Deuteronomy 4:2-4

Remember the setting of this verse is they are perched right on the edge of the land, they are east across Jordan and they are in the last month before God is going to allow them to cross the Jordan into the land. So he is saying, "Okay, listen to what I have to say here because it's going to be necessary for you in your living in the land. If you want to live a long life, listen to what I have to say." Immediately after he says this,

So he is talking about the command here to listen to God, to do what He says, not to add to or take away from what He says, just follow the commandments, just follow what God has revealed, and it will go well with you. But when you stray from this, when you start adding to it, adding your own justifications for why you do certain things, taking away from God's Word because you do not think that is very important, not at this time, then you start to come under judgment and God is sitting there and will correct you. And in the case of the problem there at Baal Peor, they had turned to idolatry in seeking the Moabite women, breaking at least three commandments, probably four or more, and God, as an example, destroyed thousands of them. And would have actually destroyed more, but for Phineas.

And so we get a very striking warning here, an example about the way God approaches His Word. His Word is set. His Word is the way it is. He is a God of love and He gave us the best commandments that He could, the ones that will help us to live. And He says, "Do not mess with them. These are tried and true. They were given by someone wiser than you." He knew what was going on. He knows the flesh, He knows the things that we come across, and these things that I have told you, He says, will help you to live.

We all want to live, do we not? That is actually a theme of the book of Deuteronomy. It goes through, we can find it in Deuteronomy 30. He says, "I've set before you life and death. Choose life." He is saying it just a different way here in chapter 4. So, take the warning from God not to add to, not to take away from. Take what God has given as revelation whole. Do not try to modify it. That is where we get into trouble.

Deuteronomy 4:2

If you have a factor missing or you added a factor that is not necessary or is false, then it is going to ruin things. It is going to skew the message and the people who receive the message will, if things continue in that direction, go off the path to the Kingdom of God. So adding spurious ideas makes it impossible to exhort and convict people who contradict, because what happens is that one's arguments lose their punch because they are not anymore backed by truth and the wholeness of God's way when either added to or subtracted from. This has been an important constant principle in God's Word from at least Moses' day.

Deuteronomy 4:2

Now, this is a well-established principle that, as far as I know, first appears back in Deuteronomy 4. In the context here, "the word" means the commandments of God that appear in Deuteronomy 5.