How To Hold Fast To God

Introduction

We are going to start reading at Deuteronomy 10:20 and continue to the end of the pericope in chapter 11:1.¹ [Reading]

Over the last two weeks we have seen that the same God who is sovereign over the entire universe has also sovereignly chosen to set His heart upon an undeserving people. And last week we saw that His love should produce hearts that are tender toward Him and compassionate toward others.

But these four verses take our response one step further. Since God has committed Himself eternally to us, verse 20 says, “To Him you shall hold fast.” I'm going to especially focus on that new command as it ties all of the themes of these four verses together. “To Him you shall hold fast.”

Do you cling to God? Some of you might think, “I want to. But week after week I find myself getting so easily distracted from the Lord, and I don’t know what to do about it." Some drift from the Lord through difficulties. Others drift from the Lord because life is so comfortable that they don't sense their need for Him. But no matter what the reasons may be for your failing to hold fast to God, my hope is that the seven points of this sermon will give you some tangible and practical ways that will help you to improve your hold on God. You know that He is holding fast to you, but your desire is to develop a closer relationship with Him. How do you do that?

Reverence (v. 20a)

There are seven ways in this passage that we can develop a closer relationship with God. The first way may surprise you. It says, “You shall fear the LORD your God.” We might expect fear would do the opposite to us - that it might make us keep our distance from God. But Moses places fearing God and holding fast to God in the same verse. They obviously belong together. And Jeremiah 32:40 explains why: God puts into the hearts of His children a fear of Him so that they will not depart from Him. The fear of God is one of the ways God keeps us clinging to Him.

And this is such an important - and such a neglected doctrine in the church, that I want to recommend this book by Robert Morey. Some of you already have it, but Kathy and I have purchased extra copies for anyone who doesn't have a copy - if (and only if) you commit to reading it. It's called, "Fearing God: The Key to the Treasure House of Heaven." We probably have enough for one for each family. In this book Morey develops the critical importance of this doctrine. The Bible emphasizes the fear of God far more than it emphasizes love or faith. You might find that surprising, but Morey documents how loving God is mentioned 88 times in the Bible - 45 times in the Old Testament and 43 times in the New Testament. Trusting God is mentioned 91 times. In contrast, fearing God is pressed home to our hearts 278 times. Morey concludes:

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible proclaims that the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life and those who drink deeply of it shall have the blessings of God in this life and in the life to come. However, those who reject the fear of the Lord will end up in the ways of death.

What is the only logical conclusion we can draw from the frequency of the mention of the fear of God in Scripture? The fear of God is the predominant response to and fundamental attitude toward God, His Word, His Law and His name, that God desires.²

And just scanning through the numerous chapter headings of his book will help you to realize that the absence of the fear of the Lord is a key reason why America and the church in America is in the shambles that it is in today. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Morey calls the church back to the holy God whose authority we cannot negotiate and whose judgment we cannot ignore. And we will see that there is a logical order in these seven graces. The fear of God teaches us whose approval matters, whose Word settles any issue definitively, and how seriously we must take our sins. Love, trust, service, and obedience grow strong when we remember who God is.

Lose that fear, and pastors begin trimming their message to please the audience. Christians begin excusing the sins they should be killing. Churches begin revising the Scriptures they should be obeying. Sentiment replaces holiness, and the fear of man takes over.

And this fear (when properly understood) actually deepens our love and appreciation for Him. It makes us stand in awe of God that He would pour out His wrath on His Son so that we could be saved. Psalm 130:4 says that God’s forgiveness leads us to fear Him. It is not at all at odds with assurance of our forgiveness. It is one of the evidences that our assurance is a true assurance that is wrought by the Holy Spirit. At the cross we discover both how terrible our sin is and how astonishing His mercy is. Moses actually started this major unit of thought in verse 12 with the words, "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God." Here He repeats that command, and that repetition tells us that fear is not a preliminary lesson that mature believers eventually graduate from. We should never graduate from the fear of the Lord. Covenant life begins, continues, and ends with reverence before God.

And the intervening verses between verse 12 and this verse have actually deepened our realization of why God is indeed worthy of awe and reverence. After all, He is the one who governs the movements of the planets and the billions of stars in the sky. And He was sovereign in His election of us. He is a Judge who judges impartially - which means that He is a God of vengeance. We don't have to take vengeance against those who have hurt us, because (as Romans 12:19 words it), "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord." And it also means that we are secure because the only way we could avoid that deserved vengeance is for that vengeance to fall upon a willing substitute - Jesus. When we wander from Jesus, we wander from the only safe place in the universe from God's justice. And we saw that this God takes no bribes; He is a just God. So on the surface you might think that this God would produce terror in us. But the previous passage also says that God loves the orphan, the widow, and the stranger. He stands up for the weak and vulnerable. So yeah, if you are oppressing the vulnerable, you are in danger. But if you are trusting Him and following Him, that awe of Him gives security.

So, if you have not been successful in conquering your sins, or you lack assurance of your salvation, or if your love for God has grown shallow, or your ability to be a disciplined soldier of the cross is weak, then I would urge you to read this book - and begin to cultivate the fear of God. It is a key. Let His greatness shrink the threats that intimidate you. Let His holiness expose the excuses that deceive you. Let His mercy make you marvel that this glorious God has welcomed you through Christ. The more seriously you take God, the more tightly you will cling to Him. So I highly, highly recommend this book. The fear of God is an absolute key to holding fast to God.

It governs how we approach Him in worship. We worship Him on His terms, not ours - what we call the Regulative Principle of Worship. Our awe of Him makes us want to know what He cares about in worship. It takes the focus off of us.

And there are so many other implications that I don't have time to get into. So if you want to cling to God, I would encourage you to study this doctrine. There is very little fear of God in the modern church.

Service (v. 20b)

Now, since we tend to be governed by the things we fear, if we fear God, the next phrase makes sense. Moses says, “Him you shall serve.” To cling to God is not just an emotional state. It involves serving Him. Everyone who fears God serves Him - delights in serving Him - considers it a great privilege to serve Him.

We've already seen in the past that the Hebrew word for service can describe formal worship (like we are doing this morning), but it also reaches into the whole obedience rendered by a servant to a master and by a subject to a king.

Israel was entering a land crowded with rival gods and rival claims. The temptation would not always be to renounce Yehowah openly. More often than not it would be to add other loyalties — to serve the Lord while also preserving whatever local deity seemed useful for rain, fertility, security, or pleasures.

And you might think, "Well, I'm not a syncretist like some of those Israelites were. That's as far from my thinking as you could get." But subtle forms of syncretism are constantly vying for our attention and dividing our service. Modern idols have lost their ancient names but not their demands. Let's look at some concrete examples:

Suppose telling the truth at work may cost you the approval of someone who could impact your future career. You need the job. Your family depends upon that income. Those are real concerns, and I don't make light of such concerns at all. It's not fun to lose a job. But this could be a place where serving God comes into conflict with job security. Can you trust God enough to tell the truth and leave the outcome with Him? Or will you disobey Him because you are convinced that your security rests in keeping your boss happy? That is a concrete situation where you discover whether you are truly fearing God more than man and serving God in everything you do. And if that immediately exposes fear in your heart, bring that fear to the Lord. Ask Him for the grace to obey God in the particular conversation you are dreading having - but you know you need to have. Ask Him to help you fear Him more than man.

Politicians face these kinds of pressures all the time, and we can pray that they would fear God and serve Him more than they fear their constituency and serve lobbyists. Because prolife organizations have compromised the Scripture all across our nation, Christian politicians fear alienating those prolife organizations that are viciously opposed to the abolition of abortion and the criminalization of everyone involved in abortion. This has been a hidden secret in the past, but it’s the prolife organizations that have killed bill after bill that would criminalize abortion. You saw the link Jarrod provided to the debate between Bradley Pierce (a tremendous warrior for Christ) and Steven Aden (the chief Legal Advisor for Americans United for Life, who argues vehemently against criminalizing women who voluntarily and deliberately get abortions).³ That is one of several so-called prolife organizations that lobby politicians to not be consistent in criminalizing abortion. So even though these Christian politicians recognize that abolitionist bills are 100% biblical and are even consistent with the American constitution, they cave to pressure such lobbyists. Rather than being a servant of God as Romans 13 calls magistrates to be, they become servants to the most powerful lobbyists. We can't just read this phrase, “Him you shall serve” in the abstract. We need to apply it to the real life situations that we are facing today.

But let’s get uncomfortable and point the finger inwardly. Entertainment is another area that tests whom we serve. Entertainment promises rest, and the Bible is certainly in favor of rest and entertainment - if it is done rightly. But it is easy to use rest for a tired brain as an excuse to start scrolling aimlessly through page after page of Facebook, Instagram, X, or other social media. I'm not opposed to those social media if they are used as a tool under Christ's Lordship. But if you just passively scroll through pages to see what images catch your curiosity, then you are letting Facebook dictate what you are looking at. You are serving Facebook, rather than letting Facebook serve Christ through you. You are not taking dominion; Facebook is taking dominion of you, your eyes, and your heart. To use it properly requires training Facebook to only display the people and groups you follow, and the posts that you believe God would have you watch and/or going directly to the pages that you know to be reliable sources. Otherwise it is can be a dangerous tool that can introduce you to all kinds of sinful things. So that is yet another example that can be a test of what you are serving. Too many Christians let Facebook dictate what they should watch, and before they know it they cave in to temptations to deviate from the Lord's commands. We can rest and find entertainment, but we should make sure that we are doing so in a way that still holds fast to God.

The point of those three illustrations is that any good created thing can lessen our grip on God when any of these seven points is missing.

Attachment (v. 20c)

In the next phrase, Moses calls for the attachment of our lives to God: ‘and to Him you shall hold fast.' That is the heart of this sermon: “and to Him you shall hold fast.” The Hebrew verb for "hold fast" is dabaq, and it is used more than 23,000 times in the Old Testament. It means to cling, cleave, stick, to be dedicated to, or to remain closely attached to something or someone - depending on the context. And let me give you some sample contexts where the verb is used so that you can get a feel for the strength of this word.

It is used when Genesis says a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife - with dabaq being translated as "cleave." So there is a leaving that enables a cleaving. That image of marriage is remarkable. It's a life-long bond of loyalty and friendship. It obviously starts with wedding vows. But those vows are then lived out in thousands of ordinary decisions that make a husband and wife more or less consistently cleave to each other. You make time to listen to each other. You tell the truth when hiding the truth would be easier. You ask forgiveness of each other. You remain faithful through disappointment. And when your spouse is weak, you draw near, care, and minister.

That image of leaving and cleaving helps us understand something about holding fast to God. Perhaps you open your Bible and immediately find something that exposes your sin. Well, that is God Himself speaking to you through His Word. And what you do next indicates whether you cleave to Him or whether you're not interested in what He has to say. Do you hurry past that passage because it is uncomfortable? Do you explain why it does not really apply to you? Or do you stop and say, “Lord, You are right. Please forgive me. Help me to change”? That is one very practical way of holding fast.

And some of you may need encouragement at this point: clinging does not always mean that you feel strong. You may come to worship exhausted and weary. You may struggle to find words when you pray because your mind is blank. That’s OK. David experienced that kind of deadening weariness. You can still come to Christ because you know that you need Him. Bring that weakness to Him too. When we cleave to God, we are vulnerable before Him, and we admit that we want to love Him better.

Let me use another illustration - that of two boards being glued together. David Thompson's commentary points to this usage of the word and says that God calls His people to be “glued” to Him.⁴ And that's actually a legitimate paraphrase since the Hebrew word can refer to two boards that are stuck together or glued together. That's a different image than marriage, but I think it's a useful one. Moses was saying that Israel must not allow other allegiances to draw their hearts away from the Lord. They must attach themselves to Yehowah like glue and refuse to let go.

But there are other interesting associations with this Hebrew verb dabaq. In Proverbs 18:24, the Hebrew word is translated as "sticks" when it says of God that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. He's there for you when you need Him. Well, this passage calls us to imitate God by sticking closer to God than we would to a brother. How do we do that? Well, when others mock six day creation, Biblical role relationships in marriage, or try to draw you away from God, you tell them that you love God; you are not ashamed of identifying with Him.

But that image also calls for developing friendship, communion, and fellowship with God just like you would with a friend. That takes time. Some of you skip personal devotions day after day. Let me tell you something - you can't have a deep friendship with God without spending the time needed to develop that relationship - listening to Him speak to your heart through His Word (the Bible) and speaking back to Him through prayer. So putting daily devotions into your schedule is one way of holding fast to God.

And when you study the other 23,000+ times that this word dabaq occurs in the Hebrew Bible, you realize that clinging to God includes trusting Him. We cling when circumstances appear to contradict His promises. That's trust. Israel would face that; they would face fortified cities that seemed impregnable, scary armies that seemed invincible, drought, and numerous difficulties that might make them feel like giving up. Faith says (like the disciples did when Jesus asked them if they were going to leave too - when everyone else was leaving Jesus), “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Clinging to God also includes letting go of other things sometimes. We cannot hold fast to God while clutching onto something that God disapproves of. Repentance lets go of the sins that alienate us from God and offend Him. So we need to ask ourselves, "What relationship, ambition, grievance, bitterness, secret pleasure, or cherished identity competes with my attachment to Christ?"

Another connotation of the Hebrew word dabaq is that clinging includes perseverance - staying stuck through thick and through thin. A dramatic beginning is not enough. Deuteronomy 11:1 will add the word “always” to this set of seven commands. Covenant faithfulness must survive prosperity as well as crisis, long monotony as well as intense testing.

Public Confession (v. 20d)

In the next phrase we see that that attachment also becomes a public testimony or a public confession of God's name. And the way Moses words the next phrase may seem odd to modern Christians. He says, “and swear by His name.” It's not referring to cussing. In Scripture a lawful oath is swearing by His name. It calls upon God as witness and judge. Now, that should not be done casually in ordinary conversation - saying, "I swear, I'm telling the truth." Telling the truth should be such a habit that such swearing is unnecessary. But there are public places where swearing is mandated. Taking citizenship vows would be one such place. Or, in a civil court we used to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. That is lawful swearing in His name - even at personal cost. When we take such an oath in the sight of God, we are making a public confession of ultimate allegiance. We are going to stick to the God of truth, even when it costs us.

Now, we have to be careful not to violate the third commandment. In the Heidelberg catechism questions of the last couple of weeks we have seen that this command does not authorize careless oath-taking or swearing. The third commandment requires that God’s name be used only with truth, necessity, and reverence.

Church membership vows, and the marriage vows taken yesterday would be two other examples of lawful swearing.

But the larger principle concerns public identification. Covenant allegiance cannot remain a private preference hidden whenever confession becomes costly. Israel must name the Lord as Lord publicly.

Christ says that whoever confesses Him before men, He will confess before His Father. He is not ashamed to own you as His child, and you should not be ashamed to own Him as Your Lord.

Praise (v. 21)

Verse 21 goes on to talk about the character of the God that we are confessing. He is the God who had done so much for them. It’s not as if He only wants us to sacrifice; He has sacrificed so much. It says, “He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen.”

“He is your praise” can mean both that God is the object of Israel’s praise and that He is the ground of Israel’s glory - that we glory in Him and in Him alone. Israel must not boast in its military strength, national virtue, wealth, numbers, or ancestry. Whatever was truly glorious about Israel (and there was plenty that was great about Israel) came from belonging to Yehowah. Forget MAGA if MAGA can only be achieved through man-centered means. America will never become great again unless it regains these seven virtues that we are going through.

Peter Pett notes that Israel’s praise rests upon miraculous deeds that they had actually witnessed.⁵ Biblical worship is not generated by vague religious optimism. It answers God’s acts in history and in our own personal lives. It is based upon real events of God in history. They had all witnessed the exodus, the defeat of Pharaoh, provision in the wilderness, preservation after rebellion, and victories already given. Those all declared His power and faithfulness, and that He was praiseworthy. Their various forms of communion meals were concrete ways in which they declared that God alone was their praise.

And just as a side note, people have occasionally wondered why we offer both leavened and unleavened bread at the Lord's Table. It's because both of those sum up God's redemptive plan. Leaven (or yeast) represents the growth of something. In the Passover they were forbidden to eat leavened bread because that meal was picturing the sacrifice of Jesus removing the leaven of sin - in other words, the growth of sin. But starting with Pentecost (fifty days later), Leviticus 23 mandates the use of leaven to picture what the New Testament (cf. Matt. 13:33) speaks of as the leaven of the kingdom - or the growth of the kingdom. Likewise, Leviticus 7:13 calls for leaven to be offered with peace offerings - the weekly sacrament. Since 1 Corinthians 10-11 says that the Lord's Table replaces all of the Old Testament communion meals (not just Passover) we use both kinds of bread to remind us of both lessons. But the point is that if the leaven of Christ's kingdom is not growing in our lives, then automatically the leaven of sin will start growing. One or the other will always be growing. Christ dealt once and for all with the leaven of sin and replaced it with the leaven of His kingdom. The spread of the kingdom replaces the spread of sin. So I think that leavened bread is especially appropriate for New Covenant times, but both kinds of bread remind us of God's redemptive acts.

That is a great reason to praise God. And every time we partake of the Lord's Table, we are declaring God to be our praise and are remembering His great acts of redemption. The first feast pointed to the cross, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. The next feast (Pentecost) declares that the promised Holy Spirit has been poured out. And it promises that we can experience the miraculous power of His Spirit. Every conversion declares that the risen King is gathering His people. That's the leaven of the kingdom - the growth of His kingdom.

And let me briefly comment on the phrase, “He is your God.” Two weeks ago we saw that this is astonishing covenant language pointing to union and communion and belongingness. The Lord of heaven and earth has brought His people into covenant fellowship with Himself. How could we not praise Him? When you have a personal relationship with God (in other words, you know experientially that He is your God), praise is easier - and certainly clinging to Him is easier. So even the order of these seven virtues is logical. And God's greatest covenant gift was not land, prosperity, protection, or even forgiveness considered by itself. The greatest covenant gift was God Himself. He said, “I will be your God, and you shall be My people.”

Remembrance (v. 22)

Moses now gives them a particular reason for praise — one they can see by simply by looking around them. He says, “Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as the stars of heaven in multitude.”

The comparison reaches back to God’s promise to Abraham - calling them to remembrance. God told Abraham, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. So shall your descendants be.” The multitude standing before Moses was that promise made visible.⁶ Their phenomenal growth had occurred despite oppression, attempted genocide, plagues, and the exodus, and the wilderness disciplines, and repeated rebellion. Humanly speaking, many forces should have erased them. Yet covenant faithfulness preserved and multiplied them.

So remembering what God has done for you and for others is essential to proper clinging. Present trials loom largest when past mercies are forgotten. This is where reading well-written church history books can be helpful. But so can remembering what God has done in your own past. Remember how God saved you, answered your prayers in the past, preserved your faith, forgave your sins, helped you to escape danger, taught you new truths, gave you children, and included them in baptism. He has clung to you, which makes it easier for us to cling to Him.

Verse 22 also looks forward. The promise of a star-like multitude could not be exhausted by ethnic Israel. The New Testament identifies all who belong to Christ Jew or Gentile) as Abraham’s offspring according to the promise. Why would those of us who are Gentile believers be considered Abraham's offspring? And the answer is that we are united to Jesus - who is the Israel of God. The last book of the Bible shows the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham as eventually a multitude that no human could number from every nation, tribe, people, and tongue.

Love & Obedience (Deut. 11:1)

And when we remember all that God has done for us, the last point (love and obedience) should naturally follow. The pericope concludes in chapter 11, verse 1, where Moses says, “Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always.” The "therefore" shows that this verse is 100% compatible with each of the previous six points - and actually flows from them.

But this verse also makes explicit that love and obedience are not opponents. Love supplies the covenant heart of obedience; obedience supplies the concrete expression of love. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” It is impossible to say that you cling to God if you have no love for Him, and it is impossible to say that you have genuine love for Him if you do not keep His commandments. 1 John 5:3 says the same thing, "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." Why are they not burdensome? Well, if the previous six points characterize your life, it is a privilege to love and obey God from the heart. It's a huge privilege. It's a delight.

Moses uses synonyms to help define what this clause means. He speaks of God's charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments. I won’t get into those distinctions much this morning, but I t covered everything in His law. So if Israel was to hold fast to the God of the Bible, Israel would need to live by every word written in the Bible. They were not allowed to divide the Bible into portions that mattered and portions that could be ignored. And the word “always” adds duration. Even in the New Testament, we are to live by everything in the Bible - yes, even the ceremonial laws. (And I will explain that in a bit.) In Matthew 4:4 Jesus said, "Man [not just Israel, but man] shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." In some way we are called to live by every word of Scripture. In Romans 15:4, Paul said the same thing. He said, "For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." So how do we live by the ceremonial law, which was fulfilled in Christ, abolished, and therefore no longer literally binding? We live by those words first of all by believing that they have been fulfilled in Jesus, and secondly by applying what the ceremonial law promises that Jesus will do for us. When you understand the ceremonial law, you no longer cling to the types since those types help you to appropriate from heaven everything that Jesus has purchased for us. They teach us every detail of what Jesus purchased for us. We are to cling to God by clinging to the whole Bible and do so "always."

That word "always" also indicates that allegiance to God is not intended only at the point of conversion, or perhaps during a very moving conference experience, or following a youthful experience of enthusiasm. It is our whole life.

This exposes us, doesn't it? None of us have loved and obeyed always. Our clinging has weakened, our service has been inconsistent, our confession has sometimes faltered, and our memory has sometimes failed. If this passage only revealed the standard - Oh boy! The standard would condemn us, because none of us keeps it perfectly.

But Jesus fulfilled it. He feared the Father, served Him alone, held fast through temptation and suffering, confessed His name, praised Him, remembered His promises, loved Him, and kept His charge always. He is the covenant-keeping Israelite par excellence. And if you cling to Jesus, you are legally secure. By faith His obedience is counted as our obedience, and the curse due to our disobedience has already fallen upon Him at the cross. Raised from death, He holds us even when our grip is weak. Our perseverance rests finally upon His preservation: we cling because we are held and are secure.

But our legal security does not make obedience unnecessary. Grace makes obedience possible. The Spirit unites us to Christ, strengthens weak hands, renews love, and teaches us to hold fast. In other words, our sanctification (however faltering it may be) can be a joyful and growing sanctification when it is built on the security of our legal justification.

Conclusion: We Can Hold Fast Only Because He Holds Us Fast

So where does this passage meet you this morning?

Perhaps there is a sin you have been protecting. You know what God says about it, but you keep finding reasons to postpone repentance. Don’t do that. Bring it into the light. Confess it. Ask Him for grace to obey.

Perhaps you are weary. You love the Lord, but the trial has lasted longer than you expected, and you wonder how much strength you have left to hold on. Come to Christ with that weakness itself. He does not require you to recover your strength before you ask Him for help. The very fact that you want to do these seven things is a good desire. Fan that spark into a flame.

And as you do that, remember where your hope rests. Jesus kept the covenant you have broken. He bore the judgment your sins deserved. He rose from the dead, and He lives to intercede for His people.

We cling because we are held. Brothers and sisters, let these seven points teach you how to love Him, to obey Him, and to hold fast to Him all our days. Amen.