Deuteronomy 18-20 - Rejecting Spiritism

we're in Deuteronomy chapter 18 so I'll have you open your Bible there Deuteronomy chapter 18 you know whenever we go through and study through the Old Testament it's it's really important that we come at this with with a proper attitude I mean Old Testament study can really be challenging and there's you might not be surprised to know that there are a lot of a good number of Christians who frankly stay clear of the Old Testament because they find it very challenging to understand they find God difficult sometimes to figure out as it relates to sometimes the severity of the judgments which came upon various people and and I think for a lot of people it creates a bit of a ethical conundrum when they read things about you know wiping out whole cities and even civilizations and they struggle you know which is probably normal I mean I don't think it's an abnormal at all district I would be a little bit challenged you know if somebody never struggles you know I suppose because it does impact us in some of those ways we have to remember that what God is doing through the Old Testament well he's doing a lot of things but not the least of which is communicating you know his holiness to a nation who has called out of all other nations and called them to live separately from all the other nations of the earth in the sense of how they live how they worship how they react to other people we're going to see tonight that even in the matters of warfare God had very explicit instructions for the nation of Israel they were to live very differently and you know this is one of the things that we've made mention of in the past and we've said that you know this is this translates you know into the New Testament not in some of the literal ways but in the more general sense of God calling us to a different lifestyle a different means of living and and I think we're going to the various shades of what the Lord is saying to Israel I trust the Lord is going to help us to make application there to our lives today what I'm going to do is I go as I go into each of these chapters I'm going to give you an outline on the screen of what we're going to be dealing with in the verses of that outline so the first one I'm going to put up on the screen for you is from this chapter chapter 18 and we're going to look at the things that he Moses will remind them of this evening first of all something he's repeated several times through the course of Deuteronomy already and will repeat again is the obligations that the Israelites had to the Levites and we'll talk a little bit more tonight about why the emphasis was there so strongly next in verses 9 through 14 Moses is going to give the people of Israel warnings about adopting the methods and the ways of the people who lived in the land and they were pagans and that means they end opt that they had pagan worship practices which God considered abhorrent and so the Lord is going to warn them through Moses about adopting any of those things then we're going to see a fascinating passage in verses 15 through 19 we're going to see a prophecy of Jesus Christ and I'll show you how that is going to how that plays out I'm going to show you how the Jews misunderstood it as applying to Messiah and then I'm going to show you how Messiah met all of the markers of that particular prophecy and then finally in the latter part of the the last two verses of the chapter actually three we're going to see how the Lord is going to then give some notes on true and he's going to focus mostly on false prophets so let's get into the chapter first of all we deal with the obligations to the Levite he repeats something for them that they should have they should know by heart by now and that is verse 1 the Levitical priests in fact that means all the tribe of Levi shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel in other words when they done when they took the land and divided it up among the people you never see the Levites getting any land they never received an allotment in the promised land and that is why God says through Moses here in the middle of verse 1 they shall eat the Lord's food offerings as their inheritance he says they shall have no inheritance among their brothers the Lord is their inheritance as he promised them and this shall be the priests do from the people from those offering a sacrifice whether an ox or a sheep they shall give to the priest the shoulder the two cheeks and yock the stomach he goes on to say the firstfruits of your grain of your wine and of your oil the first fleece of your sheep you shall give him for the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord him and his sons for all time and if a Levite he says comes from any of your towns out of Israel where he lives and he can come when he desires to the place that the Lord will choose and ministers in the name of the Lord is God like all this fellow Levites who stand to Minister there before the Lord then he may have equal portions to eat besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony by the way you might have a different word there at the end of that verse but patrimony is essentially the property that he's inherited from his father but as you can see the Levites were to be cared for by the people by the rest of the tribes of Israel the reason was they've been called by God into full-time service and God basically said I want these guys doing this full-time they're not going to have time to work the land they're not going to have time to go out and be farmers they're not going to you know have time to because they're going to be taking care of the things related to the worship of Israel so God says to the nation of Israel I want you guys to take care of them all right now this is really interesting because this is one of those ideas that made its way into the New Testament and Paul even cites some of the passages that and there are many throughout the Old Testament and brings them into our understanding of supporting those in the ministry and this is a little awkward for me to talk about because I'm obviously a recipient of you know those of you who give tithes and offerings to Calvary Chapel Ontario and and you know essentially that is the support that my family has lived on for you know a long long time but I want to share with you that this is a biblical idea not just in the Old Testament but God has brought it over in the new let me show you a passage on the screen from first Timothy where Paul writes and says this he says let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor and you'll remember that elder pastor and overseer are interchangeable terms and he says especially those who labor in preaching and teaching for the scripture says you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages so in in two different instances Paul cites two different Old Testament passages where it speaks of you know caring for those who are laboring in this way so he's borrowing an Old Testament principle bringing it into unto it into the New Covenant and saying that this is God's continued means of support for those who are called to lead in the body of Christ so I just wanted you to know it wasn't our idea it was God's idea and were you know being directed by the word in that respect all right verses 9 through 14 are there warnings that we dealt with we talked about earlier concerning the pagan practices here's what Moses says when you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations there shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord and because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you you shall be blameless before the Lord your God for these nations which you are about to dis possess listen to fortune tellers and to diviners but as for you the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this now in this section you'll notice that there are no fewer than 8 different means that are listed here of communicating with spirits or and when I'm when I say spirits it could be demonic spirits it could be the spirits of the Dead which by the way is communicating I believe with demonic spirits you'll notice that there there's there's 8 ways that are mentioned here of connecting with spirits and the first one is offering one's children as a burnt offering horrific but they actually did that in these pagan countries I'm sorry to say that there were times in Israel's history where they so adopted pagan practices that they did some of the Jews actually offered their children as a burnt offering you can't even imagine but this was a means of connecting with these deities and so forth notice he talks about divination to divine a truth suit through spiritual means and yeah Ouija boards would come under that same category telling of fortunes you know we you go to the fair you might see a fortune-teller booth or something either yeah it's kind of fun you know they're telling fortunes and somebody's made up in some kind of funny costume or whatever but you know these are things that God calls an abomination he talks about interpreting omens oh that's a bad omen when that happens you know oh I tell you Christians we can do that we can and it doesn't come out in Christian circles necessarily as interpreting omens or we wouldn't necessarily call it that but we can get just as weird looking at an event that happens in somebody's life and saying ah yeah I know what's going on there and we assume that we know you know that's you know the Lord you know that gets into some of the error that job's friends got into sorcery number is the fifth one the sixth one is a charmer and you know normally well today when we use the word charmer we're usually talking about somebody who has a very engaging personality but the the Old Testament idea of a charmer was basically referred to a dealer in spells and someone who would supposedly have the ability to uh to to bind or or or curse you know someone or bless you know through certain things maybe through an object using an object to put a curse or a blessing on someone else that's this charmer idea here seven you've got the a medium which is very very similar to the last one number eight a necromancer they're they're essentially the same thing they act as a medium they act as an intermediary for someone who wants to communicate with the departed spirit a dead individual I want to talk to my uncle al you know because he always gave me such great advice but he died and so I want to go to someone a medium you know who's going to consult uncle al for me so I can get the advice that I once received it's just a real invitation to open one's heart and life to spiritual dynamics that are very dangerous and God calls it you know what he does because it is essentially a rejection of the Lord God you know there's a wonderful passage in almost positive it's Isaiah just came to my mind but it says when a people mutter and and and and encouraged you to talk to a medium or a Spiritist or something like that there's a statement there says should not a people inquire of their God I've always loved that passage should not a people inquire of their God you know today we have to be careful we may not get into spiritism like we're dealing with here when it comes to trying to figure things out but we can try to circumvent going to the Lord in other ways in terms of just trying to find out insight and you know should not a people inquire of their God I'll be honest with you in our culture we've made an idol out of a lot of things related to trying to figure things out and I don't want to offend anybody but I'll tell you right now I really believe we've made an idol out of counseling and I don't think there's anything wrong with counseling from the standpoint of good godly counsel in fact the Bible talks about how there's safety even in a multitude of obviously good counselors getting good solid biblical counsel is a good thing but we've gone a little bit weird we've actually circumvented God I recognize that there are times when people come to talk to me and they're bypassing God and that's wrong it's like don't shortchange yourself should not a people inquire of their God right and there's I'm not saying that it's wrong to go to the servants of the Lord or talk to somebody and to get some counsel in in certain respects but I'll tell you something a good counselor ought to point you back to the Lord a good counselor ought to point you back to the Lord his word the truth that is laid up in his word and a good counselor should not be making decisions for you or saying well here's what I would do you know because that makes someone dependent upon the counselor you know a good counselor should be saying hey let's pray let's talk let's talk to the Lord's go to God let's pray about this let's see what the Lord directs you to do and let's just trust that God's going to lead you in the way of the year to go we got to be really careful you know like I said the things he's confronting here related to the nation's that are about to be dispossessed these are these are spiritual abominations in the eyes of the Lord but let's be careful as Christians that we don't kind of whitewash some of these things and Christianize them and but do the exact same thing and that is circumvent a coming to the Lord and seeking his face and you know guys there's no substitute there's no shortcut for seeking God's face that's one of the reasons why I think we've gotten so drawn into counselors we want to take a shortcut the shortcut to getting on our face fasting and praying saying God what is going on speak to me Minister open my heart open my eyes and waiting on the Lord even for a protracted period of time that's hard and I don't know of anybody who wants to do that frankly that's a it's it's rather distasteful and you know but and we understand we live in the drive-up lane of life is America here we're used to going through the driver plane I want to get my burger in two minutes or under right so I want to get my answers from God in the same fashion well sometimes God wants you to wait on him and is it wrong if he makes you wait for days about weeks how about months how about years I know that's distasteful it's distasteful to me and that's why people but you can tell that people are impatient because they'll they'll say when you encourage them to pray they'll say while I prayed God didn't say anything and so what you're saying is oh so you you prayed as long as God wanted you to pray well no see what happens I prayed as long as I wanted to pray right I had an internal kind of marker in place that I'm going to pray and God is going to answer at least you better he better by this period right here and if he doesn't there's a problem and then and if he doesn't see then I'm free to kind of go ask other people their opinion now because God kind of bagged out of the whole thing he didn't respond I gave him his 24 hours or whatever the length of time was I gave him that period of time and he didn't respond it always amazes me when people say that to me when they say I prayed and nothing happened and that's my first question how long did you pray maybe God wanted you to keep praying maybe God wanted you to keep pressing in don't circumvent going to the Lord don't find other ways of trying to figure things out because then we start making some of the same fundamental mistakes that these Canaanites did by practicing divination and and and all these different kinds of spiritism and I'm not saying that it's it's in the same level of evil I'm saying that there is the same error that is behind it all right that's the point and we have to be careful of that error that fundamental error all right let's get on to verses 15 through 19 here's where I told you that Jesus is actually prophesied here says the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your brothers it is to him you shall listen just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire anymore lest I die and the Lord said to me and he's referring back at that time they are right in what they have spoken I will raise up for them a prophet like you from a among their brothers and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him and whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name I myself will require it of him now what Moses is reminding them of is the time when God echoed the Ten Commandments from Mount Horeb from Sinai and the people were just completely beside themselves in in fear and they came to Moses and they begged him please don't let God talk again we will die and that what they said to him was you go and talk to God and then come and you tell us what he said and what God said now to Moses and what Moses is relating to them is God heard you on that day and and that principle of having that that one who would be given you to speak the words of the Lord that's going to happen and he said it's going to happen in the form of a prophet now he only calls him a prophet here but he says God's going to raise up a prophet and I want you to I want you to know though that the Jews ignored this as being part of the role of the Messiah they didn't see this they didn't see this as they saw the they called him the prophet after this very passage and they could then they referred to the Messiah and they called them separate things let me show you an example of this from John chapter 1 look at this it says and this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him who are you he confessed and did not deny but confessed I am NOT the Christ and they asked him what then are you Elijah he said I am NOT look at this are you the Prophet and he answered no now John I don't know if John even understood at that time that the Messiah and the Prophet were one but you know you can see here plainly that the Jews asked John if he was the Messiah and they asked him if he was the prophet and again profit is from right here in Deuteronomy this is the prophecy made of the coming of the Prophet and you say well who is that you know it's interesting in Islam this is one of the passages they point to interestingly enough to say that Moses was prophesying of the coming of Muhammad but there's several problems with that interpretation the first of all is you'll notice in the passage that we're looking at here God says through Moses God is going to raise up from among the brothers or from among the Brethren in other words from among you one who will come as a prophet in other words he's going to be a Jew okay alright that's the first thing and then you'll notice that the other element of what God said about this coming prophet he said he's going to speak everything that the Lord commands him to speak what did Jesus say during his earthly ministry he didn't you say that very thing I only speak what the father tells me to say did he say that he says I only stylee what I hear from the father I give to you and I speak just his words right so Jesus even said that he fulfilled that element and then obviously Moses referred to him as a prophet the Lord said to Moses I'm going to raise up a prophet like you was Jesus a prophet well obviously the people considered him a prophet even if they didn't consider him Messiah they called him the Prophet from Nazareth right so you know Jesus meets all of the markers of this individual and so he is the Prophet who was to come and to speak for God to the people and then Moses gives them some other information just some reminders about false prophets verse 20 he says but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods that same prophet shall die and if you say in your heart how may we know the word of the Lord has has not spoken when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if the word does not come to pass or come true that is a word that the Lord has not spoken the prophet has spoken it presumptuously you need not be afraid of him but by the same token you need to be careful never to listen to him so some important reminders excuse me all right Deuteronomy chapter 19 let me put the outline for this chapter up on the screen we're going to see in verses 1 through 10 God's going to remind them about the cities of refuge when they come into the land he's going to talk to them about dealing with murder he's going to talk to them about property boundaries and how to respect those and then he's going to give some guidelines for witnesses in a court case first the cities of refuge in verses 1 through 10 it says when the Lord your God cuts off the nation's whose land the Lord your God is giving you and you dispossessed them and dwell in their cities and in their houses you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess you shall measure the distances and divided into three parts of the area of the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession so that any man Slayer can flee to them now the term man Slayer is someone who has killed someone unintentionally we call it manslaughter and it is the term to describe a death that was not premeditated now obviously this was an important issue and we'll talk about it here in just a moment but let's finish reading through verse 10 this is the provision for the man Slayer who by fleeing there may save his life if anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hatred having hated him in the fast as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies he's just giving an example he may flee to one of these cities and live lest the Avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him because the way is long and strike him fatally though the man did not deserve to die since he had not hated his neighbor in the past therefore I command you you shall set apart three cities and if the Lord your God enlarges your territory and the these verses 8 through 10 he's basically telling them and if you give more land than make more cities ok he then you'll have to set more apart he says verse 9 provided you are careful to keep all these Commandments there ought to be an enlargement of your property so forth your land which I command you today by loving the Lord your God walking even ever in his ways da-da-da-da-da he says then you shall add three other cities to these three so if the land increases the need for these cities increases look at verse 10 here's the reason left innocent blood be shed in your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you that is the essence of it right there why were these cities of refuge created so that innocent blood would not be shed now whose innocent blood are they talking about here the person who killed somebody but did it unintentionally it was an accident they had no intention they had no desire right and so God is dealing with a cultural element of society back in those days and that that cultural element was this if someone in your family was killed then you had the right to exact venj against that person who killed them and you didn't go around usually asking questions you know there wasn't a trial there wasn't any kind of investigation it was just a hot emotional response you killed my family member I'm going to kill you and that's the Slayer and so God says you know it without actually saying without actually condemning that element of culture he provides a means whereby justice can play itself out by allowing this person to have a city they can go to which is a refuge a sanctuary where they can you know the the the the person with who's taking revenge cannot kill them and the whole point of this thing is that innocent blood not be shed because as we've learned elsewhere when blood is shed it pollutes the land and you know we're told in the scripture that the life our life is in our blood obviously that's a powerful medical statement that we didn't get around to really acquiescing to until the last couple of hundred years do you guys know don't you that like you know back in England you know in the 1700s if you got sick they would bleed you yeah you actually bleed you I mean because they thought we got to let some of this bad blood out you know I mean it's about the dumbest thing you could imagine I mean they're putting people in genuine peril you know by bleeding them but you know the Bible said all along the life is in the blood right so it's it's it's a fascinating sort of a thing but when that life blood is shed upon the ground there's just some dynamic that we really don't fully understand remember when Cain killed his brother Abel and the Lord said to Cain his blood cries out to me from the ground it speaks to me it speaks the injustice and the greed and the anger and and the shedding of innocent blood so God said to Israel do not pollute the land with the shedding of innocent blood it was a big deal but as we go on here in verse 11 just so there's no confusion regarding premeditated murder Moses says this but if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies and he flees into one of these cities then the elders of his City shall send and take him from there and hand him over to the Avenger of blood so that he may die your eye shall not pity him but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel so that it may be well with you and that's just simply a clear statement saying if there was premeditation that's a completely different thing there is no sanctuary there is no refuge for someone who has committed murder that is premeditated alright interesting here that that we get to property boundaries and it's just one verse although it is elaborated elsewhere in the law but it says you shall not move your neighbor's landmark which the men of old have set in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess you got to know that this had to have been a temptation sometimes too because landmarks were usually rocks I mean there were there weren't fences usually between properties so you'd have a pile of rocks that marked the end of someone's property well I want to farm a little bit more land you know so what do I do I just tell my boys to go out there and move that big pile of rocks about 30 feet back no big deal right well it's a big deal God said don't move a boundary stone look at it you know this is even the echoed in the Proverbs the wisdom literature let me show you proverbs chapter 23 do not move an ancient landmark enter the fields of the fatherless for their Redeemer is strong he will plead their cause against you it was essentially theft it was theft of land God said don't do it they were taught to honor the divisions and not fudge on those border locations just to meet or to serve their own interests all right in verses 15 through 21 through the end of the chapter we deal with guidelines for witnesses and I really like this and I've sat on several juries over the years and I think that there's a lot of wisdom in this it says a single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established if a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing then both parties of two the dispute shall appear before the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days the judges shall inquire diligently in other words an investigation she'll have to go forth and if the witness is found to be a false witness and if he has accused his brother falsely I look at verse 19 then you shall do to him what he meant to do to his brother so you shall purge the evil from your midst and the rest shall hear and fear and shall never again commit any such evil among you your eye shall not pity it shall be life for life eye for eye tooth for tooth hand for hand foot for foot the passage here is clear there is to be justice in Israel there is to be justice don't even a single witness it's not enough even deal with it there must be two or three witnesses and by the way you know this is an interesting principle that also made its way into the New Testament I won't take you to that passage necessarily but you'll remember that Paul wrote and said that an accusation against an elder or an overseer was not to be even entertained except that it is brought by two or three witnesses now you need to understand that a witness is different than somebody who just heard about it right a witness is somebody who saw it a witness in other words if somebody came to me and said I know something against one of the elders here at Calvary Chapel I'd have to be very very careful about how I proceed from that case and I'm not to entertain it unless it is brought by at least one other individual but even then it's not just somebody coming and saying I heard this it says let every matter be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses did you see that person doing that well no I heard it from so-and-so who does it no that's not a witness you see we have to really be careful about that because we're kind of geared to taking somebody's word you know almost bringing allowing gossip to kind of come into the whole process of of accusation and anybody can make an accusation you know so there needs to be witnesses and that's a really important thing all right last chapter we're going to deal with here tonight chapter 20 here's a very simple outline laws regarding warfare but what's interesting about this is this really did set Israel apart if you know anything about the way the other nations did warfare you will see how this was so different let's take a look at it verse one first rinsable when you go out to war against your enemies and you see horses and chariots and an army that's larger than your own you shall not be afraid of them for the Lord your God is with you who brought you up out of the land of Egypt and this is where warfare in the Lord must begin it must begin with faith trusting God for the outcome are you facing a battle in your life some of us are some of us are facing some challenging battles know that the Lord's first principle of going into battle is still trust in the Lord you know even when you're scared trust in the Lord with all of your heart is still just as forcefully laid out in the scripture as a necessity for you and I and we're not given a free pass to waver on that just because we happen to be more afraid of what we're facing or what the situation might be first principle verse 2 and when you draw near to the battle the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and I I think this is kind of like just what I'm doing here today you know the pastor comes steps forward begins to minister from the word speak to the people and he shall say to them hear o Israel today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies let them not let not your heart faint do not fear or panic or be in dread of them for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you the victory oh I love that that's beautiful so that's what the priest is to come out and encourage those going into battle the Lord goes with you the Lord goes before you he will fight the battle then check this out the officers shall speak to the people saying so is there any man here who is built a new house and he hasn't dedicated it and that could just mean he hasn't lived in it let him go back to his house lest he die in the battle and another man dedicated and is there any man who has planted a vineyard and hasn't enjoyed its fruit letting go back to his house lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit and is there any man who has betrothed a wife and is not yet taking her let him go back to his house lest he die in battle and another man take her and the officers shall speak further to the people and say is there any man here is fearful and faint-hearted let him go back to his house lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own that's probably not a good thing and when the officers are finished speaking to the people then commanders shall be appointed at the heads of the people stop here just for a moment this is really weird warfare you're basically reducing the numbers of your army by kind of saying anybody here you know just built a house yeah go home go home how about somebody here who you know just planted a vineyard how about Sony just took a wife or maybe you're just getting ready to get married and yeah yeah go home how about you guys that are scared go home go oh essentially reducing the size of your your army but you know it's it's a reminder of something for us God doesn't need more soldiers to win battles God doesn't need numbers to win battles I mean the story of Gideon is all about that principle and that reality and you guys know what that is about but conventional warfare is not part of what the Lord does or is doing let me show you you know a passage from second Corinthians Paul says the same thing to you and I he says the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world on the contrary they have divine power to demolish strongholds what that means is we don't go to battle like the people of the world go to battle you know they fight and in very specific sorts of ways and you know this is one of those things that we have to remember sometimes people will come to me and they'll be involved in a potential legal snarl with with somebody or it could be a family member or somebody they'll say I don't know what to do pastor Paul and you know and of course the encouragement is always to pray but the reminder going into that prayer is that conventional means of warfare and battle are not part of God's you know plan usually that's not to say that God can't you know work however he wants but the thing we have to just remember going into it is that we're not fighting like the world fights you know we're not to look like the world in the way that we fight primarily the way we fight is on our knees and that's hard to get used to because some of us you know before we knew the Lord we were scrappers we were fighters and we were people who would have gotten in a fight at the drop of a pin right you know whatever it didn't take much to us to put up our dukes and you know start swinging them or whatever and we bring sometimes that that mentality into our walk with Jesus Lord you know we got a battle going on here I'm ready I'm ready and I got my yeah got my dukes up you know ready to go God says get on your knees you're going to fight this one on your knees the battle is going to be won in prayer you know largely largely we fight battles we fight spiritual battles right our battle isn't against flesh and blood there's another great reminder right but against principalities and powers and rulers of this dark world how you going to fight those with your fists good luck with that that's going to be fought and won in prayer so different very very different warfare now he's going to give them instructions here in verses 10 through 15 about battling nations or cities city states whatever you want to call them who were not located in the land of promise in other words they were not in Canaan he says when you draw near to fight me to a city to fight against it offer terms of peace to it and if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you then all the people who are found in it shall be shall do forced labor for you as you'll serve you but if it makes no peace with you but makes war against you then you shall besiege it and when the larger God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword but the women are the little ones the livestock and everything else in the city all its spoils you shall take us plunder for yourselves and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you thus you shall do to all the cities look at this that are very far from you which are not cities of the nations here but now Moses goes on to give instruction about those cities within Canaan but in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance you shall save alive nothing that breathes but you shall devote them to complete destruction the Hittites and the amorite the Canaanites and the Perizzites the Hivites and the Jebusites as the Lord your God has commanded that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods and so you sin against the Lord your God now remember again God was bringing judgment upon these nations we talked about in an earlier study how he had literally given them years to repent hundreds of years to repent of their sin they refused and now judgment was coming and God was using Israel to bring that judgment that may be very distasteful to you and I but God is able to judge he is the righteous judge and this wasn't the Jews doing this on their own or of their own accord this was at the direction of the Lord he says in verse 19 when you beseech a city for a long time making war against it in order to take it you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an axe against them you may eat from them but you shall not cut them down are the trees in the field human that they should be besieged by you only the trees that you know are not trees for food you may destroy and cut down that you may build siege works against the city that makes war with you until it falls and this is an interesting statement made at the end of this chapter here Israel is commanded to exercise restraint toward the ecology of the land by not destroying the surrounding trees when they build their siege works and by the way siege works were basically platforms and towers that the the besieging army would build outside the walls of a city so that they could get up above the walls and shoot arrows and get into the city and that sort of thing and you'll notice that God didn't forbid the construction of these siege works but he reminded his people that the those trees that were fruit-bearing could sustain future generations God had given them to the people they were part of the land of inheritance and while their removal might help win the battle a little bit faster it could very well spoil the life that God intended to follow once the land had been cleared so the principle here is that Israel is not to practice what is called desolation warfare we've actually practiced it here in the United States of America not here in the United States but go overseas you know desolation warfare is where you drop a bomb in our case and just desolate the land and in in this particular case God said don't do it because the land had been given to the people of Israel and they were to preserve what was useful they were to preserve and to respect what God had given instead of engaging in the destruction of the land so interesting sort of a comment here as we finish out that last chapter you

Channel: Calvary Chapel Ontario

Views: 13,351

Rating: 4.8427949 out of 5

Keywords: Bible, Bible teaching, Thru-the-Bible, verse by verse, Calvary Chapel, Bible study, Christianity, New Testament, Old Testament

Id: IpWkgB-i_6Q

Length: 49min 4sec (2944 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2017