“Remembering the Lord (Deuteronomy 16:1-17:7)", Will DuVal | 4/19/26
Deuteronomy 16:1-17:7 | 4/19/26 | Will DuVal
You hear the one about poor Bob? Who forgot his wedding anniversary, so his wifeDEMANDED, “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in under 6 seconds”... so confused, he went out and bought her a BATHROOM SCALE? (reddit.com)
There are some things you definitely DON’T want to FORGET. Your anniversary. Her birthday. Your computerpassword. Where you PARKED, where you left the KEYS.
They say there are THREEthings you need to remember about AGING: first, your MEMORY starts to go… and I can’t remember the other two…
Did you know the average person forgets about HALF of all new information within just one hour of learning; they forget more than two-thirds of it a day later, and we lose more than 90% of learning within the span of a week. Even this SERMON - if someone asked you TOMORROW, “What were the 3 main points? How many of the 6 blanks in the bulletin can you still remember? If the stats hold, MOST of us will have already forgottenFOUR of the 6 blanks; TWO of the 3 main points. And I’m honest enough to include MYSELF in that - if you quizzed me on a sermon that I preached just a few WEEKS ago, I’m not sure that I could remember my OWN main points!
There’s a reason why the second-most repeated command in all of the Bible is “Remember” / “Do not forget”. It’s repeated 23x in the book of Deuteronomy we’ve been studying. And this week in chapters 16 & 17, Moses will once again exhort Israel to “Rememberthe Lord”. Of ALL the things you reallyREALLY don’t want to forget, Moses is going to give us the TOP THREE most important things in the WORLD for us to remember.
So let’s dive in. I invite you to STAND with me... Deut 16:1-17:7… Hear the word of the Lord:
““Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. 2 And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his namedwell there. 3 You shall eat no leavenedbread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. 4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning. 5 You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, 6 but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt. 7 And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents. 8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it.
[The Feast of Weeks]
9 “You shall countseven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standinggrain. 10 Then you shall keep the Feast ofWeeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewilloffering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. 11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there. 12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
[The Feast of Booths]
13 “You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gatheredin the produce from your threshingfloor and your winepress. 14 You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. 15 For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogetherjoyful.
16 “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. 17 Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.
[Justice]
18 “You shall appointjudges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteousjudgment. 19 You shall not pervertjustice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribeblinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. 20 Justice, and onlyjustice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
[Forbidden Forms of Worship]
21 “You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of [YHWH] your God that you shall make. 22 And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.
17 “You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defectwhatsoever, for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.
2 “If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, in transgressing his covenant, 3 and has gone and servedothergods and worshiped them, or the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, which I have forbidden, 4 and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquirediligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel, 5 then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has done this evil thing, and you shall stone that man or woman to death with stones. 6 On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of onewitness. 7 The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.” This is the word of God…
There are THREE THINGS we need to remember, above all else:
#1- We remember what GodHAS DONE. (16:1-17)
The bulk of the passage is dedicated to recapping the “who, what, where, when and WHY” of Israel’s threeMANDATORY annual festivals or HOLIDAYS. “The word “holiday” is a portmanteau of the words “HOLY” & “DAY”; as we’ve noted almost every WEEK of our study through Deuteronomy now, the word “holy” means “special” or set apart” for a particular purpose. So a HOLIDAY is a special day that we “set apart” on our calendars to REMEMBER something IMPORTANT that God has DONE” (DuVal, “Holy Day Holidays” sermon, Mar 31, 2024).
Now, I say this is a RECAP of Israel’s holidays, because Moses has already outlined all SIX of God’s prescribed festivals back in Leviticus ch23, which I preached on two years ago now, actually, on Easter 2024, so I’ll be pulling some this morning from THAT sermon. But here in Deuteronomy, Moses limits his review to just THREE of the holidays, because they were the REQUIRED ones; as v16 here states: “Three times a year all your males shall appearbefore the Lord your God at the place that he will choose [they returned to worship at the TABERNACLE, for the next 450 years, until Solomon built the TEMPLE, and then they all congregated in Jerusalem for another thousand years, every year, “three TIMES a year…”]: at the Feast of UnleavenedBread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths.” So Leviticus23added the Feast of FIRSTFRUITS, the Feast of TRUMPETS, and the Day of ATONEMENT, but they weren’t REQUIRED to travel and gather together for those. Here’s a SLIDE to give you a visual overview and orientation: you see the 12 HEBREW calendar months, and how they line up with our months: THREE festivals in the SPRING - 1) Passover & Unleavened Bread, which are typically conflated into just ONE holiday, including here in Deuteronomy 16; Moses mentions them interchangeably; then 2) the Feast of Firstfruits just two days AFTER Passover; then 50 days later, 3) the Feast of WEEKS or PENTECOST.
And then there were threeFALLholidays as well: 1) the Feast of Trumpets, 2) the Day of Atonement; and then 3) the Feast of BOOTHS or Tabernacles.
Now, like Israel, we of course have our OWN holidays in this country to help us collectively REMEMBER important people and events of the past - MLK day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving. But UNLIKE Israel some of our traditions for commemorating our holidays don’t always seem to make a lot of sense. Like how we observe LABOR day by NOTlaboring. Or how we observe Independence Day by blowing stuff UP (I guess we’re supposed to be remembering the “bombs bursting in air”...). Or how we observe Presidents Day by purchasing MATTRESSES.
But with GOD’S holidays that He established for HIS people, “there was NOhaphazardness; every detail of every holy day was PURPOSEFUL, and pointed God’s people not only to His PAST work in their history - but pointed them AHEAD as well, to His COMING work through His SonJESUS. Colossians 2 says that ALL these festivals were just “a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” (v17)
So with each, we’re gonna consider its 1) past; its 2) prophetic; and its 3) practical implications.
1) Past: “What did this holiday mean to ISRAEL?”
2) Prophetic: “What did it anticipate about CHRIST?”
And 3) Practical: “What might this holiday mean for US, today?” ” (ibid, 2024).
So, the FIRST thing we must remember, of all that God has DONE for us, is His PAST PARDON. (16:1-8)
Israel did this annually at PASSOVER, when they would “remember the day when [we] came out of Egypt.” But if you remember the actual story, from Exodus 12, Israel’s emancipation from Egypt was only HALF the celebration. “The TITLE ‘Passover’ refers to God’s sending an “angel of DEATH” to JUDGE the land of Egypt, but the angel “passed over” the Israelite homes because they had obeyed God and painted the blood of a LAMB over their doorposts…
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Now, that teaches us [TWO] THINGS about Passover:
First, that God wasn’t just saving Israel from the Egyptians; he was saving them from THEIR OWN sins! He actually told them: “Listen and obey carefully, or you TOO will PERISH!”
Second, the only way they could BE saved, PARDONED of their sins, was through a SACRIFICIAL LAMB. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is DEATH” - all sin against a HOLY God deserves to be PUNISHED, with DEATH; either OUR OWN, or something else’s death, in our place: a sacrifice.” (ibid, 2024)
Which brings us to the prophetic fulfillment in Christ: “When John the Baptist “saw Jesus walking toward him,” in John ch1, “he [declared], “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29). The apostle Paul makes the connection even CLEARER in 1 Corinthians 5; he calls Jesus “our Passover Lamb, who has been sacrificed” for us (v7). To PARDON us, to FORGIVE us, of our SINS. Speaking of sheep, the Bible says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, and turned—every one—to his own way” (Isa 53:6)... According to God, SIN is following your OWN heart, your OWN way, instead of following HIM, the Good SHEPHERD. And it’s something we ALL - “every one of us”, the Bible says, are guilty of.
And YET… that very same passage in Isaiah prophesied 700 years before Jesus was even born, of a Savior - the “lamb of God”, who would be “led to the slaughter [and] cut off from the land of the living” as a perfect sacrifice in order to “bear the sin of many”; “by his wounds” the Bible says, “we are healed.” (Isa 53:5-12)” (ibid, 2024).
That’s the PAST and the PROPHETIC explanation, concerning Israel and Jesus, respectively; what about the PERSONAL application, for US?
I’ve got TWO questions for you:
“1) Have YOU received Jesus as your Passover Lamb, for YOUR pardon? Have you by FAITH painted his BLOOD over the doorpost of YOUR heart?” (ibid) And secondly, if you have…
2) Do you regularly REMEMBER it? That’s what Passover was all ABOUT - remembering; it’s a commemoration and a CELEBRATION of God’s LIBERATION!
Do you remember when God set YOU free? When did you first receive Christ as YOUR Savior? A lot of people will push back, “Well, you don’t have to remember the day and hour you got saved…” - and that’s true; you don’t HAVE to.
Just like you don’t “HAVE” to celebrate your BIRTHDAY; but it’s kinda NICE, isn’t it… IMPORTANT? “This is the day that God gave me LIFE!” How much more ought we to celebrate the day He gave us SPIRITUAL life? ETERNAL life? (June 1, 2013)
And not just annually, but DAILY! We ought to remind ourselves of the GOSPEL - the good news that Christ died to SAVE us - we oughta celebrate that every single DAY! Ephesians 2 exhorts us to “remember [there it is again: REMEMBER…] that you were [formerly] separated from Christ… having no hope and without God… But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (vv12-13) And brothers and sisters: it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to remember that glorious truth too often or to CELEBRATE it too much. We need to “remember the day when WE came out of Egypt”, out of OUR slavery… to SIN.
Speaking of – what ARE we to make, symbolically, of the interwovenness here of Passover (as Moses names the holiday in vv1-8) and the “Feast of Unleavened Bread” (as he calls it later in v16); Moses MENTIONS “unleavened bread” FOUR TIMES in his description of the Passover. Throughout the Bible, “leaven” represents SIN; Jesus said, “BEWARE of the ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees”. So what’s the connection with Passover?
I think God wants us to understand that Jesus will not pardon our sins until we’re ready to leave them behind, make a “clean SWEEP” of the sin in our life. We cannot have Jesus as our sacrificial LAMB until we’re ready to receive him as our sanctifying LORD as well. Pastor Daniel Batarseh puts it this way: “We cannot say “YES!” to the blood of Christ, and at the same time say “Yes” to our sin… The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were intertwined to declare the truth of the gospel that it’s not just about getting into heaven… it’s about Jesus cleansing the sin from our lives that He might live in and through us as his holy people… You cannot separate Jesus Christ dying on the cross for your sins… [from His call to TURN from your life of sin in REPENTANCE]” (“Deuteronomy 16” sermon).
The Lamb who saves us IS the LORD who SANCTIFIES us as well. May we not FORGET what he has done: “the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? …And such were YOU. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified [“declared righteous”] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 6:9-11). Amen!
The SECOND thing God’s done for us that we’re called to remember here is His PRESENT PROVISION. (16:9-12)
That’s what ISRAEL was reminded of in the Feast of WEEKS, celebrated “seven weeks [or 49 days] from the time the sickle is first put to the grain”, which is when they celebrated the Feast of FIRSTFRUITS in early spring by bringing the “first fruits” of their barley crop to dedicate back to the Lord, and “seven weeks” later, on the “fiftieth” day (or “Pentecost”, in Greek), God instructed them to bring “a freewill offering” of their WHEAT harvest in LATE spring, “which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.” So it was a way of “reminding themselves that EVERYTHING they had was a gracious GIFT from GOD, HIS provision.
But [this] holiday take[s] on a whole NEW meaning and significance in the NEW Testament.
“Firstfruits” was celebrated on the THIRD day, after Passover.
Jesus Christ, our Passover Lamb, died on Good Friday, April the 3rd, in the year 33 AD, on Passover. Which means that SUNDAY, the third day, was the feast of FIRSTFRUITS. Now listen to how the apostle Paul describes what Jesus did on Easter Sunday; he writes: “Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of… the resurrection” (1 Cor 15:20). He goes on, “For as by ONE man (ADAM) came death, by [ANOTHER] man [JESUS] has come also the resurrection of the dead” (v21). In other words, we ALL must die… but if we belong to JESUS, then we will be RAISED from the dead just like HIM! JESUS was the “firstfruits”, but we TOO can be included in the great “harvest” of SOULS that God is reaping for himself!
And God PROVED it seven weeks LATER at PENTECOST” (DuVal, 2024), when 50 days after Christ rose from the dead, and 10 days after He had ascended back into HEAVEN, Jesus sent us his Holy SPIRIT as the SEAL of our salvation, and our “present PROVISION” for navigating life here on earth without Him - well, actually, life here WITH Him! – “Just before he died, Jesus told his disciples “It’s actually BETTER for you that I GO AWAY” (Jn 16:7). And for 50 days, they were all thinking, “Jesus, HOW is this BETTER?! We MISS you! What could be BETTER than having you here WITH us?” But then at Pentecost they found out: What’s better than having Jesus WITH you? Having Jesus WITHIN you! Brothers & Sisters, do you realize that we now have access to Jesus that even his CLOSEST followers couldn’t have DREAMED of while he walked the earth… through the HOLY SPIRIT.” The SPIRIT is God’s “present provision” for His people.
Interestingly, the JEWS associate Pentecost with God’s gift of the LAW; to this day, they still celebrate the Feast of Weeks, but as a commemoration of God’s provision of the LAW. Which was a gracious gift to be sure, for a time.
But Church, we know that God has NOW provided for us through His Spirit in a way the LAW never COULD; Romans 8: “For God has done what the law, weakened by our flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son… for sin,[f] God condemned sin… in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk… according to the Spirit… For the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus” (vv2-4). Did you HEAR that? What the Holy Spirit OFFERS us? “Fulfillment” of the “righteous requirement” of the Law. Paul says, “Without the Spirit, the Law’s actually NOT that good; it brings us only CONDEMNATION, the realization of just how UN-righteous we are. But through the Holy SPIRIT - because we now have CHRIST’s righteousness living in us - we are finally “set FREE” from sin and its consequence, DEATH. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he… will also give LIFE to YOU” (8:11); the Spirit’s ULTIMATE provision for us is ETERNAL LIFE!
“And how do we RESPOND to it? How do we CELEBRATE this new life that Jesus “provides” for us? By GIVING - offering - our lives back TO him, in holy surrender. The Bible exhorts us to “present your [selves] as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). In other words: if God has not only given you LIFE - caused you to be born once - but now he’s caused you to be BORN AGAIN - He’s given you “NEW life” in Christ as well, ETERNAL life - then the LEAST you and I can do now is OFFER those lives that HE gave us in the first place (and the SECOND place: spiritual REBIRTH) - offer them BACK to God, to be used for HIS glory and purpose.
And do you know what his glorious purpose IS? How God WANTS to use us, once we’re His? [Why God SENT us His Spirit at Pentecost?
To go and make MORE disciples.] To harvest MORE souls. God’s Spirit empowers us to make MORE followers of Jesus. Jesus told his disciples “The harvest is plentiful… therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers.” (Matt 9:37-38)
That’s US, Church! We pray to be SENT; to be USED by God, to reach and SAVE the LOST.” (DuVal, 2024)
It’s a task far too BIG for us… so Jesus left us His SPIRIT to help; “Behold, I am with you ALWAYS, to the end of this age” of harvesting (Mt 28:20), until EVERY nation hears, I’ll be here with you, giving you the words to speak, and the courage to speak them. The Holy Spirit is God’s present provision to us.
Lastly, on this second point: HOW are we called here to make our offering, and give our lives back to the Lord in Great Commission service? We do it…
1) Joyfully - v11: “you shall rejoice before the Lord”; it’s a JOY to share the good news about Jesus with lost sinners, isn’t it? Second, we must give back our lives…
2) Collectively - “you and your son and daughter, your servants, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow”; God can use ANYONE to reach SOMEONE. And His Great Commission to reach EVERYONE is a task too big for just SOME of us - evangelism & discipleship aren’t just for us “professional Christians”, the pastors; bringing in THIS harvest requires ALL of us, working together. We do it joyfully, collectively, and lastly, we do it…
3) Reflectively - “You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt”. Nothing will motivate you to share the good news with others quite like remembering just how LOST and enslaved YOU were before someone shared Christ with YOU. We REMEMBER what it’s like to be slaves to sin - headed for HELL! - and we wouldn’t wish it on our worst enemies. They say evangelism is just “one beggar telling another beggar where to find BREAD.” But it’s MORE than that. Cuz we weren’t just HUNGRY, friends, we were DEAD. Evangelism is one RESURRECTED person telling a DEAD person where to find LIFE!
And we do it joyfully - not out of obligation; we give our lives as a “freewill offering” - because we remember what God has done for US.
Our final festival is the Feast of Booths, where #3- We remember God’s PROMISE of PESERVATION.
For Israel, this was the LAST holiday of the year that they would celebrate in mid-fall “when you have gathered in [all] the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress”, so the harvest is now DONE. And for Israel, it was a declaration of faith, that BY this harvest, God will now sustain us - PRESERVE us - through the long winter months, until we receive the firstfruits of the spring harvest again. So in the SPRING, they kept the Feast of Weeks to celebrate that God HAD blessed them, v10; but in the FALL, at the Feast of Booths, v15 instructs them “For seven days you shall keep the feast… because the Lord your God will bless you”; it’s an of FAITH in God’s promise to preserve His people.
And that’s played out in the WAY Israel observed it as well. The reason it’s called “Booths” is because “for 7 days, they would construct and live in these little makeshift tents, to remind themselves of those 40 years out in the wilderness, in between their slavery in Egypt and the “good life” they would eventually enjoy in the Promised Land - when they were forced to DEPEND on God to sustain them every step of the way.
They had to collect MANNA, daily- they couldn’t FEED themselves; God had to rain down “BREAD FROM HEAVEN” for them.
He brought forth WATER from ROCKS, to quench their thirst.
He guided them, as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night…
God was EVERYTHING to them! Israel was TOTALLY reliant and dependent on him, for survival.
But just before they enter the Promised Land [just a few chapters from now in the book of Deuteronomy], God’s gonna warn them: “If you’re not CAREFUL, once you settle in this land of “milk and honey”, you’re gonna get FAT & comfortable, and then you’re gonna get COMPLACENT, and you’ll FORGET that the ONLY reason you’re here, in this nice homeland, is because I BROUGHT YOU. Not because YOU’RE so great; but because I AM,” God says.
And [if I skip straight from the PAST to the PERSONAL application for a moment:] maybe that’s some of US this morning. We started off strong - well, we started off WEAK, actually. Cuz that’s what God DESIRES: he LOVES weakness, because God’s strength is made PERFECT in our weakness, when he gets to prove that HIS grace is sufficient to SUSTAIN us. But maybe somewhere along the way, you FORGOT your weakness and your dependency on the Lord, and started relying on YOURSELF, on YOUR strength instead. And God is calling you back to the BOOTH this morning.
Listen: life is HARD out here in the wilderness, isn’t it? This period of time between our salvation and our eventual homecoming to Heaven, the Promised Land that awaits us - life can get TOUGH!
Who are you RELYING on, to get you THROUGH?
Friends: only the LORD has the power to PRESERVE us, to KEEP us to the end. We trust in Him.” (DuVal, 2024)
Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd… My sheep… follow me [and] I give them eternal life. They will never perish, and no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (Jn 10:11,27-28)
Which brings us back to the prophetic fulfillment of this feast in Christ. On the last day of the feast, when all the people were gathered together in Jerusalem, the priests would lead this special water pouring ceremony and pray for God’s preservation until the spring RAINS came to SAVE them, while all the people chanted and sang together the words of this messianic prophecy from the book of Isaiah: “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (12:3). And it was on that last day of the Feast of Booths, during this climactic ceremony, that Jesus stood up in the middle of it in John 7, and “cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me… ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”” (vv37-38)
In other words, “I AM the living water of SALVATION that you’ve been praying for. Come to me, and you’ll NEVER go thirsty again; I alone can satisfy you, and PRESERVE you to the end.”
Friends, let us remember what the Lord has DONE for us: His past pardon (Christ, our Passover sacrifice), His present provision (the Holy Spirit, who now guides and empowers us), and His promise of preservation (“the Lord Jesus Christ… will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of [His coming]”; 1 Cor 1:8).
Now, we could almost just end right there, and I did consider only covering the three feasts. But these last 5 verses of ch16 and the first 7 verses of ch17 fit better THIS week than they will in next week’s sermon. So let’s tie them in here, as we remember not ONLY what the Lord has DONE for us, but…
#2 - …what He EXPECTS OF us. (16:18-20)
Namely, JUSTICE. Righteousness.
““You shall appoint judges… to judge the people with righteous judgment. 19 You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, [which] subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice, and only justice, you shall follow…”.
Why? Because GOD is perfectly just. And we are called - we were CREATED - to be His “image-bearers”, to be REFLECTORS of His glory and nature. To be HOLY as He is Holy; to be LOVING as He is loving; and here, to be JUST as God is Just.
Psalm 89: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of [the Lord’s] throne” (v14).
He rules in JUSTICE; so should WE.
In our HOMES - Parents, be FAIR with your kids…
In our COURTROOMS - we strive to appoint righteous judges…
In our CHURCHES - we show NO PARTIALITY here; the Hebrew phrase literally means “no regard for FACES”. When I look out at you, I don’t SEE “West Hills top Giver from last year” or “Hmm, I wonder why THEY didn’t show up on the Giving List…”; I don’t SEE “What a nice, Christianly family they are, so put together” vs. “What a TRAIN-wreck!” I ONLY see sinners in need of a Savior, still-sinful-SAINTS who’ve now FOUND the Savior. “No regard for faces”; that’s why the personified Lady Justice wears a blindfold.
We’re called to treat others that way: FAIRLY, no matter WHO they are, what they’ve DONE, or HOW they might RESPOND. The Lord calls us to - and EXPECTS from us - JUSTICE and righteousness.
Lastly, we remember what the Lord has DONE, what the Lord EXPECTS, but MOST importantly, we must…
#3 - remember what the Lord IS LIKE. (16:21-17:7)
We remember who He IS. In a word: He is HOLY.
Yes, He’s Just and Merciful. He’s Sovereign and Loving. God is MANY things, but above EVERYTHING, God is HOLY. It’s His only attribute that’s repeated three times for emphasis: He is “Holy, Holy, Holy”; utterly “set apart” is his divine perfection.
-That’s why Israel “shall not plant any tree” or “set up any pillar… as an Asherah [an IDOL] beside the altar of the LORD”, because the Creator can’t be reduced to a creature; He is “wholly OTHER”.
-It’s why Israel “shall not sacrifice to the Lord [an animal with] a blemish or any defect whatsoever”, because the LORD has no blemishes or defects whatsoever; He is perfectly HOLY.
-And it’s why He commanded them “if anyone is found… serving or worshiping OTHER gods… you shall bring them out… and you shall stone” them, because the Lord ALONE is God; there IS no other. And He really is that HOLY; “I share my glory with NO ONE”, he declares (Isa 42:8).
Which makes the GOOD news of the GOSPEL all the greater, doesn’t it. That a God who is that HOLY, while we were YET SINNERS, sent His only Son to DIE for us.
Friends, the truth is, we forget what God is like every DAY, all the TIME; every time we SIN, we are forgetting just how HOLY God is. We FORGET what He EXPECTS of us, and we settle for IN-justice, UN-righteousness.
And we forget what He’s DONE for us; we’ll let entire DAYS go by without pausing to remember and REJOICE in Christ’s salvation; we neglect the Lord’s provision of His Spirit, and live unto our FLESH still instead; and we forget His promise to preserve us, and we get FEARFUL and ANXIOUS instead.
And in spite of ALL of it, when we FAIL to remember the Lord, we can rest in this truth: that HE remembers US.
In good times and bad, when WE remember Him and when we DON’T, our God NEVER forget us. Our names have been written on His HEART; ““Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the child of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will never forget you.” (Isa 49:15)
Let’s pray.