He Is God, The Faithful God

So we have one week back at Deuteronomy because next week is Mother's Day and we've had Holy Week and Eric preaching. So I feel like we haven't been in Deuteronomy for a little while and we've got this week and then next week and then we'll get back to it more regularly. But this morning we're stepping back into Deuteronomy chapter 7 where Moses exhorts and warns the Israelites to keep their covenant with God. Covenant is a strange thing. If you're not If you're not a Christian or if you haven't been grown up teaching about God's relationship to men through covenants, you're probably the closest point of reference you'd have for a covenant would be a contract where two people enter into an agreement and there's terms for...

Who's going to do what and when and how and what they're going to get paid. And then there's going to be a section that has to deal with if they fail. And this is how we're going to fix the problems. This is a form of a covenant. It's two or more parties entering into an agreement with one another as to what they're going to do, each one of them, and what will happen if they fail. I want you to know from the beginning that God deals with us by way of covenant. He does work in our lives individually. He does deal with us as men and as women and as children, one-on-one. But many of the things that are said and many of the things that he's promised to us, he's promised to us as one of his people, as a member of his family, not just to us individually. And so this idea of God dealing with us by means of covenant is what we're going to be talking about this morning. And as we study this text,

I want you to be thinking about what happens if someone breaks a covenant. Because the difference between how God relates to us with regard to covenants and the way we relate to one another in terms of contracts, there's a big difference here. And here's the difference. God never fails the terms of the covenant. But we often drop the ball and fail and don't do the things that we said we were going to do or don't do it the way we said we were going to do. And so that is one difference between God and us, is that when he makes a promise, he always, always keeps it. He never fails. He's never late. He never has to find a new solution because the one he had didn't work out. COVID can't ruin his covenants, okay?

And so as we study this text, my hope is that God will help us to understand and to trust God and to take him at his word. It's a hard thing to do. It's one thing to read it. It's another thing to stake our life and our decisions and our convictions and our priorities on what God has said. But if we are in covenant with him, that's exactly how we have to live because that's what he's committed to do for his part. And so my hope is that we will grow to trust him and to take him at his word, both his promises and his warnings. Those are both parts of the covenant.

to the end, that we would be more mindful of our faithfulness to the covenant. I think many times we question God's faithfulness and his promises to us, but ourself we often write passes for. We have excuses for it. So I hope these are the things that are rolling around in our heads and that God's at work in us on as we study this text. Our text is Deuteronomy chapter 7, verses 9 through 11. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? He says this, Know therefore that the Lord your God, he is God. The faithful God who keeps his covenant and loving kindness to a thousandth generation with those who love him and keep his commandments, but repays those who hate him to their faces to destroy them. He will not delay with him who hates him. He will repay him to his face. Therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today to do them. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.

As it's been a few weeks since we've been in Deuteronomy, it's worth noting at the beginning that it says, know therefore. And we need to recall what it is we're supposed to know. It was what came in the text previously. And it's important that we know it because this instruction, know, is a command. We are commanded to know something and then to observe things about what we know and to act based on what we know. So what is this thing we're supposed to know? What we're supposed to know, what the Israelites were being put in mind of, is their deliverance from Egypt. When they had been in Egypt, they had gone there some 400 years before their deliverance as seeking refuge from the famine.

that was in the land, and they were given a spot to live, and then they lived in that land, and they grew, and they multiplied, and they became more wealthy, and they became more numerous, and they came to the point where they were a threat to Pharaoh in Egypt, and so he enslaved them, and he began to beat them, and he began to kill them, and he began to wipe out their firstborns, sons at one point, and they, through all of this, cry out, and they say, we need to be delivered. So God hears their prayers, and after 400 years, He delivers them. I want to read you from Exodus chapter 6, the account of this deliverance, this crying out and God responding to them. This is Exodus 6, 1 through 8. It says, I also established my covenant with them. Listen here, right? Covenants here. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. Furthermore, I have heard the groanings of the sons of Israel because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore, this is the Lord saying to Moses, say therefore to the sons of Israel, I am the Lord.

And I will bring you out from under the burden of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments. Then I will take you for my people. I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you to the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord. And so the question that comes before you is, they were suffering, they were in bondage, Their lives were miserable. They cried out to God for deliverance. Why did he deliver them? He delivered them not because they asked the right way, not because they were good people, not because they were strong or wealthy or powerful, not because he saw how great they were. He delivered them because he had made a promise, a covenant with their fathers centuries before, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And that promise that he had made, when he made it, he told Abraham that this land, your descendants are going to come into. But before that, they're going to go into slavery and they're going to be there. He told Abraham about this years before it happened. And this is what's going on. But that promise that he made to Abraham with regard to the people, with regard to the places, with regard to the amount of time they were in Egypt and the suffering that they would endure, God knew all of it. He told Abraham that it would happen. And when the time came around, he remembered, we're told, he remembered his covenant and he rose up and he delivered them. Now I'll ask you a question. When you make a promise, how long it has to go before you forget what you said? You ever say that to your spouse? Oh, I forgot. It's kind of pathetic, isn't it? It's pretty pathetic. I forgot, right? It's like when you're kids, you talk to your kids and it's like, you say, hey, would you go clean your room? And you come back later and the room's not clean. And you say, why don't you clean your room? And they're like, oh, I...

Forgotten. But if you had told them that in three days we were going to have ice cream and cookies for dinner, or after dinner, hopefully you don't eat that for dinner, but we're going to have it after dinner, it's miracle of miracles. They never forget. And so you have to realize there's actually volition in our remembering or our forgetting. We remember the things we care about. We remember the things that are important to us. We remember the things that are valuable most of the time. But God, he never forgets. He never breaks his word. It's been some 400 years, and he tells us he remembered his covenant. The time had passed, and he delivered them. This is what the Israelites here in Deuteronomy are having called to mind. Know this. What are they to know? That God keeps his word. Know, therefore, that the Lord your God keeps his covenant.

There are a couple of things in here that describe God. Just in this first verse, it says, Know therefore that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God. So first, he is your God. He's not just somebody else's God. He's not just some distant, far-off God. He is your God. Dear kids, maybe your kids aren't old enough yet. Maybe they are. To come to you and remind you of things that you promised them. Maybe it's ice cream and cookies. Maybe it's something else. Why is it that they feel it's appropriate to come and to tell you that? Because you said it, right? But it's also because they're your kids. Like if their friends were there, let's say that you had said something and they were there and their friends were there. Who's more likely to come and remind you of your word? Your own kids, right? Why would the other kids not come? They're like, well, if it's my kids, it's because their dad's scary.

They don't want to come talk to you. Go tell your dad he said about the ice cream. But it's because they're not your kids. You see, kids feel entitled to be able to speak to their parents because they belong to them. There's a relationship. The parents love them and have cared for them and have trained them and have promised them things and have given them things. And so there's a reciprocal connection between them. And so when he says to the Israelites, therefore, no... that the Lord your God, it's not just a far off distant God, it's your God, even your father God. And then it says he is God. Why does it say he is God? Well, I think we get kind of fuzzy in our minds about Jesus Christ being the only God, that Christianity is the only true religion, and that all of the other religions, however nice the people are or sincere, They're believing a lie. Now the Israelites, they'd just come out of Egypt. Were there gods in Egypt? Oh yeah, a lot of them. A lot of gods in Egypt. Were there gods in the land they were going to? There were gods in the land they were going to. Lots of them, in fact. And so this is a statement of exclusivity. Know therefore the Lord your God.

He is God. Do you remember in our scripture lesson that Eric read the way that they rationalized and the way that they reasoned? The Pharisees asked, could anybody do this? Could a sinner do these things and heal the man's eyes? And they're like, the guy's like, well, I know I couldn't see and now I can see. And they all had this implicit understanding that nobody could do the things that Jesus did. And on this occasion, who is it that could have divided the Red Sea? passed them through on dry land, and then consumed all of their adversaries after them. I mean, you'd have multiple contractors that could fulfill that job, right? I mean, lots of guys could do it. But it's laughable. It's laughable. That's not possible. There's one God, the only God, who is capable of the sort of deliverance that they had just experienced. And so Moses means to put them in mind that your God is the only God. And how much pressure do you feel in society to

to dull the edge of that truth. I know you feel pressure to do it. I feel pressure to do it. They mean well. They're trying. They believe a lot of true good things. In fact, they do a lot of, they do, you know, they're better people than me even. But here's the thing. If they don't serve Jesus Christ and don't love him and don't know him, they're not serving God. All the gods of the nations are idols. The Lord made the heavens and the earth, says the psalm. He is the only God. No one else could have done what he had done for them. And then, again, another descriptor, he is the faithful God. And of the three, your God, he is God, or the faithful God, I think this is actually the hardest one for us to take to heart. We can believe that God is exclusive. We might even believe that he's ours and that we're his. But sadly, as his children, many times we do question his faithfulness.

And we shouldn't. And it's wicked when we do it. And it happens. I mean, really, how much trouble does it take in your life for you to draw the line back to God and say, why'd you let this happen to me? It's wrong. Shouldn't be this way. I had a different plan, a better plan. Is there a day that goes by where we're not questioning God's agency and his activity and his love and his power and his care for us? It's very natural. And by natural, I don't mean good. I just mean in the order of our flesh, apart from the work of God in our hearts. It's a very natural way to think. And that's why I think this is the hardest attribute of God mentioned in this passage for us to take to heart. As we experience life, we are easily blinded to his faithfulness. We could step over 10 acts of his faithfulness.

and have to work to get over them. Like, I mean, like have to like really work to get over them, only to stand at the foot of the thing that's not gone the way we want and complain about it and question God for it. It's like we had to work to get over his faithfulness to find one area where we weren't content. And it's like we live there. We have unmet desires. Our circumstances are difficult. They require long suffering or patience or pain. And of our heart of hearts, we go, that's not fair and it's not how it should be. And we don't say it out. Maybe you do say that out loud, but many times I think we don't say that out loud. We just think it. I wouldn't do that. But here's my question back to you. Are you more faithful than God? I mean, really? If someone else could come in and do the analysis.

And you can give them all your reasons and all your justifications and all the excuses and all of the, this is how I grew up and this is where I came from and this is what my dad was like and this is, you know, all of it. You can submit all of your supporting documentation for why you're more faithful. Do you have any confidence that you won't end up like Job at the end of the analysis? Turns out we're not faithful as compared to God. We are unfaithful. We tend to think we're victims of our circumstances, that we don't deserve it, that other people around us have it easier than us. They don't have the suffering and the hardships and the burdens. And here's the thing, they may not. Some of you, as I look out and I think through your lives and the things you've dealt with, you do have unique burdens that other people haven't had. So then God was unfaithful to you? It's often helpful to think in the moment.

Well, I'll tell you this. When I got out of high school, I went to work for a tree company, climbing trees. That's what I did for about five years. I was much younger, I was much stronger, I was much skinnier. And one of my responsibilities there was to be the safety coordinator, which meant that it was my job to make sure everybody followed all of the OSHA rules. If you guys are in construction, you know OSHA is oppressive. And INDOT is oppressive. We had CDLs, and we worked in one of the most, the only industry that was more dangerous than tree work was working in the oil fields. And we followed all of OSHA's rules, and I was the safety coordinator. So not the popular guy, right? Did you put your cones out? Did you put your chaps on? Did you have two hands on the chainsaw? Were you tied in? Did you this and that and the other? Always, always, always my job. So it came about as I was the safety coordinator for a couple of years that the district I worked at went.

I want to think we went like 18 months with no accident. That might not sound like anything to you, but it was much more common for our districts to have an accident once every month or two. That would be doing good. So we went 18 months with a dozen guys all out working, climbing trees, cutting them down and doing all the rest. We had no accidents. It's pretty incredible. Now, what is the temptation of all of the guys in the district? when we haven't had an accident in 18 months? What do they think about all the rules? What are you saying? Why do we have to follow these stupid rules? They're so silly. We never mess anything up. We never break anything. Nothing bad ever happens. What do we need all these rules for? What they don't realize was that all of those rules and our attention to following them is what produced the safety record. We were faithful. We enforced faithfulness.

We disciplined unfaithfulness, and it produced good fruit. And yet we all think, well, this is just silly. I wasn't going to drop that tree on that house. Have you ever dropped a tree on a house? I have. Right through the deck in the door into their pantry or into their breezeway. That wasn't a good day. My point in bringing up that story is to say, when measuring faithfulness, We would do well to consider what would happen if God hadn't been so faithful to us. We just presume, and it's like a law of nature. We just bank on the faithfulness of God without ever stopping to acknowledge it or praise him for it. But if he wasn't faithful to you, if he wasn't faithful to his word, just think of what your life would be like. Who would you be? Where would you be? What good things do you have that would be so far removed from you?

If you having them was based on your faithfulness instead of God's, it'd be a different life, wouldn't it? Incredibly different. Incredibly different. And so if you have life and you have breath and you have a marriage and you have healthy children and grandchildren and you have an abiding sense that you need Jesus Christ, that's all built on his faithfulness to you. So don't take it for granted. And don't act like it's yours by right. It's yours because he promised to give it to you. Not because you worked real hard or you're a better husband or wife or parent than the guy down the street. You're not. Apart from his work and his steadfast, perfect faithfulness to his word, we wouldn't have the things we have. How long could you maintain the life you had if God didn't sustain you?

Are we working in weeks? Are we working in months? I don't think we're as foolish as to say years, hours. Not long. It's like, how long can you hold your breath? How far can you run? Not very long and not very far. God is a faithful God, having delivered them up out of the land of Egypt. Remember that Deuteronomy is given not at the beginning of their 40 years of wandering, but at the end of their 40 years of wandering. And during that 40 years, what had God done for them? Sort of the big thing that he did, the discipline, was that he struck down all of the men over 20 years age because of their fear. What else had he done during those 40 years of wanderings? Provided for them food, water, shelter, protection, all in route to giving them this land that flows with milk and honey. Nevertheless, sometimes we feel alone, especially when we're struggling and things are hard.

And we conclude that the reason we feel alone is because God has removed himself from us. But I challenge you and say, is it really that God's removed himself from you or is it that you have removed yourself from him? Who is it that wanders? Who is it that's unfaithful? Who is it that changes? God's promised repeatedly. Not long after this in Deuteronomy, but in the book just following it. that as they go in, he tells Joshua, I'll be with you. I'll never leave you or forsake you. He says the same sort of thing in the Great Commission. Go therefore and make disciples, baptizing, teaching, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. What did Jonah say when he was down in the belly of the fish trying to get away from God? Like Jonah knew that God was everywhere and with him constantly. And he's like, I want to get away. So he goes and he runs and he ends up in the sea and the big fish eats him and he ends up in the bottom of the sea. And what does he say when he's down there?

Even here, you're with me. So if we feel alone or as though God's far off, we really do have to deal honestly with ourselves and ask why it is that he's far off. And I'll tell you the answer from the answer key. It's not because he walked away. It's because we've walked away. You might be thinking, well, but there are many places in the Psalms where the psalmist cries out, why have you hidden your face from me? Which is tantamount to saying, why are you being unfaithful? Why aren't you doing what you said you'd do for me? Fair question. How is it that the psalmist can say that sort of thing? What I draw your attention to is what else the psalmist says. There's a way of saying, God, why are you far from me? That's born out of faith and trust in his word. And there's a way of saying it that's sinful. The sinful way is, Why'd you lead me out here just to die? That's what the Israelites said when they came out into the wilderness, when they almost wanted to kill Moses, you remember? Why'd you drag us out here just to kill us? We could have stayed in Egypt where we had meat in our pots. Never mind that they beat us and we were enslaved. We had food. That is not the faithful way to ask.

What does the psalmist do when he says, Lord, why have you hidden your faith? Why do you wait so long? Why won't you rise up? What else does the psalmist say? He pleads and argues with God that God would be faithful to what he has promised to do. You've promised not to abandon us. Would you rise up and deliver us? We need you. As he's prostrated on his face in sackcloth. confessing his own sins. That's the other stuff the psalmist says. That's the stuff, the context around a believer's sense of God having left him. He says, I know that I've been unfaithful and that I don't deserve your presence. I don't deserve for you to walk with me through this thing. But you promised you would. And you don't lie. And I'm alone. So I repent. And would you do what you said concerning me, please? And soon.

That's very different than grumbling and complaining because of our difficulties and our hardships. One relies on the word of God and on his promises to us. And the other is really an accusation against God. And it's wicked. The only other conclusion that can be drawn if you feel as though God is not near to you is that you're not a Christian. And that the promises he's made to his people don't apply to you because you're not a believer. Right? I mean, what other options are there? If we set down as a foundational principle that God is faithful to his word and he never wavers from it, he does everything he says, he is a covenant keeper, then what options are left on the table as to why we would be alone? Either we're not in covenant with him and those promises aren't for us, or our sins have led us astray from him.

We've wandered away or he's withheld himself, as I mentioned earlier, for a time to expose our sins and cause us to cry out to him to be faithful. It's actually the means by which he draws us near to him. Which is to say, we often think our sins haven't led us astray. But when we feel alone, the thing that Christians often realize at the end of the process when they're done fighting and accusing God is they say, it's me who's walked away. And then they praise God for using the suffering to bring them back. Because we're so prone to wander away from God, he often gives us difficulties to remind us of what he has said so that we will call on him to do what he has said for us. Otherwise, we would just walk away and forget all about him.

And as we move on in this chapter in Deuteronomy, you're going to realize that that's the thing he warns them about. When you come in and when you get comfortable and when you have houses and vineyards and all of these blessings that you didn't build and you didn't dig and you didn't plant, then be careful that you don't forget the Lord who gave you all these things. He is faithful. And he is faithful not just to us. but he's faithful to his covenant. And our passage tells us that that extends to a thousandth generation, to those who love him and keep his commandments. Then we come in this passage to a warning, the sort of thing that I would shudder from. You remember when you were a kid and you get spanked? One of your parents, you'd rather have spanked than the other one. You know, I don't want a spanking from you, daddy. Sometimes I say, I don't want mommy to spank me.

whichever way it was, the one they didn't want. This is what it makes me think of. God's going to oppose them, judge them, repay them to their face, which means they have to come, we have to come face to face with God, and the occasion is our rebellion. That's the impetus for the meeting. That's not an appointment I would like to have made or have to keep. This is a warning to those who persist in their rebellion, in their wandering, the sort of thing that I've just been talking about. This is not primarily a statement about the unbelievers, the non-Israelites, those pagans out there. This is a warning to the people of God that if they persist in their rebellion, they will, by their actions, demonstrate that they have no desire or interest in keeping covenant with God. And therefore, he will deal with them.

And he will repay them face to face. Our God is a merciful God. He is a gracious God. He is a forgiving God. He is also a just God. One who doesn't ever forget. Remember we started out with that? He doesn't ever forget. So does he forget your sins? You remember, I don't remember if it was Good Friday. I think it was Good Friday. I said we conflate forgiveness with forgetfulness. They're not the same thing. To forgive is not to forget. To forgive is to acknowledge that the debt that was owed was paid. The debt is now cleared. It has been paid, but there must always be payment for there to be forgiveness. The gospel is that the payment is not made by us, but by Jesus Christ. But there is a payment. He had to die. Then, because they're forgiven, then they're able to be forgotten. But if they're not paid for, If they're not covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, if he didn't die for them, then there is a record of every infraction. And God won't forget one of them. And when he comes to that rebel and he opposes him to his face and repays him to his face, it will be a complete reckoning of every debt that was incurred. It's hard to think of God behaving this way.

It really is. If I had to pick a word to describe this sort of behavior, the word I would pick is masculine. It's the sort of thing that a man's man would do. And even that, as a point of reference, it's a shadow. It's like pointing up to God. God is masculine. He is male. And this is the sort of thing that men do. It's the sort of thing that make women very uncomfortable. When men get in a fight and they get angry or they have a conflict and they stand up and they get to where they're face-to-face, the women are like, this isn't going to go good. This is bad. You guys need to stop. And it may be that they should stop. But that way of interacting is intrinsically male. Women don't do that. And if they do do that, you realize they're not behaving like women. Women will go...

over heaven and earth to avoid a conflict, generally. They won't go and say, you know what, you did this thing and it really pissed me off. When was the last time one of you women did that? Not to your husband. But seriously, like, it's not what women do. To anyone outside of their home or maybe their siblings, you know, outside of their little circle, like, I don't remember the last time I had to break up a woman argument at church. You men, you fight about stupid politics every week. And we have to tell you to stop. But the women don't get in these big fights. They go home and tell, she said thing and it hurt me. And I, you know, why'd she do that? And does she, this thing is masculine that's going on here, isn't it? It's not passive aggressive. He's not sorry about it. He doesn't wish he didn't have to. And the fact is that every one of us is going to have to stand before God face to face at some point. And our aim should be, and our hope should be that when we stand before him face to face,

that our debts will have been settled before that day. Otherwise, we need to read this passage and consider what he says he will do with those whom he repays face to face. What does it say? Well, you can read. It's up there, isn't it? Say it. Destroy him. Is that what you want? It's not what I want. It's not what I want for you. This ought to humble us as we consider this fact that we will stand before God and either we will have to settle our account with him directly or it will have been settled for us through the death of Jesus Christ. This is a warning that's meant to call this reality to mind, the judgment that we will stand before him. We're supposed to remember that. And that warning is meant, what's it supposed to produce in us? A desire not to be destroyed, yes. A desire to live by faith and in obedience to Jesus Christ, yes. Here's the biggest danger I think that Christians face.

Hypocrisy. Just be liars. You all come here, you're all so beautiful and happy. I mean, once in a while you guys show up and it's like you don't have happy on your face, but you don't want anyone to acknowledge it. You know, what's wrong? Did you have trouble? No, we're just tired. Oh, we just had a long week. And that may well be true, but it's not the whole story. I mean, seriously. You probably were in a fight in the car on the way here. Or you were up until 2 a.m. having a fight. And that's why we're tired. I mean, that's the honest truth, isn't it? Okay, all right. But we come in here. Knocked it off and everything, didn't I? We come in here and, well, how was your week? Oh, it was good. How was your week? Oh, it was busy. How are the kids? Oh, they're all right. Would the things we say actually be the whole story? Because when we say life was busy, what we mean is we got in three fights with our spouse this last week.

What we mean when we were busy was that the kids were naughty and our spouse didn't do the things they were supposed to do. When we say that we're tired, it's because we had to sit up and watch the playoffs instead of love our spouse and our kids and tuck them into bed. I mean, let's tell the whole story. Let's stop lying. Because hypocrisy is a real danger. And it's the danger that if you fall into it and if you persist in it, it will lead you to having God oppose you and repay you face to face. I would much rather, as a pastor, everyone thinks when they find out I'm a pastor outside of church, if I'm out in public, oh, I'm a pastor. Everyone, you know what they all think they're not supposed to do around me? Cuss. We couldn't say bad words around the pastor because he's a pastor. You know, I don't care if people cuss. Is it a little offensive to me if someone drops a bunch of F-bombs? Yes, it's also very familiar and not unknown to me, much less so now than before I was a Christian.

Seriously, this is the sin we're worried about? And they'll take God's name in vain here, there, and everywhere and never have a thought about it. That's much more offensive to me. But they're like, wait, oh, you're a pastor? Hypocrisy hat, here we come. I would so much rather deal with an honest unbeliever who just cusses a blue streak. But who you can talk to. Who will be honest? And you can tell them that they're a fool and they'll just get mad. And they'll show you that they're mad instead of getting that weird look on their face of like, you just said something I don't like, but I can't acknowledge that you said something I don't like. So I'm just going to find a way out of the conversation by sending you a lying smile. And I'm going to avoid eye contact in the future. That's such a load of crap. I'd just rather have you tell me that you don't like what I said. Because then we can deal with the real

The real life that's going on. It's far easier. Isn't it easier to deal with that? I would much rather have my kids say, Dad, I think you're crazy and I'm not going to do it. Because then I can discipline them. Or I can say, okay. Or get out. Or whatever needs to be said. But honesty, as Christians, we should put a premium on honesty. And one of the reasons we should put a premium on honesty is so that we don't end up at the end of the day, at the end of our lives, when it's too late. having God oppose us to our face because we believed our own lies and tried to get everyone else to go along as well. Just be honest. I actually know that not everyone I interact with is a Christian. I know that not everybody who goes to church is a Christian. And it would be much easier if we would all just acknowledge that in conversation. I know a lot about Jesus Christ. I don't want to submit my life to him. That's honest.

It's true. We can work with that. It's not like because we've told the honest truth and it's my truth that somehow God will say, well, I'm just glad you're honest and come on into my heaven. That's not what I'm saying. But at least we're dealing with the reality of the situation. You'll incur greater wrath for yourself if you make a habit of lying your whole life. How many of you husbands have your wife say something and your head's like, that's stupid. But she says something and you're like, that's dumb. I'll let you know something. She knows you think it's dumb. Because you make a face or you do something with your body, she knows you think it's stupid. And she gets mad that you think it's stupid anyway. So just tell her, I think that's stupid. Well, if I do that, we're going to get a big fight. How many fights have you avoided by not saying it? Maybe you delayed it a few days. But let's be honest. There's a disagreement. There's a problem. And so long as we agree, we're going to lie to each other about what we really think.

You don't have a marriage. I'd rather you fought four out of the seven days of the week, but were honest in the fights and confessed your sins and asked for forgiveness for the sins you committed during the fight. That's far better than the couple who, we don't ever fight. There's no one I'm worried more about than couples that say, we don't fight. Because I fight about things I care about. So be mindful of hypocrisy so that God doesn't oppose you. Another thing you can notice is that he says he repays those who hate him. Did you know that hypocrisy is hatred toward God? You can't even fool your spouse with your, no, it's fine. No husbands, when your wives say, when you say, he says, what's wrong? You go, nothing. You haven't even fooled him. Do you think you're going to fool God with it? No, what you said is, I'd rather lie to you than tell you the truth. And that's hatred toward God. A lying tongue is one of the things that the Proverbs tells us the Lord hates. Toward the end.

It says, he will not delay with him who hates him. And this presents a real problem, I think, for many Christians, this idea of the Lord delaying his judgment. When it regards us, we want him to delay eternally. Not that we want to repent necessarily, but we want him to delay eternally him dealing with our sins. Because discipline is not pleasant. This is what Hebrews tells us. But when it comes to other people, the idea of delay is offensive. We think something's broken if there's been a delay, okay? Think of it this way. With your kids, you've got little ones. Maybe you've got older ones, teenagers, and it's not so much a little kid problem but a big kid problem. They run their mouth or they say something rude or they don't do what you tell them. When are you supposed to discipline them? What do we teach you? Right away, what do you teach your kids? How are they supposed to obey?

Right away, all the way with a cheerful heart. There's another moniker. It's got four of them. I don't remember what it is. But right away, all the way with a cheerful heart. We teach this. You need to do it really quick. You need to do it really quick. Everything, no delays, no delays. Do you ever get irritated at your spouse for their delays in disciplining? You husbands, you ever get mad at your wife because you come home and the little kid's having troubles and your first thought is, why didn't you spank them? Why didn't you deal with this before I got home? Why did you delay? And she may well have a good reason. I was furious. Maybe that's her good reason.

It was not time for me to spank that child. She may say, I got three other kids I have to take care of. And I didn't sleep last night because the baby's teething. But we don't accept the delay. You wives, how about your husbands? He sits in his spot. They have their spot. And he sits there. And the noise, it keeps going, the noise. And your blood pressure and your anxiety is getting the noise. And here he sits. He's just an idiot, right? He's delaying because he's not doing his job. Now! Now sometimes it may well be true that he's aloof and is not paying attention. Other times he may be delaying because he wants to see what the child will do. He may say, you need to stop that. There are times we have a particular child that doesn't know how to go to bed the first time. No matter how much we try.

She can't pull it off. And so we have rules. I go up and I have rules. And I say, okay, honey, what are your two rules? Every night. Every night I do this. Faithful. If I'm home, what are your two rules? My kids sell her. What are your two rules? Stay in bed. Be quiet. What's going to happen if you don't follow the rules? She goes, that's what she does. With a big smile on her face. And I say, is that what you want? She goes, no. And I said, what's going to happen if you're up here singing? And I go down the hall, go to my room, or I go back downstairs. Inevitably. Inevitably. She's singing a song. I went up recently. She had a flashlight. She doesn't keep flashlights in her bed or near her bed. So where'd you get your flashlight? My sister's. Well enough. Where'd you get the flashlight? Where was it? You know, won't you see no evil, hear no evil speak? No. I don't know.

You know, we threw it in the fire and out popped the, you know, no ideas. Right? And so I look at her sister and I said, did she get out of bed? So what do we do? Spank her. Because that's what I told her I would do. Right? And then that solves the problem. Most nights. This was last night that this happened. So I go back downstairs and she's up there singing like a songbird. I don't know what song. She's just singing. I mean, the whole house can hear her singing. And I'm like, In my head, I'm going, you really don't want this. Like, I'm having this as I'm playing cards. I'm just like, I'm delaying, right? What's that? I'm trying to communicate through the floor, right? So we come to a break in the card game, and it's like, well, what am I going to do? Go upstairs, deal with it again. It worked the second time. Why did I delay? Was it unfaithful? I actually called up, and I said, are you supposed to be singing? No answer. Quiet for, you know, 30 seconds, and then.

Play, here we go. Like, I delayed. Why did I delay? Was it because I was aloof and unaware? Is it because I don't care? Is it because it's okay for her to disobey? No, I was giving her time. Actually, my thought was I'm going to give her some time to see if she really committed to it. And she was. Last night, she was. She was committed to it. So I was committed to it. But I delayed. And there's a time and a place. All of this is meant for me to say to you, there's a time and a place. To delay. The failure is not the delay. The failure is if the judgment never comes. And with God, though we may think he delays, and sometimes he delays an entire lifetime, he will do it. He will do it. In Psalm 73, Asaph talks about how he looked at the life of the rich and how comfortable they were and how fat their eyes were and there was no pain in their death and everything was just so smooth. And then it says he came into the house of the Lord and he perceived their end.

And what it means is that he saw that in time, their judgment of God was going to come to rest on them. Even if it wasn't until they stood before him that God's judgment would come to rest on them and that God would repay them to their face. And I would submit to you that in doing that, even when the Lord doesn't judge immediately the way we think he ought to, he is not delaying. Because the scripture tells us that A day with the Lord, it's like a thousand years. And so our biggest frame of reference for time that we understand is our lives, our lifetime. That's a long time. 70 and if for the kind, you know, for strength, 80. That's a long time. What is 80 years compared to eternity? It's minuscule, but it's all we know. And so if the Lord delays until the end, until the judgment, he really hasn't delayed.

You remember the rich man and Lazarus? You had your good things on earth your whole life. And Lazarus had his bad things. So Lazarus suffered miserably just forever, right? For this tiny amount of eternity, this indiscernible amount of eternity, he suffered. And this other guy had all his comforts. And then the Lord dealt with him without delay. So we have to rejigger our way of thinking to align with what God says. The final example I'll give you of delaying is fattening up a pig, right? This is actually an example that Calvin used in his sermon on this text. He says, you know, we think of delaying as, we would think that the butcher is delaying the slaughter with a calf or with a pig, but really he's not delaying it. All he's doing is preparing it. He's finishing it. He's putting on a flare of fat. But the slaughter was always coming.

Because that's what the pig was for. And so the destruction, however long we think it may be in coming, will come because God keeps his covenant and he does everything he says he will. He won't miss one thing. And so our text concludes, and my final thing to say to you in the last verse is, therefore, because of all of this that we've considered and saw and thought about and had impressed upon us, therefore, you shall keep the commandment and the statutes and the judgments which I am commanding you today to do them. This is what it means to be a Christian. is to keep the law of God and to do the things that he requires of us, knowing that we're going to stand before him and give an account one day. Though you're not saved by your obedience, you will be blessed according to it in heaven. And God didn't send his son to save you so that you could continue living however in the world you want. He sent his son to save you so that you would become like Jesus. So pursue it. The law of God is...

the character of Jesus Christ in written form. So when you're being told to obey all of these commandments and laws and all that stuff, we could summarize it as saying, be more like Jesus, imitate him. There's nothing that the law requires of us that isn't a direct demonstration of some part of the character of God. So be those things and do those things and keep those things. Let's pray.