GOD’S REQUIREMENTS
‘What doth the Lord thy God require of thee?’
Deuteronomy 10:12
The fact that God requires something of us is in itself sufficient to transform all life. It shows that He thinks of us and cares for us. Pause and consider what life would be without this conviction. Daniel Webster said once that the only doubt that had crossed his mind as to the truth of revealed religion, sprang from the thought of man’s littleness and God’s greatness, and the fear that a God so great could not concern himself with a creature so small. But if God has requirements for us, He must have thoughts about us. Even without the incarnation, the moral law and God’s expectations in Old Testament law and prophecy reveal in their requirements the thoughtful mind of God. Our life then is not a personal caprice, a thistledown without a law, blown by unordered winds. It is a free conformity asked for by the loving Father, Who has revealed to us on the Mount of Sinai, and on the mount of His Son, in the word of the prophet and the heart of every man, His will for His children’s ways. What is that will?
I. To fear the Lord thy God.—The Old Testament thought of fear is equivalent to the New Testament thought of faith. To fear God is not the same thing as to be afraid of God. Those may be afraid who do not fear, and those who truly fear are not afraid. When St. John says that perfect love casts out fear, he means fear in the sense of afraid, and not in the Old Testament sense of faith, of reverent love. The Psalmist means fear in this noble sense when he says, ‘The fear of the Lord is clean.’ To fear the Lord is to be subject to Him, to look ever to His hand, and to humble ourselves thereunder.
II. To walk in all His ways.—God has His ways. Each of us has his ways. People know us by our ways. It is a homely, illuminating phrase, and we can discern God’s ways. It is not His way to hate any one, to be untrue or unjust. And we are capable of walking in the ways of God, of living like Him in the quiet and orderly workings of our lives.
III. And to love Him.—Life wants a dash of tenderness. But more, life needs to be transfused with love. And it is great that God is willing to be the loved one, and makes our loving Him a requirement of our lives. To be allowed to love God is wonderful. To be bidden to love Him is life.
IV. To serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul.—To be sure that is the only sort of service worth the name. This is God’s call for the consecration of heart and mind. All our emotion, and all our intellect, are to go into His work. No cry of ‘emotionalism’ is to intimidate us on one side, or of ‘rationalism’ on the other. The infinite heart is the infinite mind, and all that we are is to be satisfied in Him and to serve Him.
V. To keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes.—When men speak about the progress of humanity, and the new spirit of the age, as though these could remove the moral landmarks of God, it is good to remember that the infinite living Spirit is the source of law, and that He has spoken to man in commandments and statutes that are to obtain approval and obedience, not abrogation from the moral nature of man.
VI. ‘For thy good.’—Surely it will be so. If it is for the good of every piece of a machine of man’s building to conform to the mind of its builder, it is more true of man in his place in the infinitely delicate organism of life.
SECOND OUTLINE
These words were addressed to Israel when their period of waiting was almost over, and they were about to receive many great promises of prosperity on the conditions laid down in the text.
I. Fear the Lord.—Fear Him as Creator. He is thy God. Creation supplies us with a new conception of fear. There is a life in the universe which is above man. Fear Him as Redeemer. We have fallen, but He has not cast us off. Fear Him as a Father. As such He admits us into His very presence, not by external law or material sacrifice, like Israel of old, but as His very own children. This is the highest zone of fear. It reverences His spotless goodness, and is one of the great springs of religious life.
II. Walk in His ways.—How are we to live in the sense of the glory of God? Great emotions tend to expend themselves, but by walking in all God’s ways we may abide in His presence. His will is to be supreme. A divided allegiance is the death of godly fear. It dethrones God. He has made us our own masters, and our surrender is only real in the extent to which we make all over to Him. Let Jesus occupy the whole being. He only takes the place we give Him. As our surrender is thorough, His filling is thorough. Walking thus with Him will we see wider horizons of blessing.
III. The next step is love Him.—Even in the Old Testament God required this, and there were men who reached it, and whose whole being went out in the enthusiasm of love. How much more is this possible in our times! A mother is one who lives to love. She is love incarnate. Such should we be for Jesus.
IV. Serve the Lord.—This is the blessed result to which the other steps lead. The whole heart and soul are occupied for God. The whole life becomes capable of receiving impressions of His mind. The intelligence takes in mighty thoughts of God, the emotions receive the currents of His revelation, and the imagination is filled with dreams of His power.
Illustrations
(1) ‘This great chapter is only one among many in which the Scripture preaches, trumpet-tongued, that the sole gauge and pledge of national prosperity is national character. That subtle, pervading entity which we call our nation can be felt far better than it can be analysed and defined. Race and language, history and literature, law and government are all strands woven into the mighty web by which God has bound us together. But the seal of a people’s unity is the sense of a Divine calling and election. It remains true in England, as it was in Israel, that a covenant with God is the ground of all covenants between man and man. National righteousness is bred in a people as they recognise the judgments and the mercies of the God of truth. National loyalty depends at last on our relation to the immortal and invisible King.’
(2) ‘ To keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord. I am not sure that we have learned the lesson of obedience, not only in things which we can understand and see the reason for, but in all. That a certain thing is forbidden is not always a sufficient reason for refusing to entertain it against the solicitation of desire. But notice that clause, “For thy good.” There is nothing arbitrary in the Divine prohibitions and injunctions. God ever seeks our good in all His statutes.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit to create in us a heart which shall fulfil these blessed precepts, not because it must, but for love’s dear sake. “Write all these, thy laws, in our hearts, we beseech Thee.” ’