well with you, and that you may go in and take possession of the good land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers by thrusting out all your enemies from before you, as the Lord has promised.”

 

This is talked about again in the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 10 and in Hebrews 3-4. The Israelites (most of them) who were wandering in the wilderness were idolaters, revelers, sexually immoral, grumblers, and those who put God to the test by their actions, by their refusals to obey the commands of the Lord and by their stubbornness and rebellion in doing what they knew that they were not supposed to do.

 

But it didn’t end well for them. They did not inherit God’s eternal kingdom. They did not enter into his eternal rest, but God had them killed in the desert. And they are examples to us so that we don’t set our hearts on evil like they did and so that we don’t end up in hell thinking that we are going to heaven when we die. For they were not true believers in God because they were disobedient to his commands. And if we don’t obey the Lord, we are not true believers in Jesus, either (1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10).

 

So, please note that a lot of what is taught us in the Old Testament is repeated for us in the New Testament. God still demands that we fear him and that we obey him and that we submit to him and that we forsake our sins and our idols and that we make him our only God. We still have lots of warnings in the New Testament, too, with regard to habitual and deliberate sin and taking God and his grace for granted. And God is still going to judge us by what we do (see all verses referenced). So, please take this to heart.

 

We Will Glorify

 

By Twila Paris

 

We will glorify the King of kings

We will glorify the Lamb

We will glorify the Lord of lords

Who is the great I am

 

Lord Jehovah reigns in majesty

We will bow before His throne

We will worship Him in righteousness

We will worship Him alone

 

He is Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth

He is Lord of all who live

He is Lord above the universe

All praise to Him we give

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4skT9ndv6ng

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