Theological term
Jealousy of God
6 sermons · All terms
The Second Commandment - Deuteronomy 5:8-11
The Second Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8-11) prohibits both the making of images to represent God and the worship of those images — two distinct but related offenses against the infinitely simple, spiritual, and incomprehensible God. Because God cannot be captured in creaturely form, any visible representation of Him, including pictures or films of the Lord Jesus Christ, violates the commandment: the hypostatic union cannot be depicted by an artist's rendering, and Christ is to be set forth through preaching, not imagery. The positive demand of the commandment is worship regulated strictly by divine command — the regulative principle — which restricts the church to the elements God has prescribed in Scripture, excluding both the inventions of men and the traditions of Rome.
Renewal of the Covenant, Part II
Exodus 34:10–35 records God's renewal of the Mosaic covenant with Israel following the golden calf apostasy of chapter 32. The passage demonstrates that the divine attributes proclaimed in verses 6–7 — mercy, grace, long-suffering, and abounding goodness — are not merely stated but actively exhibited in God's willingness to restore a covenant his people had shattered. The sermon works through three sections: the covenant renewed (vv. 10–28), with its prohibitions against religious, social, and political alliances with Canaanite nations; and the reflection of God's glory on Moses' face (vv. 29–35), which Paul's argument in 2 Corinthians 3 sets within the larger framework of old covenant and new covenant glory. The central application is that the same perfections God displayed toward covenant-breaking Israel are the perfections believers now experience in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose new covenant ministry of righteousness far exceeds the fading glory of Moses.
Thanksgiving for the Protection of the Soul
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 warns the people of God against three soul-destroying dangers that prosperity and idolatry produce: forgetting God, forsaking God, and testing God. Preached on the eve of Canadian Thanksgiving, this exposition argues that a sustained disposition of thankfulness is not merely a cultural courtesy but a spiritual safeguard — one that guards the heart against each of these three dangers in turn. The sermon draws a careful typological connection between Israel on the plains of Moab and the new covenant community today, pressing the hearer to cultivate thankfulness as a constant frame of the soul rather than a seasonal occasion.
Deuteronomy 11
Deuteronomy 11 brings Moses' extended introductory appeal to a close, pressing Israel with three requirements for obedience grounded in God's past redemptive acts, the goodness of the promised land, and the covenant blessings that await faithfulness. The chapter's repeated call to love and keep the commandments of Yahweh exposes the radical inability of sinful man and thereby magnifies the necessity of Christ, who alone kept the charge, statutes, judgments, and commandments always as mediator, head, and surety for his people. The chapter concludes with the solemn setting of blessing and curse upon Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, which bracket the entire legal code of chapters 12–26 and press the covenant choice before Israel. Christians are called to let God's past faithfulness, future inheritance, and covenantal promises serve as the engine of present obedience.
Necessary Precautions for Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 sets three concrete dangers before Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan, and the same dangers confront the covenant community today: forgetting God in prosperity, forsaking God through idolatry, and testing God in difficulty. The passage is read against the backdrop of sovereign, covenantal grace — Israel received cities, houses, wells, and vineyards they did not build or earn, and ingratitude is therefore the root of all three failures. The appointed remedy for each danger is the same: fear God, serve him, and rest in the sufficiency of Christ rather than in material blessing, religious feeling, or favorable circumstance.
The Potential Dangers Facing Israel
Deuteronomy 6:10–16 identifies three covenant dangers Moses sets before Israel as they prepare to enter Canaan: the danger of forgetting God in prosperity, the danger of forsaking God through idolatry, and the danger of testing God in hardship. The sermon traces how each danger flows from a failure to reckon rightly with the sovereign grace that underlies every blessing Israel received — cities they did not build, wells they did not dig, vineyards they did not plant. Drawing on the New Testament parallels of 1 Timothy 6 and the temptation narrative in Matthew 4, the study presses the same warnings upon the church: guard against practical atheism in affluence, resist the idol-factory of the heart, and refuse to condition covenant loyalty on favourable circumstances.