We've come here to the last portion
of Deuteronomy chapter 13. If you'd like to turn your Bibles
there, we'll be looking at verse 17 and verse 18. And then we'll
go on into chapter 14. And as we go on into chapter
14, we change chapters, but we don't change the subject. So
let's read verse 17 and verse 18 together. see what we can see there before
we go on into chapter 14. In Deuteronomy chapter 13 and
verse 17, and I hope you have your Bibles and follow along
with me, And thou shalt cleave not of the cursed thing to thine
hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger,
and show you mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply
thee as he hath sworn unto thy father, when thou shalt hearken
to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all his commandments
which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in
the eyes of the Lord thy God." Now, we've been studying concerning
idolatry here in the thirteenth chapter, a very important subject
because He instructs them the great error and the sinfulness
of idolatry. They were to stone a prophet
if he tried to lead them off into idolatry. We saw there also in verses 5
through 6 that if a family member or a dear friend had attempted
to lead them off into idolatry, were to bring charges against
the dear friend or family member and they were to be put to death.
Now, that was a great trial, no doubt. And then, of course,
we looked at, in verse 13 and verse 14 and 15, if a city was
carried away into idolatry, they were to judge that city guilty
and slay all the inhabitants of it and then pile up all the
material and burn it with fire. Now, that shows us how exceedingly
sinful idolatry is. And that's what he's going to
comment on here in verse 17. And that's what we learn here
in this verse. I want to call your attention
to two or three things here that we can learn in verse 17. And
that's anything that's worshipped in the place of God or above
God is cursed. That's what he says here. Thou
shalt cleave not of the cursed thing to thine hand. Now, it may be something material
that a man has cleaved to it, made an idol out of it. It may
be his mind, his imagination. But whatever is worshiped in
the place of God or above God, then it's cursed. The Lord Jesus
made this statement, He said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God is one Lord, and thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
Him only shalt thou serve, Him only. So that brings us here
also to the second thing, that is, idolatry is such an awful
sin, it must be repented of. He said, let not of the cursed
thing cleave unto thee. That's why they were to burn
everything that pertained to idolatry. It had to be destroyed. God cannot endear idolatry. So it's to be put away. It's
to be repented of. The Apostle Paul was writing
to the Corinthian church and he said, some of you used to
be idolaters. You know that no idolater has
any part in the kingdom of God nor of Christ. And such were
some of you. But he said, you were washed.
You had to be washed. You were washed. You were justified
and you were sanctified from this awful, awful sin. You remember when John the Beloved,
there in the book of Revelations 22, was so overwhelmed with the
angel that was revealing those mysterious things to him, he
got overwhelmed by it and fell down to worship at the feet of
the angel. But remember what the angel said
to him? Don't you do that. See thou do
it not. He said, I'm your fellow servant.
And then he said, Worship God. Worship God. And when John was
writing to us his epistle in 1 John, he closed it with these
words, Little children, keep yourselves from idols. So he
knew by experience how sinful idolatry was. It's an awful sin. It's a work of the flesh and
must be repented of. And he gives us a hint of that,
the dreadfulness of the sin of idolatry, here also in verse
17. He says that it's something that provokes God to anger, that
he may turn from the fierceness of his anger. We don't hear much
about the anger of God today, do we? We hear a lot about his
love and his goodness and the long-suffering of God and that
soul and we bless God for it, but God also has a wrath. And he can be stirred up. His anger can be stirred up. And idolatry is one of the things
that stirs that anger up. We're told there in Romans chapter
1 that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven not only against
idolatry, but against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
hold the truth in unrighteousness. Now, we tremble. not only in
our private worship, but we tremble to think that in our public worship
that we would set up an idol in our mind or in our worship.
That's why we're very careful to keep our worship simple and
to make sure that we've not put something in our worship that
the Word of God forbids. We're not to cleave to anything
that we would make an idol One dear old man said this, the dearest
idol I have known, whatever that idol be, tear it from my heart,
O Lord, that I may worship thee." And notice something else we
learn here in verse 17, that the Lord said, when you've done
this, when you've followed my instruction, in verse 18, when
you hear the voice of the Lord thy God and you've hearkened
to it, It's there when the Lord will reveal His mercy. He said there in verse 17, let
not of the first curse thing cleave to you, that the Lord
may turn from the fierceness of His wrath and show you mercy. Manifest mercy. That's what they
wanted, they needed, and that's what you and I want today. We
want the Lord to reveal mercy to us. make us to know that we
have obtained mercy. I tell you, my friend, I for
one don't want to go through this life wondering if I've obtained
mercy. I want to know it. And when is
the Lord apt to show, that is, to reveal His mercy in Jesus
Christ our Lord and Savior? Well, when we turn from ourselves,
when we turn from our sins, and turn to Him. He delights in mercy. He delights to manifest mercy.
And He usually does it when we turn to Him with all our hearts
and seek Him. Now, I want you to take your
Bibles and turn over here to John chapter 14. I want us to
see something about that. The Lord tells them here, when
you turn, when you turn to Me, when you obey My voice, That's
when I'll show you. That's when I'll manifest my
mercy unto you. He says something of that over
in John chapter 14, and here in verse 18, he's speaking here
to his apostles in this upper room. He was ready to go to the
garden and to the cross, and he has them there in the upper
room, and he's speaking to them personally, and he says, I will
not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. yet a little
while, and the world seeth me no more, but you see me, because
I live, you shall live also." Now notice what he does. He makes
a distinction between his disciples and the world. He said, the world
will see me no more. He's leaving physically and the
world will never see him again, but he told his disciples, you
see me, They'll be given eyes to see Him, see Him in His Word,
see Him in His Gospel, see Him by faith, see Him by revelation
of His Spirit. Because I live, you shall live
also. In that day you shall know that
I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. You'll know
this. I'll manifest it to you. He that
hath my commandments, and keepeth them, He it is that loveth me,
and he that loves me shall be loved to my Father, and I will
love him, and will manifest myself, reveal myself to him. And he
says in verse 23, If a man love me, he will keep my words, and
my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make
our abode with him. But he that loveth me not, he
keepeth not my saying. So see the distinction that he's
making here? and the world and his disciples,
the distinction he's making between those who love him and those
who love him not. Those who love him, he says,
I'll manifest myself to them. I'll teach them. I'll make them
to know that they have obtained mercy and that I am in them and
they're in me. He makes the same distinction
over here in John chapter 17, and listen to verse 6. I have
manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out
of the world. Thine they are, and thou gavest
them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that
all things whatsoever thou hast given me are thee, for I have
given unto them the words which thou hast given me. and they
have received them, and have known surely that I came out
from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." Now
listen to verse 9. Look at the distinction he makes
between his disciples and the world. I pray for them. I pray
not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me, for
they are thine. See the distinction? I mention
that because as we go into chapter 14 of Deuteronomy, he makes the
very same distinction. He's been telling the children
of Israel here in the 13th chapter to avoid idolatry. And he's been
telling them what to do to idolatry. And now he gives them the reasons
why they are to avoid idolatry, and all sin for that matter,
and he gives them motives to do it. Now look here in Deuteronomy
chapter 14 and look at these three things, three motives he's
going to give them for abstaining from idolatry. They were to be
different than the heathen world that they were going into. And
he tells them three ways that they're to be different. Now
I want you to notice the first thing is found in verse 1. Ye are the children of the Lord
your God. Now that put a distinction between
them and everybody else. They were the children of the
Lord their God. How God had blessed the Jewish
nation. He had taken them and adopted
them as a nation. They were the seed of Abraham,
and he said, You're my children. Above all the nations of the
world, They were His children. And for this reason, they were
to consider themselves different. For this reason, they were to
abstain from idolatry. They were to love the Lord their
God and worship Him and serve Him and do it above and apart
from any consideration of all other gods and abstain from idolatry. Now today, We have no Christian
nations that I know of. But if you're a child of God
today, you're a child of God just like all children of God
are by special grace. We're told in Galatians chapter
3 and verse 26 that you are all the children of God by faith
in Jesus Christ. And we're told again in John's
Gospel, as many as received him to them gave he power to become
the sons of God, even to them who believe on his name." Now,
we're children of God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
not born with faith. We can't muster faith up. It's
a gift of God, and those who are granted the gift to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, they are the sons of God. ye are all the sons of God by
faith in Jesus Christ." So we're sons of God by faith, by special
grace. We're also sons of God by birth. For he went on there in John's
Gospel, chapter 1, in verse 12, to say that which were born,
those who believe on his name, which were born, not of blood,
nor the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but those
who are born of God." Now, all of us have natural fathers who
begot us. And if God has begotten you,
my friend, then you are a child of your Heavenly Father. And
the Scripture says, of His own will begot He us with the Word
of Truth. Now, there was a time when you
weren't a child of God. To be a child of God, you have
to be born again. We're not children of God by
our nature. To be a child of God, you have
to be born of God. So there was a time when we weren't
children of God, and then there's a time when God makes us His
children, and He does so by new birth, by new birth. The Apostle
Paul told us in Romans 9, it shall come to pass that in the
place where it was said unto them, you are not my people,
there they shall be called the children of the living God. So to be a child of God today,
you have to be born again. You have to be born from above.
You have to be born of the Spirit of God. And you have to be born
of special grace by faith. In Christ are we children of
God. Now, it's this relationship,
children of God, that we judge and esteem things. And by that
I mean this, we estimate things by being children of God. How
do we estimate the love of God? To be a child of God, you can
estimate the love of God. And let me say this, if we're
not children of God, I doubt seriously if we know anything
about the love of God, because it's only the children of God
that can estimate the love of God. Listen to how John said
it in 1 John chapter 3, Behold what manner of love The Father
hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God." Now, how do we estimate the love of God? Well, He's made
us His children. We're children of God. Even John,
the great apostle, had difficulty estimating the love of God. He
said, when I consider myself A poor needy sinner to be a child
of God. I say to myself, what manner
of love is this? Well, it's a free love, isn't
it? Something you can't earn, you don't deserve. It's an everlasting
love. I've loved you with an everlasting
love. It's unconditional love. We hear
a lot of people today talk about unconditional love. As far as
we know, and as far as I understand it, there's only one who loves
unconditionally, and that's the trial in God. It's a rich love. It's a never-dying love. And
what stood in the way of God from making us His children?
Well, there's a lot of things that stood in His way. Sin stood
in His way, but He overcome it, didn't He? And what was in God
that caused Him to overcome our sin? Well, it was His love. We're told that here in His love,
not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son
to be the propitiation, that is, the atoning victim for our
sin. What was it? that drove God,
as it were, if I could use such language, to send His Son to
be a sacrifice for our sin. Well, it was His love, for God
so loved the world that He gave. What else was it stood in His
way from making us His sons? What about the deadness of our
nature? We were dead in trespasses and
sins. We were polluted Ezekiel tells
us that we were likened to that little child that was cast out
into the open field, and nobody could do anything for that child.
It was polluted in its own blood. And the Lord says, I passed by
you, and your time was the time of love. My love set upon you,
and I said unto you, even when you were polluted in your blood,
I said live. Yea, I said unto you, live. And
the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 2 that when
we were dead in sins, God who is rich in mercy, for His great
love wherewith He loved us, hath quickened us together with Christ.
So everything that stood in God's way from making us His children,
He's overcome it. And that's the way we estimate
the love of God. And secondly, that's the way
we estimate our dignity. We're children of God. Now, man
is not a beast. Man is not an animal. I know
we live like that sometimes. But you know man in his fallen
state still has a dignity about him that is is above a beast
or some other kind of animal. He has a soul. He has a precious
soul that will live on somewhere in eternity, either in the realms
of torment or in the realms of glory. And this body that goes
back to the dust will someday be raised and body and soul will
stand there at the judgment to give account to God. So even
in a lost estate, Man has a dignity about him, doesn't he? Well,
when we're children of God, how do we estimate the dignity of
that? To be called the sons of the
living God. Ye are the children of the Lord
your God. The Jews always bragged about
being children of Abraham, and rightfully so, because Abraham
was a great patriarch. He was a holy child of God, a
great prophet of God, and they boasted him that, and that's
where they derived their dignity from. I saw just the other night
where the president of our nation had invited the children of billionaires
to come to the White House to have a meeting with And the reason
he did that is because that's the way the world estimates its
dignity. Those children of the billionaires,
they have this secular dignity about them. How does the world
judge their dignity? Well, it's who you are. It's
what you are. It's what you possess. And what
dignity does one possess who has the eternal God the Creator
and Possessor of all things, to be His Father. My brothers
and sisters, that's the way we estimate dignity. If God is your
Father, all the dignity that's been put upon you, we're told
that we're no more servants, no, no more servants, but we're
sons, sons of God. And if sons, then heirs of God,
and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord told
Israel this to motivate them to abstain from idolatry. He says you're not like other
nations. You're not like these heathens. You're children of
the living God. And let's go on quickly to the
second thing he says here in Deuteronomy chapter 14. And look
in verse 2. Here is the second thing he reminds
them of, for thou art an unholy people unto the Lord thy God. You are a holy people. Therefore they were to be different.
They were to abstain from idolatry. They weren't to be like the other
nations of the world, and you know they didn't have to because
the Lord had made them holy. I tell you, the children of Israel
had seen things. They had had things happen to
them. That happened to nobody else. No other nation had experienced
what they had experienced. These people had seen the blood
of that lamb on their doorpost. No other door down in Egypt had
blood on its door, but the children of Israel, as far as we know.
And what did that blood do? It delivered the firstborn from
the wrath of God. And the children of Israel were
the only nation that walked through the depths of the Red Sea and
came out on the other side. I tell you, Egypt didn't do it.
And they were the only nation that ate bread from heaven, drank
water out of the rock. They were the only nation that
God gave his word to, he gave his priesthood to, he gave his
law to, he gave his word and his presence to. I tell you,
they were a holy people unto the Lord. And has God made us
holy? Well, if we're Christians, He
has. He did a work. He's begun a work in our heart.
And the first thing He does is by the blood of Jesus Christ,
His Son, He cleanses us from all our sins. The Bible says
the blood of Christ has purged your conscience from dead works
to serve the living God. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creation, a new creature, and we're told that he has created
us in righteousness and true holiness. Holiness is not something
we do. Holiness is sure not anything
we paste on. It's not the way we dress. It's
not the way we live. True holiness is something that
God does within a man's heart. That's where it begins. Created
in righteousness and true holiness. Does Christ live in our hearts
by faith? Then that makes us holy. Oh,
there was a time when we were dead in trespasses and sins.
We were slaves to sins. We couldn't love holiness and
we didn't love holiness. We couldn't come to the Lord,
we couldn't worship Him, and we couldn't serve Him. But you
know things changed. If the Lord has called you, then
things have changed. Then we're told to do all things
without murmuring and disputing that you may be blameless and
harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked
and perverse nation among whom you shine as lights. We're told
to be followers of God as dear children and to be perfect as
your Father in heaven is perfect. We don't expect that of lost
people. We don't expect lost people to
be holy, and they're not holy. It's impossible that they could
be holy. But a child of God can live a
holy life because in Christ, He's a new creature. In Christ,
God has made Him holy. Now, let's look at that over
in the Gospel of Ezekiel. I like to call it that because
here we see these words that he's written in Ezekiel. over in the 36th chapter. And look down here in verse 24,
36th chapter of Ezekiel, verse 25. Look what he says. I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. From
all your filthiness and all your idols will I cleanse you. A new
heart will I give you, a new spirit will I put within you,
And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and
I'll give you a heart of flesh. I'll put My Spirit within you
and cause you to walk in My statues, and you shall keep My judgments
and do them." Now, you can live a holy life. You can worship
the Lord. You can abstain from idolatry. And you want to do it. And you
love to do it because the Lord has given you a heart to do it. You can walk with the Lord. You
can be a follower of God as a dear child because He's changed your
nature. Somebody said, well, it's tough.
Well, it's tough, dear child of God, because you've got two
natures. You have this struggle. You have this warfare within. I love what John Newton used
to say. He used to say something like
this, I'm not what I ought to be. I'm not what I should be,
he said. I'm not what I want to be. And
he said, I'm not what I'm going to be. But he said, I thank God
I'm not what I used to be. And if you're a child of God,
you can say that too. He's made you a new creature. You still struggle with sin.
You have this warfare within yourself. But you can serve the
Lord. He's given you a heart to do
it. Watch against idolatry. Watch
against sin. Guard against that. And love the Lord and serve Him
because He's made you His children. He's made you holy. And let's
go on to the third and last thing here in Deuteronomy chapter 14. And look in verse 2. First, He
tells them, you obey, you hearken to the voice of the Lord your
God because you're children. of the Lord your God, and He's
made you holy. And thirdly, look at this, and
the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people
unto Himself above all the nations that are upon the earth. Now
see that? He hath chosen thee to be a peculiar
people unto Him, above all the nations What was so peculiar
about the children of Israel? Well, I mentioned it a minute
ago, didn't I? Down in Egypt, their houses were the only doors
that had the blood around the post. They were the only houses
down in Egypt where a scream didn't go up at midnight because
the firstborn had died. It was the only nation that walked
through the mist of the Red Sea. No other nation did that. That
was peculiar to Egypt. When Pharaoh tried to do it,
he was grounded. Did you ever hear of a nation
eating bread from heaven? Why, no. That was peculiar to
Israel. Did you ever hear of a nation
drinking rivers of water out of a rock of flint? That was
peculiar to the children of Israel. while their shoes they wore for
forty years, and the same clothes for forty years on their back,
and they never wore out. Well, that's peculiar to them.
Only one nation had a holy law given to them. Only one nation
had the priesthood and sacrifices and a tabernacle set up. No other
nation had a cloud that followed them by day and directed their
steps and a pillar of fire by night. No other nation was given
this land of promise that flowed with milk and honey. And all
of this and more was peculiar to the children of Israel. And
why did they experience these things? Well, He comes here and
says, The Lord your God has chosen you to it. Why did they put the
blood upon the post of the door? God chose them to do it. Why
did the death angel pass over them? God chose them to do it. Why did they pass through the
Red Sea? God chose them to do it. Why did they go into the
land of promise? God chose them to do it. Children of Israel were a chosen
people, chosen of the Lord their God above all the nations of
the earth. Now listen to me just a minute.
Some people hear this. Many people hear it in our day,
and they find no fault with it at all. They even rejoice in
it. They praise God for it. They
say, Israel was the chosen people of God. And yet when they hear
us say today that God has already chosen those He was going to
save, And he's chosen in Christ, and he's chosen before the foundation
of the world. What does those same people do?
Well, they say, well, that's not fair. That's just not right. That's not just. Well, I want
you to take your Bibles quickly. We're running low on time. And
I want you to look at three Scriptures. Let me read these to you. And
think of this. In Ephesians chapter 1, and look
here in verse 3. This tells us two or three things
here. It tells us in whom God chose
His people. It tells us when God chose His
people and why that He chose them, or to what end He chose
them. Now look in Ephesians chapter
1 and verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ." He blessed the children
of Israel, and Paul was writing to these believers, and he says
he's blessed us. He's blessed the Church and every
member of it, and look in verse 4, according as he hath chosen
us in him before the foundation of the world." Just as God chose
the children of Israel before they had a being, He chose the
seed of Abraham, so He chose all His elect people before the
foundation of the world in Christ, and looked at to what end He
chose them for, that we should be holy and without blame before
Him in love. And verse 5 tells us that having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ Himself
according to the good pleasure of His will, and He did it all
to the praise of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made
us accepted in the Beloved. Now that's the first passage.
I want you to turn over to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, and the Apostle Paul
here was tell him that he chose us to salvation as well. Look
what he says in verse 13. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse
13. But we are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. He was right in year to all the
believers Jew and Gentile in this church of Thessalonica,
and he says, God hath chosen you from the beginning, from
the beginning of time, before time was, before the world was,
He chose you to salvation. Now, why are you saved this morning?
Think of the people that's not saved. Why are you saved? God
chose you to it. Why did you hear the gospel of
Jesus Christ and His grace? Very few hear it. But He chose
you to it. Why do you believe? Because He
granted you faith. He chose you to salvation from
the very beginning. And here's the way He did it.
Through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth
were unto He called you by our Gospel. And now the last passage
I want to read to you is over in 2 Timothy chapter 1. in verse
9. Look in 2 Timothy chapter 1 in
verse 9. He says, You are to young Timothy
who hath saved us. God hath saved us. I asked a
neighbor friend of mine who professed the Lord. I asked her, I said,
Has the Lord saved you? And she said, Yes, I believe
He has. And I said, Did He save you by accident or did He save
you on purpose? And she thought about that for
a minute, and she said, well, on purpose. And I said, when
did he purpose to do it? If the Lord has saved you, my
friend, He's not saved you by accident. He saved you on purpose. And when did He purpose to do
it? Now, that's a wonderful thing,
isn't it? When did He purpose to save you?
And Paul tells us here, He saved us and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our work, Him choosing us and calling
us had absolutely nothing to do with our works, but listen,
according to His own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began. So we, just like the children
of Israel, we were chosen We were chosen to be children of
God. We were chosen to be holy. We
were chosen to believe Him. We were chosen to be peculiar
people unto the Lord. He chose us before we ever had
a being. And I want to finish this lesson
with Josiah Condor's song in 1856 that he wrote. He entitled,
Elect in Love, Acknowledged. Listen to this. "'Tis not that
I did choose thee, for, Lord, that could not be. This heart
would still refuse thee, but thou hast chosen me. Thou from
the sin that stained me, you washed and set me free, and to
this end ordained me. That is, you chose me to this
end, that I should live to thee.'" And listen to his second verse,
"'To a sovereign mercy called me. and taught my opening mind,
the world had else enthralled me to heavenly glories blind. Now, listen, my heart owns none
above thee. For thy rich grace I thirst,
disknowing if I love thee, thou must have loved me first." So
there is the motives for the children of Israel. to serve
the Lord, to love Him, to abstain from idolatry and sin, because
the Lord had made them His people, His children, your children of
the Lord thy God. What a privilege, what a blessing,
what a dignity He had bestowed upon them. He had made them holy,
and He had chosen them to it. You and I, if we are children
of God, the same thing could be said to us. How could we live,
my friend, to ourselves? How could we live to sin or to
this world? Or to sinful pleasures or temporal
advantages? If God has made us His child,
if He's made us holy, if He's chosen us to salvation and life
in Jesus Christ, what motivation to love Him and live for Him
for His glory alone? God bless you.