The Potential Dangers Facing Israel

Jim ButlerDeuteronomy 6:10–16

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.