At that time I was standing between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain. And He said: Sermons
I. MEDIATION IN GENERAL. Mediation has a God-ward side and a man-ward side. The requirements of God's holiness - the needs of man's heart. 1. On God's side, communion with sinners can only be maintained on terms which uphold righteousness and law, and do not derogate from the sanctity of the Divine character. 2. On man's side, there is (1) the feeling of weakness and finitude, awakening terror in presence of the Infinite (vers. 25-27). (2) The feeling of sin, giving rise to the craving for a holier one to stand between him and God. (3) The feeling of need - the soul's longing for fellowship with God; giving rise to the desire for one to mediate in the sense of making peace, of bringing about reconciliation (Job 16:2 l). II. THE MEDIATION OF MOSES A TYPE OF THAT OF CHRIST, We trace the resemblance: 1. In his willingness to mediate. So did Jesus most willingly undertake to stand between God and sinners (Hebrews 10:5-10). 2. In his acceptance as mediator (ver. 28). So was Christ called to this office by the Father, invested with all the powers necessary for the right discharge of its duties, and accepted in the discharge of them (Isaiah 49:8; Matthew 3:17; Matthew 17:5; Hebrews 5:4-11). 3. In the work he did. (1) Conveying God's words to the people (cf. John 17:6-9). (2) Conveying the people's words to God (ver. 27). Jesus is in like manner the medium through whom prayer, worship, etc., ascend to the Father (Ephesians 3:18; Hebrews 4:14-16). (3) Frequently interceding for them, and obtaining pardon for their sins (Exodus 32:11-15; Numbers 14:13-21, etc.). So does Jesus ever live to intercede for us, and advocate our cause (Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1). (4) Even, on one notable occasion, offering himself as a sacrifice for their sin (Exodus 32:32). What Moses would have done, had it been possible so to save the people from destruction, Christ did (Galatians 3:13, etc.). - J.O.
That ye may live, and...prolong your days. I. We fall, I conceive, into a very inaccurate method of speech, when we say that the prize which God proposes to His people is set forth in one of these clauses; the duty, or performance by which they are to earn that prize, in the other. Moses teaches his countrymen that God has conferred upon them the highest prize which man can conceive, freely and without any merit on their part.II. Is there no duty, then, enjoined in the words of my text? Does it merely speak of a blessing or a privilege? Certainly when it is said, "Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you," it must be meant that there was something required on the part of the creature as well as something bestowed by the Creator. If we believe that an actual living being to whom we are related has put us in this way, and that it is a way of dependence upon Himself, we can understand how the preservation of it becomes a duty to Him; we begin in fact to know what duty is. If, finally, we believe that He who puts us in this way is the only person who can keep us in it, or prevent us from going out of it, we may feel that His command is itself a power; that it does not merely say, "Thus and thus you must do, thus and thus you must not do"; but, "This will I enable you to do, this will I prevent you from doing." III. We come then at length to this class of blessings which are shortly gathered up in the words: "That ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess." It is here signified in very simple, clear language, which admits, I conceive, of no double sense, that a people in a right, orderly, godly state shall be a well-doing people; a people with all the signs and tokens of strength, growth, triumph; a people marked for permanence and indefinite expansion. I cannot put another meaning upon these words; I should think that a wish to dilute their force was a proof of the greatest carelessness about the authority from which they proceed, as well as of the most shocking inhumanity. If it be the distinction of saints and spiritual men that they do not trouble themselves about the external prosperity of a land, that they do not care whether the oxen are strong to labour, whether the sheep are bringing forth thousands and ten thousands, whether there is no complaining in the streets; if they are so occupied in the future as to have no interest in the present, too busy with their souls to have leisure for thinking about the ruin which may be threatening the bodies of their fellow men — then I say at once Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, were not saints and spiritual men. Since they held that God's order was the perfectly right and living order, they could not but think that all disorder, all wrong and death which had invaded it, must have come through man's neglect to fulfil the part which had been assigned him; — through his unwillingness to till and subdue the earth which he was meant to till and subdue; through his idleness and distrust and self-seeking, his refusal to walk in the ways which God had commanded. IV. And therefore it cannot be true — the whole history of the Jews declares it not to be true — that the blessings of adversity were unknown to them, were reserved for a later period. Which of the good men of the Old Testament was not proved in a furnace? Into whose soul did the iron at some time not enter? It was not because they believed in God's promises to their nation, and were sure that its outward prosperity must and would at last correspond to its inward health and vitality; it was not because they longed for the earth to bring forth and bud, to have heaps of corn upon it, that its presses might burst forth with new wine; it was not on this account that they had to endure less of inward sadness, or fewer reproaches from the kings and priests and people to whom they spoke. No; the more strong their feeling was that God had chosen their nation and made a covenant with it, the greater was the struggle with their individual selfishness. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.). People MosesPlaces Beth-baal-peor, Egypt, HorebTopics Afraid, Clear, Declare, Didn't, Fear, Fire, Mount, Mountain, Onto, Presence, Reason, Saying, Standing, StoodOutline 1. The covenant in Horeb6. The ten commandments 23. At the people's request Moses receives the law from God Dictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 5:5 1690 word of God Library Prayer and Obedience"An obedience discovered itself in Fletcher of Madeley, which I wish I could describe or imitate. It produced in him a ready mind to embrace every cross with alacrity and pleasure. He had a singular love for the lambs of the flock, and applied himself with the greatest diligence to their instruction, for which he had a peculiar gift. . . . All his intercourse with me was so mingled with prayer and praise, that every employment, and every meal was, as it were, perfumed therewith." -- JOHN WESLEY. … Edward M. Bounds—The Necessity of Prayer The Old Testament Canon from Its Beginning to Its Close. Questions About the Nature and Perpetuity of the Seventh-Day Sabbath. "They have Corrupted Themselves; their Spot is not the Spot of his Children; they are a Perverse and Crooked Generation. " The True Manner of Keeping Holy the Lord's Day. The Everlasting Covenant of the Spirit Jesus Fails to Attend the Third Passover. The Angel of the Lord in the Pentateuch, and the Book of Joshua. Mount Zion. The Foundations of Good Citizenship. Deuteronomy Links Deuteronomy 5:5 NIVDeuteronomy 5:5 NLT Deuteronomy 5:5 ESV Deuteronomy 5:5 NASB Deuteronomy 5:5 KJV Deuteronomy 5:5 Bible Apps Deuteronomy 5:5 Parallel Deuteronomy 5:5 Biblia Paralela Deuteronomy 5:5 Chinese Bible Deuteronomy 5:5 French Bible Deuteronomy 5:5 German Bible Deuteronomy 5:5 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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