AP

Deuteronomy 5:23a, 24, 27-29   When you heard the voice out of the darkness, … … you said, “The LORD our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire.  Today we have seen that a man can live even if God speaks with him. … … Go near and listen to all that the LORD our God says.  Then tell us whatever the LORD our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”  The LORD heard you when you spoke to me and the LORD said to me, “I have heard what this people said to you. Everything they said was good.  Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children for ever!”

As Moses recounted to God’s Chosen People all the ways in which the LORD had guided and provided for them during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, he must have felt some deep emotions as he reflected on this little episode.

The people had seen clearly the LORD’s power and majesty revealed at Sinai, and this had inspired them to promise unreserved obedience.  But God had shown his humble servant, Moses, just how shallow was their commitment!  Everything they said was good, but “Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children for ever.”

How God loves to bless his people, but how prone we are to have hearts that are out of sync with our lips. As Isaiah said: “The Lord says: ‘These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men’” (Isaiah 29:13).

Nominalism has been the plague of the Church in every age, as it was in Jesus’ day (cf Matthew 15:8).  No wonder Jesus said, “But I tell you,  Do not swear at all: … … Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’, and your ‘No’, ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one” (Matthew 5:34a, 37).  And his half-brother, James, urges us, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says” (James 1:22).

The problem with nominal religion is that it is so self-deceptive, and it renders us blind to the emptiness of our profession of faith – an emptiness and hypocrisy that is usually so obvious to our acquaintances!
– Bruce Christian