Deuteronomy 4 | A People Like This

Listen to this week’s sermon, Deuteronomy: A People Like This preached by Rev. Benjamin Kandt from Deuteronomy 4:4-10, 15, 19-21, 24. 32-35.

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Welcome And Scripture Reading

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 0:06

Hello everyone, this is Pastor Benjamin. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, Orlando. At New City, we long to see our Father answer the Lord's Prayer. For more resources, visit our website at Newcity Orlando.com.

Thomas Todd 0:22

So please stand for the prayer of illumination and join with me. Holy Spirit, as we hear your word, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead us, that we may hear and believe with joy through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us, whenever we call upon him? And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? Only take care and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children. How on the day that you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, the Lord said to me, Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on earth, and that they may teach their children so. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully, since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the hosts of heaven, you be drawn away and bowed down to them and serve them, things that the Lord your God has allotted to all peoples under the whole heaven. But the Lord has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day. Furthermore, the Lord was angry with me because of you, and he swore that I should not cross the Jordan, and that I should not enter the good land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask for one from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of. Did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as you have heard and still live? Or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God, and there is no other besides him. This is God's word. Be seated.

Why Belief Feels Hard Now

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 4:50

But then because of the enlightenment, there became this possibility of unbelief. And now after the Enlightenment, what's called late modernity, where we live now, it can feel impossible to believe in God. And so while it is possible still to believe in God, you have to work a little bit harder at it than people in previous generations and in other places around the world outside of Western culture. Said differently, you can believe, but you live among a people who don't, and their unbelief puts pressure on your belief. So what makes faith plausible in a world like ours? If you were to wake up this morning for with a text from a friend and they sent it last night at like 2 a.m. and they said, You're not gonna believe what happened. I saw this giant light flash over Orlando and it and it seemed to land over in UCF area, East Orlando. Um, it was it was large, it looked like a UFO. You'd be like, I don't know what you were doing last night, but something not good, probably, right? And then imagine you showed up here and you you encountered one of our amazing UCF students, go nights, and you ran into them and you said, Hey, what's going on? How are you? Like, you're not gonna believe what happened. Yesterday, right in the middle of the football stadium, some giant thing landed. What would happen to your disbelief? It would become a little bit more plausible, right? So, again, what makes faith plausible in a world like ours?

The Church As Plausibility Structure

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 6:19

It's not merely better arguments, although those are important. What makes faith plausible is a people who are able to encounter a community whose life together makes it possible to believe in God. Peter Berger calls these plausibility structures. And since Genesis through Revelation in all times and places, the plausibility structure that God gives to the world is his people. So again, the question I began with is what would it take for Orlando to look at us, New City, and say, What kind of God produces a people like this? What would it take for them to look at you and me and say, wow, they embody a wisdom that is attractive. They seem to know a way to the good life, or or to use the language of verse six, surely this is a wise and understanding people. Well, that's exactly what Moses is doing in Deuteronomy 4. Moses spent the first three chapters of Deuteronomy, 1, 2, and 3, retelling the history of God's work among his people. And then next chapter, chapter 5, we'll see next week, he's gonna give the Ten Commandments again. But here in chapter 4, Moses is wrestling with how the story of God's work shapes God's people, such that you can ask this question what kind of God produces a people like this? So I want to wrestle through that question. I have three answers, they're my three points, which is the Lord is near not far, the Lord is heard, not seen, the Lord is God, no rivals. If you have a Bible or device, go ahead and get Deuteronomy chapter four, verse five in front of you. Let's look at the text together.

The Lord Is Near Not Far

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 7:54

The Lord is near not far. Here's what Moses says. Deuteronomy four, five. See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. Keep them and do them. For that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. You'll notice actually three times in verses six, seven, and eight, the phrase, great nation, appears. Israel was meant to be the envy of the world, but what is it that makes Israel great? If you look closely, when when the world looks on Israel and they say something like, Surely this is a great nation, a wise and understanding people, what are they noticing? They're noticing that they have been given statutes and rules and commands and testimonies, Allah, if you will. So listen, as modern kind of American evangelicals, we often feel bad for Israel. We think, oh man, it must have been really hard having the law. No, no, no, no. That's not the way the Bible talks about the law. The law was one of the greatest gifts that God could give to a people. This was actually what made them unique in the totality of the world was they were given the instruction of the true and living God. And so we live today in a civilization that's unlike any other prior to this. We we live in a moment where we have a glut of information and yet we are starved for wisdom. We have a flood of hot takes and yet we live in a desert of understanding. And so listen, church, our obedience to countercultural commands is not an embarrassment. It is our greatness. Let me just make that plain. Imagine for a moment a community that holds truth humbly and boldly in a world with uncertainty and suspicion. Of a community of marital fidelity in a world that is saturated by sex, a community that knows God's presence moment by moment in a world that's bracketing God out of all of life. Imagine a community that can say, I have enough in a world that's gone mad with consumption. A community of forgiveness in a world characterized by revenge and competition, a community of patience in a world of immediate gratification, of compassion in a world that has been numbed by the overexposure to evil, of cheerful depth in a culture of triviality, of humble zeal in a world of apathy and indifference, of purpose in a world that is amusing itself to death, of thankfulness in a world of entitlement, of praise in a world of narcissism. When we're up here singing all hail King Jesus, like my Presbycostal was coming out. If you would have given me a flag, I would have been running around this joint. What happens in that moment? We we look outside of ourselves for a moment and we we look outside and we praise God as if He is real, and that delivers us moment by moment, a little bit at a time, from the narcissism of our cultural moment. And so listen, the commandments of God make us a strange people, but not strange for its own sake. It makes us a people that cause outsiders to look at us and wonder, what is going on with this people? And ultimately, hopefully, they ask, what kind of God produces a people like this? The most eloquent testimony to the reality of God is a group of people whose life together is so radically different, so completely changed from the ways of the world that there can be no other explanation than that something decisive must have happened in history. That's what Moses is after for Israel. That was true for Israel, and it's true for us. But here's a surprise in the text Israel's greatness is not ultimately found in Israel. Look at verse 7. What great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us? Israel's not great because Israel is great. Israel is great because God is near. At New City, we have this phrase we say proximity creates possibility. And that's true. It's actually even neurobiologically true. There's some recent studies that were done that show that if you take a person and they face a hill that's steep that they're gonna have to climb, if they have a friend with them, they will estimate the hill is less steep than if they have to do it all by themselves. It's called social baseline theory. Let me make that plain. What that means is your brain counts the proximity of someone that you trust among the resources available to you to face the challenges ahead of you. Another way to say that would be the hill doesn't change, but the resources you bring to the hill do change. The threat doesn't go away, but your ability to endure the threat increases. Now think about Israel for a moment. They're on the brink of the promised land. They're gonna enter into a land that's filled with fortified cities and nations that are stronger than they are, and they begin to calculate this hill, if you will, as if they're gonna climb it all alone. The nations may be great, but what God, what nation has a God so near to it as Yahweh is to Israel? That's what Moses is reminding of them. Because faith doesn't, it doesn't reduce the size of the hill, it actually assesses the hill properly. But listen, it refuses to calculate the hill without factoring in the nearness of God. And so notice how Israel experiences the nearness of God. Look at verse 7 again. What great nation is there that has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call upon him? This is prayer. It's through prayer we experience the nearness of God. But he goes on in verse 8. And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today? That's God's word. And so we experience God's nearness through word and prayer. God speaks to his people and his people speak back to him. This is called communion with God. Communion with God is when you receive God's word and you respond in prayer. And this communion with God creates a distinctive community. But listen, there's a missional undercurrent beneath the whole of Deuteronomy 4. Because this communing community is meant to have a distinctive witness to God in a watching world. That's the point of it. And so the nations are supposed to see Israel who have a communion with the living God, and they go, What kind of God produces a people like this? That's the question that it stirs up in this them. And the answer is the Lord is near, not far. That's the answer Moses gives. But there's a danger here. The danger is if God is really that near, if he speaks to us, if he dwells among us, if he answers when we call him, then maybe we could get our hands around him, actually. Maybe we can contain him, define him, manage him. No, no, no, no. The nearness of God must never be mistaken for the manageability of God.

The Lord Is Heard Not Seen

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 14:54

That brings us to the second thing Moses wants us to know, which is the Lord is heard, not seen. Look at verse 11 with me. And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while the mountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, and gloom. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form. There was only a voice. No form, only a voice. This is a strange detail for Moses to emphasize, but he keeps on emphasizing it. Look at verse 10. It says, Let them hear my words. Verse 15, you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you. Verse 16, therefore do not make an image in the form of any figure. Verse 19, beware lest you see and serve. Verse 33, did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard and still live? Why value the verbal over the visual? What's the big deal here? Why sound, not sight? If a picture is worth a thousand words, then why aren't images at the heart of Christian worship? What is the issue? Why is it that Christianity is a culture of listening rather than seeing, of the ear rather than the eye? Or let me invert that. What is it about images, forms, appearances that are so tempting to the people of God? Now I've got to be plain. It's not sight itself. God gave us the gift of sight. It's a good thing. Verse 9, Moses says, Don't forget the things that your eyes have seen. Israel was supposed to see, but there's a distinction here that's really important. Israel sees God's works, Israel hears God's word, but Israel may not manufacture God's form. They may see what God has done, but God alone defines who God is. He leaves interpretation up to himself. Look at verse 15. Therefore, watch yourselves very carefully, since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure. Why is making an image so dangerous? What is it that's happening here? Because if God is near to us, if he comes near to us, then there's a temptation to believe that that God can be contained. And an image actually reverses the rate the right relationship God wants to have with his people. Think of the difference between me putting a picture up on the screen behind versus me going, hey Joe, if your name's Joe, you just perked up. Why? What happened? You were summoned, that's why. And so Jacques Allule makes this point really plain. He says, with an image, I'm an observer, but with a word, I'm a listener. With an image, I decide where to look, I control how long to look, I discern what to make of it, but when someone speaks, I am drawn into dialogue. The initiative belongs to someone else. The word comes from outside me, it addresses me, and it calls for a response. That's the posture Israel is supposed to have before God. God speaks, Israel listens, God reveals, Israel receives, God commands, Israel responds, but an idol reverses all of that. Now I get to determine what God is like. I create a container for the uncontainable God. I get to take the consuming fire and put it into a cozy fireplace. When we do this, we take the God who's created us and we begin to create that God. That's why the issue beneath all of this idolatry, all of the concern in this text is the issue of control. God alone has the right to define himself and to describe himself and to disclose himself. Faith simply receives God on his own terms. Idolatry makes God available to us on our terms. While she was raising her three-year-old daughter after the murder of her husband, Elizabeth Elliott said it like this the secret to her survival was to let God be God. That's what Moses is calling Israel to here. This is why we stand up and we open ourselves to receive God's word from outside of us, because it comes from above and outside of us. It's so important. Like if you're a Marine, you might get Sper Phi tattooed on your arm. It means always faithful. If you're a Presbyterian, I recommend getting Semper Reformanda tattooed on your arm. It means always reforming. Said differently, we have a theological operating system that needs regular updates, which means none of us in this room have a perfect grasp of what God is like, and we need regular updates. But how are you gonna get that TOS update? Where's it coming from? It's either gonna come from what you sense, what you see, what you feel, or it's gonna come from what you hear, God speaking in his word. That's why God is heard but not seen. God, who is outside of us, outside of our control, is actually offensive, though. It doesn't sit well with our sensibilities. We live in a moment where it's not fashionable to be told what to do. I mean, all of your life you've got optionality. Why not in your theology? Why not in the God you worship? So, in the same way that Israel was tempted, we are tempted to make a God who's a little bit more manageable to us. And this is Moses' third point, which is the Lord is God, no rivals.

The Lord Is God No Rivals

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 20:15

Look with me at verse 16. Beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure. Now notice the inversion of the days of creation in Genesis 1. Don't make yourself a carved image in the form of any figure. The likeness of male or female, that's day six. The likeness of any animal that's on the earth, that's day six. The likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, day five, the likeness of anything that creeps in the ground, day six, the likeness of any fish that is in the water underneath the earth, day five. And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, that's day four, you be drawn away and bow down to serve them. Do you hear this? Moses, who wrote Genesis 1, is almost walking backwards through the story he wrote, calling them to pay attention. These are God's creations. Now, this is super important. God made creation and he called it very good. It was his idea. Creation itself is never the problem. The problem does not exist outside of ourselves, the problem exists within ourselves. And what we do is we take good things and we make them God things and they become bad things. That's called idolatry. Romans 1 says it like this: at the heart of idolatry is an exchange. We exchange the creator for the creature, the invisible for the visible. That's what's happening in idolatry. And we hear that and we go, listen, I don't have a baal on my mantle at home. I'm good, right? I'm modern. I don't, I don't struggle with this, I don't make carved images. Totally get it. You're right. I mean, I can you imagine for a moment what it would be like to make an object that you devoutly stare at morning, noon, and night? The last thing you look at when you go to bed, the first thing you look at when you wake up, something you look to for answers, expecting it to provide for your needs, turning to it for a bit of relief from the burdens of the day, maybe even hunched over it, almost bowing down to it, serving with our constant attention. Aren't you glad you're modern? Those silly ancient people with their idolatry. We would never do that. For $300, Replica, it's a company, sells a lifetime subscription to an AI companion who will never die, never argue, or never cheat. On their website, it says this the AI friend to do life with, to do side quests with, to fall in love with, to become yourself with. 42 million users around the globe and counting. And one woman in who lives in the Bronx with two kids, she's a 36-year-old mother, single mother, she says this. He doesn't have the hang-ups that other people would have. People come with baggage, attitude, ego, but a robot has no bad updates. I don't have to deal with his family, his kids, or his friends. I'm in control and I can do what I want. She goes on to say, I've never been more in love with anyone in my entire life. Do you hear the heart of idolatry? I'm in control and I can do what I want. That's the ancient temptation of idolatry in a very modern form. And so I want a relationship without surrender. I want intimacy without otherness. I want a God who never contradicts me. I want a voice that ultimately tells me what I want to hear. The most true statement on this website, Replica's website, is this one the AI friend to become yourself with. That's almost a direct quote from Psalm 115, verse 8 that says, Those who make idols become like them, so do all who trust in them. You see, idolatry asks creation to carry the weight of the creator, and creation cannot bear it. It cannot bear it. But it's also why we make humans the best and the worst idols in our lives. Look at, if you notice verse 16, that's where Moses says idolatry starts. Beware lest you act corruptly, making a carved image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female. It's been said God made man in his image and we returned the favor. What's happening here is one of two things. Either we are imagining God to be like us, or we are looking at other humans and expecting them to be like God. One of those two things is happening in this. So what does that look like in our modern moment? Well, it looks like when men grab women's bodies with their eyes. It looks like when women crush men under their expectations. It might sound like this. I want a man who is Christian, godly, treats women with respect, is sensitive but lovingly assertive and wise, knows who he is, works hard, is good with children and concerned about the poor and downtrodden. Where can I find a man like this these days? Ladies, he is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. That's where he is. And so the problem is, is we're asking of creation what only the creator can be for you. It's idolatry. It's idolatry. And it starts with this exchanging the truth for the lie, the creator for the creature. But listen, with the diagnosis comes the cure. If you've worshipped your way in, you can worship your way back out. That's actually good news for us. Because if you can turn around and come back to the true and living God, which is called repentance, you can become the kind of people the world will look at. If the world needs anything from the church, it needs to learn from us how to repent. I mean, the biggest challenge to everything I've said this morning is it's something like this. What kind of God produces a people like this? Well, Christian communities often don't look that different. In fact, if you just pay attention to the history of the church, it gives all these examples of abuse and hypocrisy and racism and greed and sexual scandal and power seeking. Isn't that true of the church's history? But listen, that's just proving my point. When the church has gone astray and started worshiping false gods, the church becomes an image of that God. But when the church comes home, when the church comes back to the true and living God, something remarkable can happen. But Moses predicted this secular challenge, to my point. Look with me at verse 25. He anticipates Israel's idolatry. When you father children and children's children and have grown old in the land, and you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God so as to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. You will not live long in it, but will be utterly destroyed, and the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. And

Exile And The Way Back

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 27:09

there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. You see, God draws near through true worship, but God sends far because of false worship. This language of being scattered is what the biblical theme of exile. And it's actually true to every human being. We were made for Eden. We were made to be in the garden where we walk and talk with God in the cool of the day. That's what you were made for. And so underneath the existential angst that every human being feels is this feeling of exile. And so, God, he will discipline us, but he will not abandon us. Look at verse 29. But from there, from that place of exile, from idolatry, from the place your false gods took you, you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. Simply said, You can come home. Why? Because you finally figured it out and got it together and stopped worshiping idols and can try harder, do better, be better? No, no, no. Look at verse 31. This is the root cause right here. For the Lord your God is a merciful God. He will not leave you, he will not destroy you, he will not forget the covenant with your fathers that he swore to them. You can return to God because God has not given up on you. The future remains genuinely open. Repentance is always possible. Return is expected. He always receives us when we return to him because he is a quote merciful God. And that helps us to understand what Moses said earlier in verse 24. He says, For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Oprah Winfrey left her Christian faith because of this verse right here. The concept that God was a jealous God, because most modern people hear the word jealous and they assume envy. That's not the biblical definition of jealousy. Instead, the biblical definition of jealousy is it's it's God's refusal to let his people be surrendered to any rivals. Look with me at verse 3, if you will. It says this, your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor. I'm not going to go into this, but number 25, there's this story. And at Baal Peor it says that Israel yoked themselves to Baal. Baal was a false God. But look at verse 4, it says this you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today. If you go maybe in the margin, underline, hold fast. You go to Genesis chapter 2 where it says, And a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. Same word. So what's going on here? The Lord wants you to see that he's pursuing us out of covenant love. Said differently, all idolatry is spiritual adultery. God has made Israel, God has made the church, his people, has betrothed us to himself, and we cheat on him with false gods. That's the phrasing here. And the image is this image of a yoke to, you know, in the New Testament says, do not be unequally yoked with a non-believer. It's a marriage term about don't marry people who don't know Jesus. It's not good. Because a yoke is almost, imagine like McDonald's arches, if you will. And you've got a big ox pulling one side, a strong ox, and you've got a weaker, smaller one pulling on the other side. And the big ox carries most of the burden, and the small ox is shouldering some of it and directing going where the big ox goes. That's the image of idolatry here. Because a good thing when you're yoked to somebody you should be yoked to, it's union and communion and collaboration and orientation and burden bearing, all these things that are so good. But who are you yoked to? Who's sharing your burdens? Who's carrying your burdens? What do you look to to give orientation to your life? That's the invitation of Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 3. So, what do you do if you're yoked to an idol? Unyoke yourself. Turn around, come home. Not because God is any less holy, not because the consuming fire has fizzled out, but because the consuming fire of God's holiness and the covenant mercy of God meet in Jesus Christ. You

Jesus Makes God Known

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 31:38

see, we've spent this whole chapter talking about how hearing God is important and there's no visible form, and yet we ache to see him. Theologians call this the beatific vision. The deep longing is to behold God, to see his face. It's what all human beings are longing for. But listen, the New Testament makes a staggering announcement, and that is that the word became flesh. The God who has spoken to Israel has taken on flesh in Jesus Christ. Jesus is Emmanuel, God near us. Jesus is the word of God. Jesus is the image of the invisible God. God does not become visible because we finally figured out what he looks like. God makes himself visible on his own terms. And where do we see him most clearly? In the cross of Jesus Christ. Look at how Moses talks about this in verse, in chapter 30, uh chapter 4, verse 32. It says this, For ask now of the days that are past, which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and asked from one end of heaven to the other, whether such a great thing as this has ever happened or was ever heard of? Did any people ever hear the voice of a God speaking out of the midst of the fire as you have heard and still live? Moses is saying, Has anything like this ever happened before? But on this side of the cross we can say, did any people ever see their God take on skin and bones and bleed and die for sinners? Going on in verse 34, or has any God ever attempted to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation? By trials, by signs, by wonders, and by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and by great deeds of terror, all of which the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes. A mighty hand and an outstretched arm. At the Exodus, God stretched out his arm to rescue his people from slavery. At the cross, God stretched out his arms to rescue his people from idolatry. The mighty hands that delivered Israel were pierced. The outstretched arms of Israel's Redeemer were nailed to wood for people who make gods out of wood. Why? Because the Lord your God is a merciful God. So what does that mercy intend to produce in us? A people. A people who live so near to God, listen so carefully to his voice, and worship him so exclusively that the world looks at their life together and asks, what kind of God can produce a people like this? And the answer is that the Lord is near, not far, the Lord is heard, not seen, the Lord is God, no rivals. We'll end with verse 35. To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord is God, but there is no other besides Him.

Closing Prayer

Rev. Benjamin Kandt 34:26

Let's pray. God our Father, true and living God. Set us free even now. Break off the yoke of idolatry in this room. Draw us back home from the place you scattered us. Bring us back through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. King Jesus, we want to hail you from our hearts. Holy Spirit, would you uproot idols? Would you enable us to see Jesus in such a beautiful and compelling way that it draws us back to Him to renounce the false gods we've run after? We want to hear your voice. Amen.