Monday, June 17, 2024

First, the only true and living God is the God who speaks.

We know who God is not because any of us was smart enough to figure Him out, but because out of His own love, grace, and mercy He has spoken to us. Moses says this explicitly in Deuteronomy 4:32: “To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him.” The Israelites would not have known God at all unless He had spoken to them. This is the miracle of revelation, and I fear that we give this doctrine inadequate attention in our churches through our teaching and preaching. Instead of recognizing God’s speaking to us in Scripture as a miracle of grace, we treat it as of little account. Instead of preaching the Word of God, we preach pop psychology and culture, or we tell compelling stories. In Deuteronomy 4:10–19, Moses makes clear to the people of Israel that their very lives depended on hearing and obeying God’s Word: On the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, “Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.” And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments, and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and rules, that you might do them in the land that you are going over to possess.