It is also in the negative:  If you disobey, you will be cursed.  You will bear my wrath.  The nations of the world will cast you out.  You will go out before them, to be taken as their exiles.  You will be cast out of the land.  The demand of obedience is very clear, and it is central to Deuteronomy chapter four. 

Even as the Lord God through Moses is preparing His people to enter the promised land, and in order to prepare them is getting ready to recite again the law, these Ten Words, the Ten Commandments, He is saying to them, “Look, it’s about obedience.  I’m not merely giving you information.  I’m not letting you hear my voice for your intellectual stimulation.  It’s not so that you will have an epistemological advantage over the pagan peoples around you!  It is so that you would obey.”  There is demand. 

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If God has spoken, we must trust. 

“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”  We know that song, or at least some previous generations knew that song.  But it really is a matter of trust, and because of the spirit of the age and the imperative of the health of the church, we must fashion a clear defense of Scripture in terms of its inspiration and authority and perfection.  We must teach that, remind ourselves of that, and be accountable to that. 

But in the end, it all comes down to trust — a hermeneutic of trust, an epistemology of trust, a spirituality and theology of trust.  If God has spoken, we trust His Word because we trust in Him.  Woe unto anyone who would sow seeds of mistrust or distrust of the Word of God.  For to fail to trust this word is, as Israel was clearly told, to fail to trust in God Himself. 

Paul Helm, who has taught on this campus, is one of the most faithful Christian philosophers of the day.  He points to trust as the new apologetic — an apologetic of trust, understanding that in the end, the character of God is that which anchors not only our epistemology, but also our redemption, the hope we have not only in this life, but in the life to come.  Finally,

If God has spoken, we must witness. 

Deuteronomy chapter four has in so many ways a counterpart chapter at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, in Deuteronomy chapter 30.  Look to that text with me.  In Deuteronomy chapter 30, as Moses now prepares to die, the Lord speaks through him and says in verse 11,

For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach. 12 "It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' 13 "Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?' 14 "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it. 15 "See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; 16 in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. 17 "But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. 19 "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, 20 by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.