Standing on the east bank of the Jordan, Moses was preparing the Israelites with warnings and promises to enter into the land of their promised inheritance:

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you – with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant – and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. … You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you … (Dt. 6:10ff)

This warning is repeated throughout Moses’ final sermons to the people before they enter the land. Why? Because the temptation to create substitutes and supplements for a God that we esteem inadequate for life in the land resonates so deeply with our hearts, that we find ourselves worshipping as God that which has not the slightest resemblance to God – no resemblance in word or deed, power or ability. As John Calvin said, our hearts are veritable idol factories, creating and adopting gods for every conceivable contingency at such a rate that Wall Street drools to find a way to cash in on this persistent, stable, and ever-expanding market. But while the idols may look glorious, they enslave and consume us to the point that we shrivel, dry, and die.

That is why throughout these last sermons, interspersed among all the warnings, are the words of God’s steadfast promise:

When you find yourselves in the midst of these tribulations, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you or forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them.

He reminds them that they are …

… a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out from among all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it was because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers …

Since, then, the promises have been fulfilled in Christ in whom we have been called from among those dead in our idolatry and adultery, and since those fulfilled promises have been made ours by the abounding riches of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ, let us come together with rejoicing as those who have been freed from our slavery to the idols of our making and brought into the presence of the Holy God in order that we might sing his praises and be nourished by his presence with us in his Son.
Order of Worship for 03.15.09