Lev 19:37, 'You shall thus observe all My statutes, and all My ordinances, and do them: I am the Lord.'" 
This morning’s reading details some very specific items of daily life and some other rather unusual regulations by our standards that God spelled out for the sake of His people and their safety and well being. The over all umbrella of the chapter would be considered as regulatory directives pertaining to the daily matters and issues of the time. Some of them, we have little issue with, while others seem to be rather specific and tedious.
There are the regulations which serve to meeting the needs of the poor and the afflicted who could be abused and cheated without some restriction placed on their treatment. There are the declarations of dealing with all people, regardless of social and economic position with equal justice and deference. There are the matters of how to consider those neighbors and other individuals within the community in a way that represents the heart of God, the Lord of His people. There are the stipulations of not serving other gods and idols through the means which were practiced in the surrounding nations including offering daughters as temple prostitutes, consuming blood from sacrifices, ritualistic cutting of hair and beards and receiving tattoos that were designed to honor those pagan deities as was common in those cultures. 
These were just some of the aspects that God had to lay before His people in regard to their honoring Him and for their own protection and well-being. It should be remembered that these people had been raised under the captivity of Egypt and had been forced to accept the customs and the culture of their slave masters. While they had tried to stay true to their own way of life, much of what they knew had been fully tainted and infested with the various aspects of how the Egyptians lived and served their numerous deities. Everything had to be spelled out for the Children of Israel in order for them to know that the holiness of God required them to set aside their habits and customs under the rule of Egypt. They needed to accept and practice those things which were new to them but would keep them on track within the service of the One True Lord God Almighty. 
    	This was one of the main reasons that God had to continually remind them of who they were and Who He was to them, as in last week’s reading, Lev 18:4+5. Lev 18:4+5, 'You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the Lord your God. 'So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the Lord. 
    	The Children of Israel were to enter the Promised Land and not act as the other inhabitants. They were to honor the Lord and to obey Him and to cherish His guidance and His leading and His holiness. In so doing, they would inhabit the land and find their peace and their safety and their security and their prosperity in Him. This was promised throughout the continual encouragement of God to them through Moses, as in Deut 4:1+2. Deut 4:1+2, "And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I am teaching you to perform, in order that you may live and go in and take possession of the land which the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. 
    	As the people would honor and obey the stipulations and the regulations of the Lord, they would be seen as His peculiar people. This peculiarity would be in terms of the fact that they were not subject to the diseases and the vileness and the lewdness of the surrounding nations. Their behavior would be such that they would be the testimony that there was a way to live that would bring forth wisdom and understanding and health and vitality in the region that was being decimated by death and destruction and the horror of man’s inhumanity to man. Moses instructed them in accordance with this in verses 5 and 6 of the 4th Chapter of Deuteronomy. Deut 4:5+6, See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.' 
	Again and again, the Lord had to remind His nation, through the encouragement of Moses, to live in accordance to that which He taught them and expected from them. Because of their enslavement to the bonds of Egypt and all its teachings and customs, they continually needed to be reminded of how all was different now in their lives because of the gracious salvation of God. 
Please turn to Chapter 5 of Deuteronomy and let us read together verses 1-6. Deut 5:1-6, Then Moses summoned all Israel, and said to them, "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. The Lord spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire, while I was standing between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said, 'I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 
    	Over and over again, the people were reminded that they had been specifically chosen by God for the habitation of the Promised Land. The Lord was their God Who was fulfilling the Promise made to their fore fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They were the chosen generation who were being taught the ways of the Lord. That required that they would be released from all the slavery of their former lives, including all its practices and customs. This was so that they would be prosperous in the goodness and the holiness of the Lord in the manner of their lives before all the other nations surrounding them. 
This was specifically spelled out for them and for their support in shoring them up in the intensity of all that was required as in Deut 6:1-3. They were to be the recipients of all the goodness of the Lord if they would accept and obey His every directive. 
Deut 6:1-3, "Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 
    	Notice the fact that if they kept the ordinances and the commandments of God they would prosper in the land flowing with milk and honey, that is a land that would give them the full produce of their labors. It would be a good land that would fulfill their every need for food and sustenance as they would thrive in it with their families. They had to be taught; and their children had to be taught; and their grandchildren had to be taught to reverence and to honor the Lord. It was to be the course of their daily walk on this earth which showed that they would live by a completely new and holy way of conduct and treatment of one another.   
	Even in this, Moses told them why and how the Lord had dealt with them the way He did in the wilderness as God was working in them to rid them of the residue of Egypt with all its vile rituals and attitudes and behaviors. Please turn in your Bibles to Deut 8:1-10, where the Israelites were once again instructed to live in full accordance with the every detail of the righteousness and the holiness and the justice of God as their pattern of behavior one with the other. 
Deut 8:1-10, "All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. And you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. Thus you are to know in your heart that the Lord your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you shall eat food without scarcity, in which you shall not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. 
    	Notice that they were to bless the Lord when they inhabited and enjoyed the good land of His promise. Because they obeyed Him, they would have the fruits of the land as their heritage. Then, in that blessing of God upon them, they were to return it unto Him, in recognition that He was the source of all the goodness that they were enjoying by their obedience. Thus they would bless Him with their praise and adoration and thankfulness. 
	The Psalmist picked up this truth of so giving the Lord the blessing for His every provision through obedience in Ps 119:1-5. Ps 119:1-5, How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe His testimonies, Who seek Him with all their heart. They also do no unrighteousness; They walk in His ways. Thou hast ordained Thy precepts, That we should keep them diligently. Oh that my ways may be established To keep Thy statutes! Because they honor the Lord in the manner of walking in His ways, they will be blessed in all that they do.
	Then the Psalmist, later in this same Psalm 119 , verses 29-35, beseeched the Lord to teach him everything that would distinguish his walk among the people. In seeking the Lord and His way, there would be the evident reality that God was with him and was guiding him and causing him to delight in the life that was before him. This is the goodness of the Lord in the reality of His loving-kindness provided through the directives that will bring forth righteousness and peace and gladness. 
Ps 119:29-35, Remove the false way from me, And graciously grant me Thy law. I have chosen the faithful way; I have placed Thine ordinances before me. I cleave to Thy testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame! I shall run the way of Thy commandments, For Thou wilt enlarge my heart. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Thy statutes, And I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Thy law, And keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Thy commandments, For I delight in it. 
    	This is not just a matter for the Old Testament. Of course some of the regulations no longer have the emphasis that once endowed them with such force since the customs and the activities of the people are no longer along the same lines of defilement and ritualistic behaviors. 
That is not to say, however, that mankind has improved with age. There is still the very same spirit of doing anything that would show that man can elevate himself to the status of godhood in his own right. The idols of humanity have morphed into elements that are still accepted by the populace as worthy of worship and adoration over and against the truth of God. Power and fame and fortune are but some of the modern deities of today’s society. There is still the tremendous and vital need to ask God to guide and to direct our paths and for us to obey Him directly as His Holy Spirit shows us, through His Word, the way in which we should go.
	The Apostle John brings this morning to a close for us with his encouragement to us as recorded in 1 John 3:21-24. 1 John 3:21-24, Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. 
	We need to obey the Word of God and His every directive as He makes known the way in which we are to walk. We will never find ourselves without the knowledge of what we need and should do as we seek Him with all our hearts, and minds, and beings. Accordingly, we will be blessed in all that we do unto Him with the truth that He is the Lord God Almighty Who leads us in the path of righteousness and holiness and peace. So be it.
'You shall thus observe all My statutes, and all My ordinances, and do them: I am the Lord.' Amen.

This morning’s benediction is 2 Cor 3:17. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Amen.