Deuteronomy 4:1 “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

Some people are worth listening to. Your doctor is generally someone worth listening to. Take ALL the medicine in the bottle until its gone, even though you feel better, and you won’t end up with a relapse twice as bad as the original illness. Take it easy for a few weeks after surgery, even though you feel no more pain, and you won’t land yourself back in the hospital with complications.

Your parents–your parents are people worth listening to. How many of us had parents who told us not to jump on the bed? But how many of us banged our heads on the headboard, the floor, or a sibling because we were jumping on the bed?

The Lord God is one person always worth listening to. Others occasionally steer us wrong, even the doctor, even our parents. But when we listen to the Lord, we always come out smelling like a rose.

One reason to take God’s word seriously is that he takes it so seriously himself. It’s not so obvious in our English translation, but the word “decrees” literally refers to something carved or etched into something solid. That makes us think of the ten commandments which were carved into stone. What was God telling us about how he felt about his commandments when he chiseled them into two sheets of rock? They could have been written on scrolls like the rest of the five books of Moses. But even after Moses broke the first set of stone tablets in the golden calf incident, the Lord insisted the commandments be carved into stone again. In stone they would not fade, they could not be erased, and they could not be changed. We still use the phrase “set in stone” to refer to something which cannot be changed. God is serious about his word!

If there was any doubt about that among his people, look at the conditions he placed upon following his commands. First, he says follow them so that you might live. By “live” he is not talking about having an enjoyable lifestyle, a desirable standard of living. By “live” he means the difference between life and death. He was giving his people a choice: “Follow my commands, and I will permit you to stay alive. Break them, and I will wipe you out.” God means serious business!

Then the Lord conditioned their earthly happiness upon keeping his commands. He told Israel to follow them “so that you may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you.” The last time Israel had a chance to take possession of the promised land had been forty years earlier. When they disobeyed him, they ended up wandering in the desert for forty years. Again, when God says, “Listen,” he wants to be taken seriously.

The Lord is no less serious about his commandments today. They are not “voluntary initiatives,” as one humanist has called his set of ten replacements. Choosing to break what God has commanded still invites his anger. Those who insist on living in some sin only add to their own misery and that of those around them. The Lord designed each commandment to take care of us in some way. Breaking them may result in short term pleasure, but it leads to long term pain.

Though we take God’s word seriously, none of us keep his commandments perfectly. All must confess their failure. For Jesus’ sake the Lord does not condemn us. As Paul preached to the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch: “Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses” (Acts 13:39). God’s word also teaches that he is loving and forgiving. That makes us desire to take his word all the more seriously and keep his commands. People to whom God has revealed himself as their Savior and Redeemer find in him the power to do so.

Listen, and Live!

2 Kings 2:1-3 “When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, ‘Stay here: the Lord has sent me to Bethel.’ But Elisha said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. The company of the prophets at Bethel cam out to Elijah and asked, ‘Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?’ ‘Yes, I know,’ Elisha replied, ‘but do not speak of it.’”

There are a lot of things going on here. Everyone knows something big is about to happen. No one seems to know exactly what to do about it. Should Elisha leave, or should Elijah and Elisha stay together? Should we be talking about what’s going to happen, or shouldn’t we?

It’s hard to tell what everyone is thinking. Does Elisha want to stick close to Elijah for himself, because he can’t bear to leave him, because he wants every last moment with his friend he can get? Or does he stay with Elijah to support him, because what is coming seems a little scary, and he doesn’t want Elijah to face it alone? Does Elijah ask Elisha to stay behind because he wants to spare Elisha the trauma of thinking about this all day long, and having to see Elijah’s final moment? Is he trying to help him get started on resolution and closure? Or is he personally burdened by the grief he senses in Elisha, and he doesn’t want to drag this around with him his last day? “Just leave me alone.”

How to act as death approaches confuses us. Family members get on each other’s nerves. Selfishness often rises to the surface. The emotional pain makes some people bossy. Others withdraw into themselves. We are tempted to believe the worst about others. It’s sad that at a time when both the dying and those around them may need each other the most, we easily end up pushing each other away. Just when “Love your neighbor as yourself” is most needed, it suddenly becomes all about me.

If we are going to face death like God’s servants, this is what we can take from this part of the story: This is the time to support each other. Maybe that seems too simple. But this involves a facet of the gospel we don’t talk about so much. It is important at a time like this. Regardless of the current condition of our earthly families, God has made us part of a family of faith. Jesus died to cleanse us of our sins and to make us his brothers and sisters by faith. That makes us brothers and sisters to each other as well. One of the prayers in the funeral liturgy reminds us of the blessing when someone dies. “In our earthly sorrows, help us find strength in the fellowship of the church…You give us family, friends, and neighbors to help us when there is loneliness now and in the days to come.” We are not alone. That’s good news.

I don’t know the reasons Elisha stuck so close to Elijah, or the reasons that Elijah kept asking him to stay behind. But God had given these two men to each other as brothers. It was good for them to spend these last hours together until the chariot and whirlwind came. Maybe Elisha didn’t want to talk about what was going to happen to Elijah later that day. But God kept sending him prophets to prepare him. He wasn’t going through this grief alone.

You and I are unsteady, imperfect disciples. But we are forgiven, and we are a family of faith. We are God’s gifts to each other. Be who you are. When you or facing your own death or that of someone you love, face it like God’s servants, and support each other.

Mark 2:27-28 “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

You have been working 16 hour days, 7 days a week, for several months. You finally collapse in sickness and exhaustion. You go to the doctor. He takes one look at you and says, “My friend, what you need is some rest! Just look at you. And if you are going to sleep properly, you need to get some more exercise. It’s no wonder you haven’t been sleeping. Your body is all out of shape. You need to eat more carefully, too. No more Doritos and Coke for lunch, or pizzas delivered to the office while you are working. While you are at it, take more time to be with your family. A hobby might not hurt, either. It helps reduce your stress. Then you can get some sleep.”

The doctor’s observations may all be good advice. But how much help will they be if the 16-hour work days continue? The doctor has added hours of work to an already overburdened schedule. The result will be less rest, not more.

Even in the perfection of Eden, our Lord never designed us to work without end. We need rest. So he prescribed the Sabbath Day, a day to put work aside, a day for God himself to serve our souls with grace and love.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day tinkered with God’s prescription in ways similar to the doctor’s well-meaning advice. They added long lists of Sabbath rules to make sure people “rested.” But the more people focused on rules, the less rest they got. Even worse, the less they were able to see the Savior to whom the Sabbath points.

God did not create the Sabbath so that we had a rule to keep. He gave this law so that it might keep us. On the Sabbath he led people to hear him speaking in his word. They responded with their prayers and praise. He gave their burdened souls rest from guilt and sin. They found God’s Sabbath Rest not by what they did to keep it, but by what the Lord himself did for them. They stopped all their doing, and all their busyness, and he himself had the opportunity to serve them.

Today we find our Sabbath in the person of Jesus. He supplies us with rest from our sins and rest for our souls. The Sabbath was the long shadow of Jesus cast across centuries of promises (Colossians 2:16-17). It directed God’s people to the full and final rest his life and death would provide. We no longer have to set aside all work on Saturday or consider it our holy day. The Apostle Paul tells us not to let anyone judge you in regard to keeping the Sabbath.

But we still hear echoes of God’s will for us in that law. When we set aside our work to hear about his love, he still keeps us today. He still wants us to gather with other believers, and do so often. We don’t do it to save ourselves by keeping a rule. We encourage and edify each other with the word. The Lord speaks to us and saves us through that word. “Let us not give up meeting together (Greek, literally “going to synagogue”), as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another,” Hebrews 10 urges. Let us find our Sabbath rest gathered with others for worship. There we still find Jesus, and rest for our souls.

Numbers 19:2-6, 9 “Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect or blemish and that has never been under a yoke. Give it to Eleazar the priest; it is to be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. Then Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. While he watches, the heifer is to be burned– its hide, flesh, blood, and offal. The priest is to take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet thread and throw them onto the burning heifer….A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They shall be kept by the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing; it is for purification from sin.”

According to a Jewish legend, King Solomon was able to explain the reason behind all the laws of Moses, but this one had him stumped. Whether or not that is true, the key to understanding this sacrifice and the water it produced is to realize that it is a picture, a prophecy, of the work our Savior has done for us.

First, there was the sacrifice. A completely red heifer, a young cow that has never given birth, without any spots or any blemishes, is an extremely rare and special animal. Only seven to nine of these animals have been identified and sacrificed since the time of Moses. They brought a high price from the temple treasury when one was found. The last one was over 2000 years ago. Today’s Jews are eagerly seeking an animal like this because these purification ceremonies are necessary before they begin building a new temple. Decades of searching have not turned up a suitable candidate yet.

I don’t have time or space to go into all the details of the sacrifice and what they mean. But there are obvious allusions to Jesus’ person and work that are easy to see, aren’t there? Jesus was a unique and rare person not only in his time, but in every age. As the Son of God and only perfect human he was a person of infinite value. His moral record had no spot or blemish on it. Spiritually he was perfect in every way. That perfection, that value, makes him qualified to stand before God as our substitute, not just until our next sin, not just until the next person dies, but forever and for all. Like the red heifer, he did not die because of anything that he had done. He had to give his life because of the sin, the impurity, and the death of others. This is God’s everlasting source of purification for us. Jesus’ death is the solution for our sin and death.

But unlike the red heifer, Jesus’ death was not merely ceremonial, symbolic, or prophetic. It really and permanently removes our sin in God’s site. Our death has really lost the ability to separate us from God any longer. In fact, now it actually brings us closer to him. Here we see Jesus making us clean from the stench of death by applying his death to us.

Does the contrast between our condition and the great value God has placed on us strike you at all? We live in a world that less and less wants to invest its medical or financial resources in dying people. Just kill them, euthanize them, and be done with them already. We live in a throwaway society that doesn’t fix things. It just disposes of them when they break. I once threw away a 2-year-old television, not because it was beyond repair, but because the cost of repair rivaled the cost of a new one.

How worthy of repair could we have appeared to God, slowly decaying with death, thoroughly corrupted by sin? Maybe it seemed worth risking a few expensive cows, but the red heifers didn’t actually change anything. Sin and death remained. That God would sacrifice the priceless gift of his Son to reclaim people who had become spiritual road kill speaks of love beyond our comprehension.

Mark 14:37-38 “Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Simon,’ he said to Peter, ‘are you sleeping? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.’”

Is temptation your friend or your enemy? You know what the right answer is. But is that how it feels? Over thirty years ago a professor presented this scenario to my class: You are visiting the doctor. You are sitting in his waiting room. You know it’s going to be awhile. There are magazines on the table. It happens that the doctor subscribes to Sports Illustrated. On the table is the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. If you are a male, what do you do? Convince yourself that you need to get up-to-date on the latest fashion? Maybe you pick it up and sneak a peak. Maybe you resist. But are you necessarily sad for the opportunity? Does this feel like a hostile attack on your soul, or more like an old friend reminding you, “I’m still here if you need me”?

Let’s say you are at the doctor because he wants to discuss the results of your latest blood test. It turns out you are pre-diabetic. If you are going to avoid taking medications, maybe eventually going on insulin, you need to cut back on the sweets and the carbs. You go back to the office after the visit. Next to the place where you work is a donut shop. Wafting through the air is that sweet smell of donuts in the fryer. Everyday it confronts you when you arrive, and many days it has pulled you all the way in. It will still be calling to you each morning when you get out of your car. Is that disappointing? Or does it feel almost comforting?

At work the first person you run into is “The Jerk.” The two of you have both been working at this company for over five years. Almost every time he opens his mouth you want to punch him. So far you have managed to limit your response to a few sarcastic comments muttered under your breath. But in your mind you play images of giving this guy the tongue-lashing of his life, and occasionally daydream about removing a few of his teeth with your knuckles. Does this make you feel guilty, or strangely satisfied?

Is temptation your friend or your enemy? You know the right answer. But that doesn’t make it easy to resist. In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus warned his disciples about its lure and pull.

These three men are caught in an internal tug of war. Which is stronger: love for Jesus or desire for personal comfort? They can see that Jesus is in obvious distress. When ever have they seen him ask for help like this? He sent them on errands and gave them tasks to do. But the man who had healed so many and kept his cool through so many threats and dangers had never hinted he might need assistance himself. No doubt these three were eager to do their part.

But their stomachs were full from the Passover Feast. Jesus’ words at the dinner had been emotionally draining. It was late. It is a chilly night, and they are sitting there while a few yards away Jesus pleads and sobs. Their eyes are heavy. You know that feeling when you are driving late, late at night, and your head bobs, and you drive for stretches when perhaps you didn’t actually sleep, but you have no memory of the last mile you have traveled? “The spirit is willing but the flesh, the body, is weak.”

One of our favorite Lenten hymns begins with Jesus’ story in Gethsemane. “Go to dark Gethsemane, ye that feel the tempter’s pow’r.” It urges us to follow Jesus’ example in the garden. “Turn not from his griefs away; Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.” Jesus pleaded for his Father’s deliverance. Then he submitted to his Father’s will. The disciples caved. Jesus prevailed. Be like Jesus.

There is something better here. Jesus’ own battle in Gethsemane is not just our example. It’s our victory. Our battle with temptation does not begin where Jesus’ battle ends. Ours ends in the garden, too, when your great saving Substitute overcomes. Yes, I know we still wrestle to resist the magnetic pull of one temptation after another. The force feels irresistible. You fall, often. So do I.

But our heavenly Father does not see a beaten sinner pulling himself up from the ground after another loss, ever. He sees a perfect son, a holy daughter, surrounding themselves with the support of Christian friends, praying for his help, and submitting to his will. He sees you in Jesus’ skin embracing the path he wants you to follow.

He sees our many surrenders to sin where Jesus goes next. He seems them painted in deep red, washed in his blood, until he can’t see them anymore. He sees them nailed to Jesus’ cross and buried in his tomb, disposed of forever. And now he doesn’t see them at all, because Jesus embraced his cross, fulfilled his Father’s will, and saved the world.

Jesus has delivered us from temptation even when we fall, and from every other sin as well. Watch and pray, and trust Jesus most of all.

Psalm 23 ¹ The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. ² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. ³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. ⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. ⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. ⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Martin Luther once commented on the opening verse of Psalm 23, “It seems to reason that on earth there are no poorer, more miserable, and unhappier people than those very Christians. … It appears outwardly that the Christians are scattered sheep, forsaken by God, already handed over to the jaws of the wolves—sheep who lack nothing except everything…”

My autistic son Aaron was diagnosed with stage four lymphoma a little over twenty years ago. The tumor our doctor discovered in his chest was so large it was threatening to cut off his wind. The oncology doctors felt it was urgent to take a bone-marrow sample immediately so that they could identify the cancer and get started with chemotherapy. Unfortunately, Aaron had just eaten lunch. He could not receive anesthesia. The doctors would have to drill into his hip for the sample while we restrained him. As they did so, Aaron, who was about 10 years old, kept crying, “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you torturing me?”

How would you have answered him? The answer was simple, really. “We are doing this to save you.” But how do you explain that to an autistic little boy?

I think there is an answer in there to our own “why” questions, when it seems that the Lord is allowing all kinds of harmful things into our lives. “I am doing this to save you,” he says, “or your loved ones, or other people touched by your life. It’s complicated how this all works together. You probably wouldn’t understand why it has to be this way. But I am asking you to trust me. I am asking you to listen to my promises, and believe that they are true.”

The opening verses of the Twenty-third Psalm are a calming, comforting picture of a Shepherd’s love and care for his sheep. It sounds like a vacation, an escape, some far off future retreat, or even heaven. In the movies when it isn’t all puffy clouds and cherubs, heaven so often looks a little like the picture here: lush green fields laid across rolling hills with a gentle brook winding through.

But these words don’t first begin to describe life when we take our last breath in this world and open our eyes in the next. This is for as long as we know our Savior. “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened,” Jesus says, “and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am humble and gentle in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” The love that unburdens our hearts of our sins and replaces them with God’s peace doesn’t start in the future. For those who believe, it is life every day.

It is that love that allows us to know that we are safe, even in the face of death. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Notice that David does not say in the Psalm, “I will fear no evil for nothing bad will ever happen to me” or “I will not die.” He says, “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” We are safe because we face neither life nor death alone. Holding our hand is someone who knows a little something about death himself. Jesus died the death of the whole world when he gave his life on the cross. Jesus knows a little something about death…and life on the other side.

Now he promises, “I am with you.” Sometimes, when death starts to cast its long shadow over us, he takes our hand and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. I am the conqueror of death. I give life and take it away. It is not your time yet. You are safe with me.” Sometimes he takes our hand and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am going to walk you through this door. I have made death the gate to a fantastically new and better life. You are safe with me.”

Life with this Savior is a blessed life. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Even surrounded by our enemies, our Lord gives us good things. And once our cup of life, which has more than its share of pain and danger, has been cast into the ocean of God’s grace and love, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” We come home. Surely, that is a blessed life.

After raising his questions about the promises of this Psalm, Luther brought his readers around. “Therefore, I say, do not in this matter follow the world and your reason. People… consider the prophet to be a liar when he says, ‘I shall not want,’ because they judge according to outward appearance. But, as we said previously, stick to God’s Word and promise, listen to your shepherd, how and what he speaks to you, and follow his voice, not what your eyes see and your heart feels. In this way you have conquered.”