Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Senior
The quote below by Charles Simeon made me cry and cry this morning as I considered my 45 years of being a Christian. Few and evil have been the days of my life, and I have not at all done the Lord's will as the angels in heaven. I am even now as I write crying out, Who will deliver me from this body of death? Jesus is my only hope. O God, can it be true? Will I someday be like the angels in heaven?
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This, of course, is cited by our LORD (Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27).
The subject of this particular passage especially, but also of all Deuteronomy, is allegiance. This is why Deuteronomy is so fitting a book for our time, and also why it is a very much resented book. God makes it clear that He requires of a covenant people a total allegiance to Himself. Loyalty to God means loyalty to His covenant law. Any lesser loyalties that minimize or impinge upon a people’s loyalty to the God of the covenant are thereby evil because they warp both man and society.
Israel’s loyalty became in time loyalty to itself, and Caiaphas, the high priest, could say, “it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50). A like judgment has been pronounced by the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidency, so that national allegiances all over the world and here have superseded allegiance to the triune God. This is why the warnings of Deuteronomy are so urgent: beware, and remember.
In the words of Charles Simeon,
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Deuteronomy 10:12
And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
This, of course, is cited by our LORD (Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27).
The subject of this particular passage especially, but also of all Deuteronomy, is allegiance. This is why Deuteronomy is so fitting a book for our time, and also why it is a very much resented book. God makes it clear that He requires of a covenant people a total allegiance to Himself. Loyalty to God means loyalty to His covenant law. Any lesser loyalties that minimize or impinge upon a people’s loyalty to the God of the covenant are thereby evil because they warp both man and society.
Israel’s loyalty became in time loyalty to itself, and Caiaphas, the high priest, could say, “it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not” (John 11:50). A like judgment has been pronounced by the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidency, so that national allegiances all over the world and here have superseded allegiance to the triune God. This is why the warnings of Deuteronomy are so urgent: beware, and remember.
In the words of Charles Simeon,
There is to be no limit to our obedience; no line beyond which we will not go, if God calls us. “No commandment is to be considered as grievous;” nor is anything to be regarded as “a hard saying.” We are to “walk in all God’s ways,” obeying every commandment “without partiality and without hypocrisy.” We are to “do his will on earth, even as it is done in heaven.” Of the angels we are told, that “they do God’s will, hearkening to the voice of his word.” They look for the very first intimation of his will, and fly to execute it with all their might. They never for a moment consider what bearing the command may have on their own personal concerns: they find all their happiness in fulfilling the divine will. And this should be the state of our minds also: it should be “our meat and our drink to do the will of Him that sent us.” And, if suffering be the recompense allotted us, we should “rejoice that we are counted worthy to suffer for His sake.” Even life itself should not be dear to us in comparison to His honour; and we should be ready to lay it down, at any time, and in any way, that the sacrifice may be demanded of us.
Charles Simeon, Expository Outlines on the Whole Bible, vol. 2, Numbers through Joshua (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, [1847] 1956), 324.
Quoted by:
Rushdoony, R. J. (2008). Commentaries on the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy. Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books.
Charles Simeon, Expository Outlines on the Whole Bible, vol. 2, Numbers through Joshua (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, [1847] 1956), 324.
Quoted by:
Rushdoony, R. J. (2008). Commentaries on the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy. Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books.
