More Than a Good Idea

SCRIPTURE:  And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do 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 that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” Deuteronomy 30:10-13 ESV

THOUGHT: The further we proceed down the course of history, the more convinced I am of God’s ways. They weren’t and aren’t just good ideas — as Deuteronomy 32:47 so poignantly puts it, “For it is no empty word for you, but your very life.”

So, I know this morning’s Scripture is a long one to take in, but here are the cliff notes: every seven years, get everybody, young and old, together and read through the pages of God’s ideas for human flourishing, beginning with the 10 Commandments, which were themselves the best cliff notes known to man. That way you’ll catch the children at least two or three times as they grow up and the adults every seven years – the same year that the culture goes through God’s idea of a great reset, called “the year of release.” The land enjoys a year of rest, debts are forgiven, and all those in servitude are released. No one gives up all their possessions, no one eats bugs, no one is scared out of their wits by the big boot of big government. What they do learn is to fear and honor and love the Lord.

We’ve done a poor job of getting everyone together to read God’s Word, let alone the rest. Our freedom from the burden of the law has become freedom from any law ever. Our culture, just like the ancient people of God — once strong and committed to the ways of God — is now Biblically illiterate, fractured, and people are without meaning and purpose. Sin is crouching at the door and its desire is to have us (Genesis 4:7). Rather than holding up God’s 10 basic laws for human flourishing, our culture has cast them down, and cast them out.

But they weren’t just good ideas. They were and are our very life.

PRAYER: Oh God, over and over you have promised that if we turn to you, you will turn to us. I’ve experienced that and I know it’s true! So we turn and run to you, bringing along as many as we can for the journey toward life.