W. Robert Godfrey

The Word is to be in your heart and in your soul.

I hope that's why you're here today studying Deuteronomy.

You long to have the Word living in your soul.

That's why Protestant churches have devoted so much time and energy to the preaching of the Word and to the learning of the Word, because it really is our life, as Deuteronomy will say at its end.

We return now to Deuteronomy and to a new section of Deuteronomy.

We've got to the third step on our step pyramid, laws about loving God.

And this is a very important section in part because it really helps us to think about the law relative to God and to show God's intention is that the law should be

personal connection with him, not just, as I said in an earlier lecture, an accounting procedure to mark off how well we're doing.

And we can see that, I think, in the way this section begins.

Chapter 10 at verse 12, Moses says, Now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you?

It's a great question, isn't it?

posed in other places in the scriptures, but what is said here in answer to this?

What does the Lord require of you?

What does his law insist on?

But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

And to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good.

Here's the very essence of it.

God has entered into covenant with his people for their good.

And what does he want from them?

He wants them to fear him and obey him and love him and serve him.