Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20130414.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Deuteronomy: Moses' Great Appeal For Israel To Obey God For Blessing
Part IV: The General Call For Loyal Obedience, Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32
A. The Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy 4:44-5:21
4. The Fourth Commandment: Testifying Of God's Rest From Oppression
(Deuteronomy 5:12-15)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    Many people today need inner rest from relentless oppression:

    (1) Eric Brown, a lawyer from Waterbury, in his article, "Basketball injury exposes a flaw in college education" in the April 8, 2013 Republican-American, p. 2D, wrote: "(T)he world saw . . . a video . . . of a . . . coach at Rutgers University physically and verbally abusing his players . . . (t)he players just accepted it. They probably had no choice; if they fought back they were exposed to the real danger of losing a scholarship and the opportunity to play college sports."

    (2) Daniel Horowitz' April 5, 2013 blog on "Elective Despotism and the Second Amendment" (redstate.com) complained that in his state of "Maryland . . . a peaceful American citizen cannot live . . . protect himself, start a business or support himself without Soviet style laws. And there is nothing we can do about it . . ."

    (3) While I was recently visiting a medical facility for routine treatment, a technician told me of an oppressive situation he faces on his job due to new regulations! He was so upset he was close to tears!

    I later learned why: I saw him have to teach a registered nurse a phlebotomy procedure he had practiced for over a decade since she had recently been termed "qualified" and he not so by officials higher up even though she had no experience in performing the procedure!



    (4) Relentless unrest afflicts people in churches. The April 8, 2013, USA TODAY, p. 3A, ran Cathy Lynn Grossman and Mary Beth Marklein's report, "Church mourns Warren's son" telling of the suicide of megachurch Pastor Rick Warren's youngest son, Matthew.

    Referring to Pastor Warren's Saddleback Church, the article revealed: "Among its hundreds of ministries and support groups are those that focus on people who struggle: prisoners, addicts and people living with HIV, depression and other illnesses . . ." However, amid all this ministry to the troubled, Pastor Warren's own son, "Matthew Warren . . . struggled with mental illness, deep depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life . . . despite consultation with top doctors, counseling, medication and floods of prayer."

    A haunting question Matthew once asked his father years ago was: "Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?" (Ibid.)

    Accordingly, we ask, "Can a relentlessly oppressed person find rest in the inner man? IF so, how?!"

    Need: "Can one find rest from relentless oppression? If so, how?!"

  1. Moses' general Deuteronomy 4:44-11:32 call for loyal obedience to God in the suzerain treaty format of Deuteronomy repeats God's Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:6-21, and its CONTEXT reminds Israel of God's deliverance of her from Egypt's oppression (Deuteronomy 5:6), revealing WHY Israel should HEED the Lord.
  2. Thus, the FOURTH commandment on keeping the Sabbath Day (Deuteronomy 5:12-15) was meant to GUARD Israel from PAGAN OPPRESSIVE RELIGION that God might BLESS her as follows:
    1. The initial Exodus 20:8-11 institution of the Sabbath was made in view of God's having created the universe in six days and having rested on the seventh day, so Israel was to rest on the seventh day.
    2. This command countered pagan views regarding the seventh day:
      1. In contrast to God's Genesis 2:1-3 honor of the seventh day as a day of refreshment, pagan man treated it as unlucky, a day when he was to afflict himself, shun pleasures and not do important work lest it prove unprofitable out of enslavement to despotic gods, Bruce K. Waltke, Creation and Chaos, 1974, p. 47, 57, 65.
      2. Thus, the Exodus 20:8-11 institution of the Sabbath testified that Israel's TRUE God of the UNIVERSE, in CONTRAST to PAGAN gods , was NOT a DESPOT, but gave His people REST!
    3. When Moses then repeated the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, his focus was on God's deliverance of Israel from Egyptian oppression, so he applied God's REST to the SPECIFIC REST the Lord had already given Israel from pagan Egyptian oppression:
      1. God told Israel she was to labor (aber, B. D. B., A Heb-Eng. Lex. of the O. T., p. 712-713; Kittel, Bib. Heb., p. 271) in doing all her "occupational business" ( mela'kah, Ibid., B. D. B., p. 521-522; Ibid., Kittel) on the six regular days of the week, Deut. 5:12-13.
      2. However, the Sabbath was to be a day of "rest" (nuha, Ibid., B. D. B., p. 628-629), and the verb in the cognate language of Arabic that is equivalent to the Hebrew verb, nuha means "to make a camel lie down on its breast," Ibid.; Deuteronomy 5:14b.
      3. This nuha "rest" was to be practiced by all Israel's people, animals and foreigners in their midst (Deut. 5:14a), so that any onlooking Gentile would readily understand that the entire nation was at rest!
      4. Notably, the reason Moses gave for this command was that God had given Israel rest from being a "slave" (eber, Ibid., p. 713-714) in Egypt, and the noun, eber is a derivative of the verb for "labor" (aber) used in Deuteronomy 5:13 for Israel's labor! (Deut. 5:15a)
      5. Dwelling on this deliverance, Moses recalled the great power God had shown in extending "a mighty hand and an outstretched arm" for Israel to be rescued from oppression, Deuteronomy 5:15b ESV.
      6. Recalling these events makes this emphasis by Moses very potent:
        1. Exodus 2:23 ESV explains how Israel in prolonged suffering had "groaned" and "cried out . . . for rescue from slavery."
        2. God had thus remembered His 400-year-old covenant with Israel's forefathers (Exodus 2:24-25), and sent Moses with great miraculous signs to deliver Israel from bondage and to spoil her taskmasters, the Egyptians of their wealth, Exodus 3:1-12:36.
        3. When Pharaoh then pursued Israel, God parted the Red Sea for her to escape, and closed it up again on Pharaoh's chariot army, rescuing Israel in great national deliverance, Exodus 14:1-31!
  3. Applied to OUR era, JESUS calls us to come unto HIM for REST from OUR oppressions and oppressors, Matthew 11:28-30:
    1. Jesus called those "weary" (kopiao) in vain works to please God to come unto Him, John MacArthur, Matthew 8-15 (NTC), 1987, p. 275.
    2. Jesus called those who were "heavy ladened" (pephortismenoi), a perfect passive participle (Arndt & Gingrich, A Grk.-Eng. Lex. of the N. T., p. 872-873; U. B. S. Grk. N. T., 1966, p. 41), to come to Him, those burdened with false guilt from the errant legalistic rules pushed upon them by their religious leaders, Matt. 23:1-4; Ibid., MacArthur.
    3. If they took up Jesus' yoke of discipleship, they would find rest in the inner man (psuche), Ibid., Arndt & Gingrich, p. 901f; Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jes us the Messiah, 1972, ii, p. 143.
    4. Today, such discipling occurs via the instruction of written Scripture (1 Peter 2:2) under the Holy Spirit's guiding ministry (John 14:26).
Application: May we (1) trust in Christ for salvation from sin and all of its oppressions, John 3:16; Matthew 11:28. (2) May we then heed God's Word in reliance on the indwelling Holy Spirit's power to find great "rest to our souls," Matthew 11:29-30; Romans 8:3-4.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 Our introduction told of the suicide of Pastor Rick Warren's son, Matthew, and we noted from the USA TODAY story we cited that regardless of the "hundreds of ministries" in Pastor Warren's megachurch "that focus on people who struggle" with, among other things, "depression," the Pastor's own son, "Matthew . . . struggled with mental illness, deep depression and suicidal thoughts throughout his life . . . despite consultation with top doctors, counseling, medication and floods of prayer." (Ibid., Grossman and Marklein)

This is an astonishing case: if an evangelical megachurch with hundreds of ministries and clear concern for those who struggle saw its Pastor's son commit suicide, one asks, "What possibly went wrong?!"

Scripture provides the answer! In a past sermon series, we studied segment "Daleth" in Psalm 119:25-32 on handling depression. We found that if there are no physical causes involved, as was so in the case of Matthew Warren who had consulted "top doctors" (Ibid.), then, to cite our conclusion in that Psalm 119 sermon, "depression is caused by a spirit hurt in disillusionment for adopting error as its reality. The answer is to rely on Scripture for God's true reality."

Indeed, our sermon notes there reveal that because God's Word is true opposite the error that if adopted leads one into disillusionment and depression, once one applies Scripture truth and finds it actually truly fulfills him in his life, God enlarges the inner man and revives the depressed spirit through the insight of the Scriptures, Psalm 119:25b.

Thus, Matthew Warren was either not given the Scripture truth he needed or he failed to apply it if it was given! He then adopted an errant view of reality that disillusioned and hurt his inner man. In time, the hurt grew to be unbearable, so he took his life to end the pain!

This case was another wake-up call for me, for it reveals that expounding Scripture must REMAIN our EMPHASIS! Indeed, "hundreds" -- as in the case of Rick Warren's Church -- of even well-intentioned church ministries minus Scripture applied to life, and the inner man only eventually implodes! We must keep expounding Scripture as our emphasis for God's reality to remain our focus!

May we acknowledge what the fourth commandment taught in its context -- that the God of the Bible is a God Who graciously provides rest from oppression for His people. Then, may we adopt His reality as revealed in Scripture to find His rest!