“Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.”
– Deuteronomy 5:33
Hi James and Ellen,
Do you ever need to be reminded to do something? Do you ever need to be prompted to remember something? Do you ever need to be encouraged to not to forget something? Forty years after God made a binding covenant with His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group guys and gals, when He met with Moses on the top of Mount Horeb – which is also known as Mount Sinai, Moses reminded, prompted and encouraged God’s specially chosen guys and gals to faithfully observe and obey the laws, the regulations and the Ten Commandants that God gave them, to always remember the specific site where God gave them the two stone tablets on which He Himself wrote the actual words that compose the Ten Commandments and to never disregard or forget what God told them would happen to them if they did not staunchly abide by each one of the Ten Commandments. When God gave His specially chosen guys and gals – through Moses, a religious paradigm of laws, regulations and commandments, God expected His specially chosen guys and gals to adopt and to apply these laws, regulations and commandments as their life norms. The Ten Commandments were always to be the core basis and the very heart of the ever ongoing relationship that God expected His specially chosen guys and gals to have with Him. The essential moral principal bullet points that compose the Ten Commandments have been adopted for centuries by the Westernized world to promote a spiritual ideology that is wholly centralized through faith, worship and conduct in a Divine Being – God.
The setting for Deuteronomy 5 is on the east side of the Jordon River. The Israelite people group guys and gals had been doing nomadic wandering in an arid desert region for forty years because of their having had a weak faith resolve when they really believed that a Sovereign God would not actually go with them into a land area that was inhabited by giants. With the exception of Moses – who was the guy who God enabled to lead the Israelite people group guys and gals to the place where they were ready to go into the land that God was giving them to always to have to live in as their very own land, and two brave, risk taking spies – Caleb and Joshua, every other guy and gal who was twenty years old and older who had been alive forty years earlier was no longer alive. Because of Moses failing to keep his cool at Meribah – which did not set well with God – as God desires absolute faith from all guys, gals and kids to believe that He will invariably keep His word to supply a need, Moses knew that He was not going to be able to cross the Jordon River into the land of Canaan – the land that God was giving to His specially chosen guys and gals to always to have to live in as their very own land. One of Moses’ final actions as the Israelite people groups leader was to go over with them the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are: 1.) worship just Me. 2.) do not make or worship a manmade idol god that is handmade from wood, stone, clay or metal. 3.) do not use My name thoughtlessly. 4.) keep the Sabbath Day a rest day from working. 5.) honor your dad and ma. 6.) do not murder. 7.) do not commit adultery. 8.) do not steal. 9.) do not lie deliberately to discredit your neighbor. 10.) do not covet anything that your neighbor has. After his repetition of God’s Ten Commandments, Moses – in verse 33, gives a brief admonition promise to God’s specially chosen guys and gals, “Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.”
Even after a miraculous crossing of the Jordon River when God dammed up the Jordon River’s flood stage water so that each one of the Israelite people groups tribal clans’ guys, gals and kids could walk on a dry river bed to the opposite shore of the Jordon River, it did not take long for God to be defied by His specially chosen guys and gals. Even though God specifically chose Jacob’s or Israel’s family clan of guys, gals and kids to give a new dogma standard to live by, God did not remove the inherited sin DNA – because of an impetuous choice that Adam was led to make, that He embeds in every guy, gal and kid who He has born on planet Earth. No matter how meticulously the Ten Commandments were obeyed by God’s specially chosen guys and gals and how fastidiously Christ-follower guys, gals and kids today adhere to God’s Word, the sin DNA invariably surfaces to imprison a guy, gal or kid in its’ tentacles. Because of the sin DNA and because of God’s forgiving Spirit, the sin DNA gives opportunity for God’s mercies to be revealed. Your grandpaa this past Monday was reminded that God does not always have something unfold in the way that He has unfolded it in the past. It may have been – after a benign colonoscopy, too much anesthesia or your grandmaa being more susceptible to the effects of anesthesia that resulted in a bevy of nurses quickly filling your grandmaa’s recovery room to do what they needed to do to get her to breathe again. The visual of the first responding nurse hitting your grandmaa hard on her right shoulder, followed by a hard forehand across her face, then a backhand and another forehand and then seeing her pushing up and down on her chest while telling your grandmaa to come back is now stuck in your grandpaa’s memory. This visual reminds your grandpaa of what God often has done to him to get him to trust in Him instead of . . . how is God teaching you to always trust in Him?
Deuteronomy 5 (984)