Message 1: The Nucleus Of Serving

SERMON OUTLINE

TRANSCRIPT

A very good evening to all of our brethren here, and I praise and thank the Lord for this privilege that He has given me to be here with you this evening to share the Word of God. I praise and thank God for Reverend Paul who kindly invited us and helped us in all things in the preparation for this camp. Indeed, the Lord is good and the Lord be praised.

It is my joy to be here again. Last 2015, I remembered I was with the young people and I thank God for that opportunity, and I thank God also for this time that I can be here. The Lord be praised. The Lord be glorified.

The theme of our camp is indeed very relevant to our days, as we need—and as we are required, demanded—to serve the Lord not as individuals, but as a family. And we have seen a good example, an illustration that we have seen last Sunday or the Lord's Day yesterday, when we had that baptism, infant baptism, where we see how the Lord, and how we understand that God indeed wants us to serve as a family. He is our God who is a covenantal God, God of the family, and He desires that we serve Him as a family. That’s the desire of God.

The world today is trying to destroy this work of the Lord—to have the family in serving Him. The world is trying to destroy the makeup of the family. The world is trying to change the circumstances of lives in order to destroy the family. And how we pray that we will continue on to do the work of the Lord as a family, for it is God’s design and desire for us.

Now, all throughout the camp we will be learning from God’s Word, and this will be focused on the time when Joshua and the people of God were to take into the land—the Promised Land—where they had to start a new beginning, a new generation, with a new leader, in a new land.

And that speaks to us also today, where we are in a new kind of environment. God wants us to continue on serving Him the way He wants us—according to His Word. We don’t have to modify things. We don’t have to change things. We don’t have to adjust to the modern society. We have to stick to what God’s Word has for us. That’s why, in these messages, we always have to go back to the Bible. In the service of the Lord, we have to refer back to His Word.

Tonight, we will be going to know and to understand—to recall—I believe all of us are familiar with the basics, the fundamentals of the faith by which we can serve the Lord. We have to go back to the instructions that He has given us. We don’t have to re-engineer the words of God. We don’t have to change the pattern of God’s instructions for us. We have to go back to the Scriptures.

Then tomorrow, we will be looking at how the Lord wants us to implement or carry out these things. That refers to how He wants us to do things according to His standards. In that standard, God has for us the fear of the Lord, love for the Lord, and how we have to serve Him with all our might.

Next, we will look into the necessities in service, especially in the family. Again, yesterday was a good illustration of that necessity, where we are to recognise God’s design for the family. We had infant baptism, and we also have the responsibility to raise up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. That is what we are going to look into—how we should serve the Lord as a family before we can serve Him, and how we can prepare the family to give ourselves unto Him.

Then we also have to recall what God has done in our lives—the reasons why we need to serve the Lord. This is important because we must recall His goodness and His faithfulness, as was mentioned by pastor this evening—His great faithfulness. That we may understand why there is a need for us to truly devote ourselves, and to be able to sing—as we have sung a while ago—and say to the Lord, “Take my life, take our lives, take my family to serve Thee.”

And then we have also to look at the description of service. Although we have to look at the standards and the instructions, we also have to know what are the specific descriptions of service in serving the Lord. And of course, the nature of the service that we have also to understand, its characteristic, its nature, in order for us to know that it is not a forced demand of God, or that we are obligated to do it in order to be saved, or that we have to do it because there is a reward. It is God’s service, or it’s our service to the Lord, who has done so much for us.

Then we have to take note also of how we should keep on serving, because the world today is trying to keep the family out of the sight in the church, in the service of the Lord. We know that there is so much pull, that the world is trying to take our children away from the church, our young people away from the Bible, and even adults, our parents, away from the service of the Lord. These are the things that we have to take note of, so that we will be aware of the enemy’s tactics and the ways by which we are pulled out from the ways of God.

And I pray that through these messages, we can be moved, or the Lord will move us, the Spirit of God will move us, to do things for God, to serve the Lord. I pray that through this, we’ll be encouraged to love Him more and give our lives unto Him. How we look forward to the time when not only as a family we come to serve the Lord, but also as a church, the family of God in Bethel Bible Presbyterian Church.

At the start of this message, we have the theme of serving God as a family. This is taken from Joshua 24:15, and you might ask why we have to step back to Deuteronomy 4:1-13. Why not focus on this verse alone? We have to understand that this word from Joshua in Joshua 24:15 was made after they had gone through the Promised Land. Before that, there were instructions from God.

There were some prerequisites that He had made in order for them to know what they had to do when they went into the land. They had to understand the things that they had to do inside the land. It’s a new place, it’s a new environment for them. There are neighbours that would try to cause them to depart from the ways of the Lord. They had to know the basics in order to fulfil the plan of God and the purpose of God, why they were there in the Promised Land.

So we have to recall a bit of why they arrived in Canaan, why they arrived in the land filled with milk and honey. We know, and we will recall also in one of the messages, the history of this. But just a little bit of background, we have to know that when Joshua said and challenged them, “Choose you this day…” it was the time when they were already in the Promised Land. They had been there for around 30 years already, and during that time, they were conquering, invading, and taking into the territories that God had given them.

Before that, they were in Egypt. We know they were in Egypt for over 400 years, or around 400 years, and that was about the 1800s BC, before the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Around the 1400s BC, that is, minus 400 years, they left Egypt. They could have entered into the Promised Land immediately after two years, or even after a year of wandering, or marching away from the land of Egypt, and they could have just easily entered into Canaan.

But the people of Israel rebelled against God. We know how Moses sent spies—the 12 spies—and the 10 spies showed that, “Oh, this is not possible. This is a land filled with giants, and their land is... their kingdoms, or their cities were walled and tall. The walls were even double-walled. This place is a place of warriors. They will just consume us when we go in; they will just kill us.” Because of that news, that false news that they have, so we can say that even in those days there was fake news already, it was fake news. They had fear, they were afraid, and they wanted to go back to Egypt.

That caused the Lord to punish them, to chastise them. An additional 38 years was given in order for them to wander around the desert of Sinai, which they could have just gone through in about one month or so. And because of this wandering for 40 years, all of those who left Egypt—20 years old and upwards—died in the wilderness.

So now, there is a new generation, a new generation that entered into the Promised Land. That’s why Joshua challenged them. He needed not to ask them to choose if they were already decided when they left Egypt, once they went out from the bondage. But these are new generations of the children of Israel. They have to understand what God has for them, and they need to be challenged that they should serve the Lord. They needed to understand what it means to serve God, and that was the challenge for them.

We are here tonight, and we believe that all of us who come to this church camp want to know more. I believe you all know what it means to serve God as a family, but we pray that the Lord will somehow give us additional information, additional challenge, a zeal, and a passion to serve as a family. I pray that with this camp, this will not be in vain.

This is not just a tradition that we do every year; it is not a custom. It is not something that we just do because this church has a camp every year. We have to understand that God has a message for us, and I pray that you’ll also be prayerful to seek God’s leading, that God will speak to each one of us, that God will open our hearts and our eyes and allow us to see opportunities and privileges to serve the Lord.

There is a gap now that is in many churches today. We need to understand how the world is now more and more becoming anti-Christian, how the world is now hostile to Christianity, and this is what caused many families to depart from the ways of God. If we are not mindful of the word of God instructing us to serve the Lord as a family, as a church, sooner or later we will be like those churches which will just be dissolved, and that is not an impossibility.

The other year, there was one church in Singapore which was dissolved, and they had to move into another church. Interestingly, this church was supposedly not to be dissolved—the name itself is about covenant. How can you dissolve a covenant? But that’s it. That’s what the world is doing in many churches today—discouraging servants of the Lord, discouraging the parents, discouraging the young people, and sooner or later, they will be out of the churches. What we will see are just church buildings.

And that’s what we see in places where we used to have the fires, the zeal, the passion of Christianity. You go to Europe, you go to England, you go to Germany. These were the places where our reformers were willing to die for the faith. These were the places where we had churches filled with people who were willing to be burned at the stake for the faith. But you go to these places today and visit their churches, you cannot find the kind of church that you have in your Bethel BPC church. These are just churches that are filled with tourists taking pictures of what was the design and architecture of the church in the past.

If we are not mindful of this, sooner or later, that would become the likes of Bethel BPC—God forbid—if we are not mindful of God’s word, if we distance ourselves from the instructions of the Lord. I pray God will bless us with His word in this camp that we may be moved and encouraged to do what He wants us to do as a family—even to serve Him.

So in this Deuteronomy chapter 4, this is Moses’ time, and this was his recollection. In fact, this is known also as the second giving of the law or the reiteration or recollection of God’s law or God’s word for them. Moses was about to end his task. After Deuteronomy, or at the end of this book, we know he died, and it was Joshua who would take over to bring the people to cross the river Jordan into the promised land. But before that, the Lord gave these instructions to them through Moses.

These instructions are for the people to remember that they have a covenant with God, and with this covenant, God has written instructions for them—those people in those days—to understand what they are going to do inside the promised land. So, that’s why our title is "The Nucleus of Serving." The nucleus, as we understand, is a part of a cell where you have the DNA. It is the instruction, and this is the basic information of all that is to be done in the cell, or it is the core of the activities, or the processes, or the procedures that they have to do. They have to be anchored to this core, to this nucleus.

We are used today to the re-engineering of the information of many products. We have genetically modified organisms today. Those people who don’t want the odour of durian, they can change it. There are some people who want to change the figure or the form or the structure of things. There are also those who will try to re-engineer in order to make some products or some animals grow faster. Whatever they do, this is done in order to adjust to the needs of the people.

But we cannot do it with God’s instruction. What is written is written. This is what we are going to look at: What is written is written. Here, we don’t need to add, we don’t need to diminish, we don’t need to modify because we are in the postmodern world. We don’t need to change; we don’t need to adapt to another way because the culture has changed. We have to stick to what God has said. This is important because in our service to the Lord, whether individual, family, or church, we have to have a basic understanding of what it means to serve God.

We cannot just serve the Lord according to our own passion and emotion. We cannot just serve the Lord because it’s what we like. We cannot just serve the Lord because it’s what is effective. We cannot just serve the Lord because it’s what is successful. We have to serve the Lord because it is what God wants us to do for Him. It does not matter whether this is seen by the world as successful, prosperous, or effective. This is what God wants from us, and this is what Moses wanted to remind them of.

You are going into a land where you have a people around you with different religions. People around you—your neighbours—will be of different faiths. People around you will have different customs, practices, and cultures, and they will try to influence you. You will see that they are quite successful, quite progressive, and quite happy in this world. They are quite successful in many things they do, and you might think that these are the measures, the standard, the basis of life.

Therefore, you forget what are the words that I have told you and follow the ways and dictates of your neighbours and your friends around you. And this is what is happening in churches today. That is why we see that the world is not becoming churchly—it’s the church that is becoming worldly. That’s why we have to go back to the word of God.

We have here first the information and then how we can implement this, and of course, the importance and the inspiration of the word of God. First, we have the instruction. Moses told them, "Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments." (Deuteronomy 4:1a) The word statute here is significant because the original word describes a prescribed word, a prescribed law. When it is prescribed, it is specific to them.

We have doctors here: If you prescribe a certain medicine for one person, it does not mean that another person, having the same signs and symptoms, can just take that prescription for themselves. We know that each individual must be checked, must go to the doctor because there are differences. There might be underlying sicknesses or diseases that they have, and the doctor must consider these factors. So, this is a prescribed law for Israel, and the judgments—prescribed statutes and judgments that I teach you.

So here, we have the teaching of the word of God, the statutes, prescribed statutes and judgments, for you to do them, that ye may live, that ye may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Now take note, they were not yet in the promised land, but the promise of the Lord was, "It is yours; I have given this to you. Therefore, when you go in, you have to live therein, and you have to possess the land." You have to follow these prescribed statutes and judgments. When you go in, you don’t have to look around at how others live and prosper. You have to remember what was given to you before you enter.

And there’s a warning, and this we must consider in this sermon, which says, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." (Deuteronomy 4:2) You will be able to keep this, you are able to do this, if you will not add and you will not diminish.

Meaning, if you do something to re-engineer, redesign, or take out or add something, you are not actually keeping and following my commandments. That is a different commandment. The moment you add, the moment you diminish, that is not anymore my commandment. I have a prescribed statute and judgments for you, and therefore you have to keep it as is, word for word, letter for letter, even to the jot and tittle of God's Word. And that's the importance of how we have to understand what it means to believe in the inspiration and preservation of God's Word. That is the basic.

We are not promoting a certain doctrine of a group, or a certain denomination, or a certain church. This is what God says, it's very clear to us: "Ye shall not add." The strength of the word here, "ye shall not add," is the strength of the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not." This is the same strength: "Thou shalt not add, thou shalt not diminish." And therefore, you have to keep it as is, what has been given to God.

And there is also an accompanying promise in here that what I have given you, I will preserve this until the next generation. If you cannot add and you cannot diminish, I myself will give you the Word, will not add nor diminish this Word, and that is what Moses here highlighted—the importance of this instruction. No re-engineering, no modification, no change of word, because God warns that if you add and if you diminish, you are not keeping anymore my Word. And I, who give this Word to you, have this assurance that I also will not add anything nor diminish from my Word, so that you are able to keep it.

The example that Moses gives here is a time when they were compromising, or they compromised to the people of the land in Baal-Peor. I know we have to go back a little bit to Numbers 25 in order to understand this. Now in Numbers 25 upwards, we have here Balaam's compromise, how he tried to agree with Balak in order to curse the people of Israel because of money, because of the promise of promotion, because of the promise of prosperity, and God preserved them, protected them. God did not allow Balaam to say curses against the people of Israel.

But Balaam succeeded in trying to lure the people of Israel, especially the men, as it is clearly given here in verse 1 of chapter 25: "And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab." So we can expect that these were men of Israel. The idea that was given by Balaam here was, if we cannot curse them, and we cannot say bad words to them, or we cannot destroy them by our words, let God Himself, who protects them, destroy them. And the way was for them to engage with the daughters of the people around.

Take note, they were not yet in the promised land. They were still in Moab. Moab is down there, if you can imagine the Dead Sea, down at the right side of it, the eastern side. You are there, the Moabites, and they were still there. To recall, Moses recalled how they engaged themselves with the women of Moab, and these were temple prostitutes, and he called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods, and the people did eat and bow down to their gods.

So Balaam was not able to curse them. He says the only way by which we can destroy these people is to let them commit sin. Let them compromise. Let them diminish God's Word. Let them not obey the words of God. Let them take out some parts of the commands of God so that they will not hear it, they will not listen to it, they will not obey it, and that they will compromise with their neighbors. And so here, although there was no curse from Balaam, God Himself, with His wrath, sent a plague to the people of Israel because of their compromise and adultery with the daughters of Baal-Peor.

So this was how Moses recalled that compromise, and he says, "You don't have to go back to that time, or you will be under the curse of God Himself." You have to keep the Word of God as is given to you. And then he reminded them again, "You who remain faithful to God until this day, you are here." And so these statutes again, he reminded repeatedly: "These statutes and judgments that the Lord commanded you."

The first thing that we have to remember here: "Ye shall do so in the land whither ye go to possess it." You have to do it. You have to apply what God has given you. You have to make it part of your life, you have to have these words in your daily life. You don't have to dichotomize this: "my church life" or "this is my religious life; this is my secular life." You will always have the Word of God at the very centre. You'll always have God as the preeminent one at the very centre of your life, whether you are at work, at play, or in the church. God's Word must be the centre. You have to do it, and you have to keep and do them.

The word "keep" here is, of course, to watch, to guard so that nobody will take it away from you. It is like watching over important, valuable materials or jewellery that you have. You keep it in a very special place. You don’t want even children to reach it. You don’t want others to look at it. You don’t want others to know where you put it because these are expensive—maybe gold, silver, whatever that you have—you have to keep it so that no one will take it away from you. And that's the idea of keeping it. Let the Word of God be hidden in your heart. Don’t let the ideas and philosophies of the world take it away from you. And this is what is now common even in churches today.

So Moses wanted them to understand that you have to do this, you have to keep that. Why? Because this is your wisdom and your understanding. Without the words of God, you don’t know what are the things that you have to do in that land. Without God's Word, you are without direction, without discernment. You cannot determine what is evil and what is good. This is the measure, this is the standard. God’s Word is there to let you know what you should do. And so, without the Word of God, you cannot discern what is right from wrong.

That’s why it is important for us to continue reading God’s Word, learning God’s Word, applying God’s Word, because it is the only way by which we can divide and discern what is darkness from light, what is truth from falsehood—especially today, that we have many scammers, false news, fake news, conspiracy theories that sometimes look true, look real, and we are taken into it. And there are many Christians that are into this kind of conspiracy theory because they have departed their eyes, their minds, their hearts from God’s Word.

And so he says here, "You have to keep it because when you enter into the land, you will be encountering so many of these new things. And they’re very attractive. They’re very attractive because they have promises of material rewards. They have promises of some pleasures and entertainment. There are promises of promotions, promises of prosperity, and you will forget what the Word of God tells you to do in this promised land.

God's Word will keep you. God's Word will remind you that the things in this world are nothing. That you don’t have to keep and invest yourselves in the things of this world, because you have to invest in things eternal. And the Word of God is the only way by which we or you can be reminded of this."

So that’s why he says, "It is your wisdom, it is your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and people will see, because of your wise and understanding lives, they will come to you. They will ask you, they will seek for your help, they will ask for your counsel."

And this is what should be in the church and for Christians. It is not Christians who are going into psychiatry, psychology, sociology, what should be done to these things. It must be that these people in the world must come to Christianity and ask, "What is in the Scriptures? What is the Bible teaching? What is the Bible telling us?"

But instead of going and focusing on the Scriptures, Christians tend to refer to what is studied in science, what is the result of experiments, the result of studies. And that’s why even in Christianity today, we refer to what are the results of the modern findings. Missions today are based on things that are researched. These are the things that come to the church today, because we left out the wisdom and the understanding of God.

Supposedly, it is the people of the world that will come to the church, to come to believers, to come to Christians to ask for counsel. But it is now the world, the Christianity, going out from the church and looking for the counsel of the world. So we have to understand this, and we have to take note of this. And this is what God’s Word here is telling us, telling them, that they have to remember and to keep.

Take note of verse 9. He says, "Take heed to thyself." The idea of taking heed is to focus on it, to continue to remind themselves of it, and giving attention to it. Take heed; don’t allow your eyes to focus on other things. Focus your eyes on the Word of God, and let others fade away. Fix your eyes upon God’s Word. Take heed and keep thy soul diligently.

For if you will allow the wisdom of the world to come in, you’ll easily be lured away to follow the ways of the world, and you forget the things which thine eyes have seen. Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, which you have supposedly known, which you have supposedly seen, you have understood, but you depart because you have forgotten the Word of God.

And it's interesting that Moses here described that if you want it to remain in your lives, lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life, you have to keep on teaching it. Teach thy sons and thy sons' sons in order to remind yourself. You have to teach it. In Hebrew, the idea of teaching is a superlative or an increased way of learning. You want to learn, teach. You want to understand and you want to remember, you have to teach. You don't have to apply as a teacher in the Sunday school, you don't want to just volunteer to be a teacher of your church, but teach it to the children so that you will remember.

Why do parents forget about God's word? They are not teaching it to the children. Why do parents forget about the wisdom and counsel of the Lord? Because they did not pass it to their children. They themselves are not immersed in the word of God. The moment you teach, you will read more, you will learn more. You're not going to teach without reading and understanding what you have to teach. Teachers will agree that you have to read again and again in order to teach, and that's why you have to learn it yourself. And when you learn it yourself, you have to immerse yourself in what the word of God is telling you in order for you to teach others. And that's the way for us, that's the way for them to remember—teach your children.

Take note here, the word "sons" actually is a word for descendants. It's not just for males. Don't misunderstand that it's just for men or boys. It is for the children. In fact, here in verse 10, the idea is for the children specifically—the day that stood before the Lord thy God in Horeb. It says here, "that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth and that they may teach their children" (Deuteronomy 4:10b).

Serving God as a family begins with parents teaching their children with God's word. The nucleus of serving, the pattern, the instruction for us to be able to serve as one family, is to teach our children what God wants us to do for Him. Ignorance of the children shows the ignorance of the parents. Ignorance of the children of God's word shows how ignorant the parents are in the word of God.

Although we know that there are parents who try to teach their children, it is the children who don't want to listen. There are children who are really taken and swayed by the world. We cannot keep them; they're already influenced by their peers, by their friends, and it's difficult for the parents to gather them, especially if they grow up into the teenage years. It's difficult to bring them and gather them and let them hear God's word.

When my children were young, we had to have a daily devotion. When I was staying at a certain distance from the college (I was for those of you who are familiar with Calvary Pandan, it's far from Far Eastern Bible College), I had to travel by train, so I had to gather my children before leaving so that we could have a devotion. When they were young, it was easy for me to carry them from their beds to the living room to listen to Bible stories using the children's RPG for them to understand at their own level.

But when they grew up, especially the boys, it became difficult to carry them. When they are sometimes bigger and taller than us, we can't carry them anymore, and we have to force them, drag them. And when they reach that stage, it's difficult. Sometimes you share God's word, teach God's word, tell them about the word of God, and they purposely, like, even before you open your mouth, they purposely show that it's boring again. That's the attitude especially for, I don't know, maybe young people here. Not that I'm talking bad about my children, it's just sometimes like that.

And you have to continue on, but that's the attitude when they grow up to the teenage years. It's difficult. So, that's why when they are young, when they are still small, you have to train them. You have to train them to listen to God's word, to hear God's word, and to teach them. We have a very small window to occupy for us to teach our children. That's why we have to take it and grab it, use it, and by teaching them, we learn. By teaching them, we take it to heart. By teaching them, we remember the words of God.

The Lord here gives us the way by which it was given. We know that it is given as an instruction that we don't have to take it or add to it, diminish it. And then there's an instruction for us to do it, to keep it, to teach it. And then God gave us this idea of how this instruction was given. I believe that most of us are familiar with how many churches today rely not on the written word of God, but on visions and dreams, and apparitions and miracles somehow.

But the word of God here is clearly described how it was given in verse 11, where it says, ”And ye came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, only ye heard a voice" (Deuteronomy 4:11-12). Hearing of God's voice, and this voice that was heard, you didn't see anything, any similitude, any apparitions, any dreams, or visions.

It was declared unto you His covenant, and He says He commanded you to perform this. And you take note of this: He wrote them upon two tables of stone. Yes, it was for the Ten Commandments, but we understand that God also gave His word to His prophets, to the apostles, and they wrote it. They wrote it; that's the word "scripture." The word "scripture" refers to the written word.

So, what is this word that we don't have to add or diminish, that we have to do, keep, and teach? It is the word that is given by God, inspired from Him, His voice given. It was given to the prophets and the apostles, and those prophets and apostles wrote it. Even the Ten Commandments, God Himself wrote it. That's why we have the Bible today. It is God's word written.

Well, you may ask why there were visions and dreams in the time of the prophets and the apostles. We have to understand that that was God's way of revealing to the people and to show as a sign that indeed these were the words of God before the Bible was made complete. But now we have a complete Bible with us, the written word—the canon, 66 books in the Bible, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament—complete. We don't have to add to it, we don't have to diminish it. This is the word that God reminded us not to add or diminish.

You might ask, "Well, it was written during the time of Deuteronomy. How can we know that it is with reference to the 66 books?" It was 1,800 years before it was completed in the book of Revelation, which was around 90 years after the birth of our Lord and Saviour. Now, we have to understand again that this word that He was referring to, the word that He has given. It is the word of God, not the words of men. It is the word of God, not the inspired man, men who wrote, but the inspired word of God, written by men. And that's why we have it until today.

Without this complete instruction, without this fixed instruction, without this prescribed instruction, we may be serving God the best we can as we think we are. We may be giving ourselves even to die for the faith because we think that's the way we serve the Lord. We may be giving all our treasures, our money, our resources to the church or to the work of the ministry because that's what we think is service to the Lord. But if it is not according to God's word, it is nothing before God.

We think, "I will die for the Lord. I will die. I will die for the Lord. I am willing to give up all. I am willing to give everything to the poor. I am willing to resign my work. I am willing to serve the Lord all my days of my life from now on." But if it's not according to God's word, that is still nothing.

That’s why in the end many people would say “Lord, Lord we have done so many miracles, we have done so many great works, we have done so many things for you,” and the Lord will just say "Depart from me ye that work iniquity." Ye that the work iniquity is lawlessness, without the law, without the scriptures, without what has been prescribed for you, you did not do what I have prescribed for you to do.

You might have given everything, you are a hero, the world will see you as a saint, the world will see you as one who is great, the world will see you as a very charitable person, you give up everything for him, for the Lord, for the church and for the people. But if it is not according to God's word you are doing iniquity, “depart from me ye that work iniquity.” That's why it's important for us to go back to the scriptures, go back to the Bible.

We may be seen as old-fashioned people. Why go back to the Bible? That's old-fashioned, that's archaic, that's ancient, that's not even relevant today. The Bible that's talking about 1,800 years before, why should we read that? Why can't we read new things today? Philosophers, there are some economists, scientists today with so many ideas about the things we can do to improve our lives. Why go back to the Bible?

Well, we have to go back to the Bible because the Lord says so, that we have to have His prescribed statutes, prescribed word, and the judgments, because this is the standard by which He will judge the people. We know that we are saved by faith. We know that we are given eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But those who truly have faith in the Lord Jesus have faith also in His word.

You cannot say that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ but you don't believe in His word. That is unacceptable. You say you believe in Jesus, but you do things according to your own ways. You believe in Jesus, but you are using the pattern of other things or the world in your life. That is not acceptable by God. That is not pleasing before God. So we have to go back to this.

People will see you, maybe, as sometimes they will call you a fanatic, they will call you a Bible- idolator, idolizing the Bible, but where can we know the truth of God except from His word? Where can we know what He wants us to do except from His word? And where can we get the right instruction and prescription apart from His word? That's why if we want to serve as a family, let us begin with the Scriptures. It is the nucleus. Without it, there is chaos.

There may be service, you may have growth, but because it is not according to the information within that nucleus, it is cancerous. It is cancerous. It is not based on what has been designed and planned by God, and instead of helping, it will destroy the faith. It will destroy the faith of many. It will destroy the faith of our children. It will destroy the faith of our brethren. Let’s go back to the Bible. This is the basic thing that we have to do when we serve as a family. Go back to what God has given us, and He has inspired us. We thank God for His preservation, and we have it in the Bible. We have it in our hands today.

So many people would try to argue, "Why can't we use these modern versions? Well, I can better understand them, I can better comprehend them, I can better see the truth when I read this." But take note: you don't have to add nor diminish. And we have only two lines of the original word given by God, I mean the original word of the Bible, the original languages or the original texts. We have the preserved, the received text, and the modern eclectic or the modern text— what we commonly call the corrupt text. And what we have today in the available market, aside from those old versions of Tyndale and Geneva Bible and others which were based on the received text, we have only the King James.

I know this will cause some kind of controversy but let us understand what God says: "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it" (Deuteronomy 4:2a). Therefore, we have to stick to what God has inspired and preserved, for that is how we keep His word. If we follow words that are with addition and with those diminished, then we are not actually following the word of the Lord.

May God help us. May God cause us to understand the basic teaching that we have to learn. The simple message that we have to learn from this first message is: when we want to serve as a family, we have to go back to the Scriptures. That’s the way we serve Him. For if not, if we rely on our own, God will, at the end, say, "Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity,”(Matthew 7:23b) — ye that work apart from what I have prescribed, ye that work apart from what I have told you, ye that work apart from what I have written for you. May the Lord help us. May the Lord guide us.

Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we truly thank Thee for preserving Thy word, Thy inspired word, preserved for us even until today. And we pray that we have this heart and devotion to keep and obey Thy word in our service unto Thee, knowing that we cannot keep that exact prescribed word if these are mutilated and corrupted by men. So, Father, help us. We want to serve Thee as a family, as a church. Help us to go back to what Thou hast prescribed, for we pray and we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen.

THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY

Message 1: The Nucleus Of Serving

Message 1: The Nucleus Of Serving

Deuteronomy 4:1-13

Honour and Obey Thy Parents

Honour and Obey Thy Parents

Deuteronomy 5:16; Ephesians 6:1-3

Message 2: The Norms In Serving

Message 2: The Norms In Serving

Deuteronomy 4:1-13

Family Worship

Family Worship

Deuteronomy 6:1-25

Morning Devotion 3

Morning Devotion 3

Deuteronomy 8

Choose Life

Choose Life

Deuteronomy 30:19