Lesson 23 - Deuteronomy 17 & 18

[Music] we were discussing the section of Deuteronomy 17 that dealt with God's boundaries and his limitations of on Israel that he put upon Israel's civil and religious authorities and one of the chief principles is that in God's economy there is no separation of church and state so to speak I'm not going to debate the u.s. decision to go that route except to say that it is at the heart of what ails acidity as a nation basically our government has decided that God's ways are fine for what goes on within the walls of a church or a synagogue but they should have no bearing at all anywhere else in our lives our communities our schools our government I wonder have we actually reached a point whereby we're comfortable with that philosophy and we now passively accept it even agree with it do we effectively live our lives as though God makes a distinction between what we think and do while we're in a religious service versus what we think and do in every other facet of our existence even though if confronted with the truth of it we deny that here in Deuteronomy the Lord makes it clear that Israel's leaders of every kind no exceptions are to first and foremost obey Him the leader should above all else adhere to the Lord's laws and commandments why so the things will go well with them will go well with the people that they govern and with Israeli society in general so with that let's reread part of Deuteronomy chapter 17 Deuteronomy after 17 if you have a complete Jewish Bible we're gonna start on page 216 216 Deuteronomy and we're gonna start at 17 verse 8 if a case comes before you at your city gate which is too difficult for you to judge concerning bloodshed civil suit personal injury or any other controversial issue you are to get up go up to the place which Adonai your God will choose and appear before the priests who are Levites and the judge in office at the time seek their opinion they will render a verdict for you you will then act according to what they've told you in that place which add and I will choose and you are to take care to act according to all of their instructions in accordance with the Torah they teach you you are to carry out the judgment they render not turning aside to the right of the left from the verdict they declare to you anyone presumptuous enough not to pay attention to the priests appointed there to serve Adonai your God or the to the judge that person must die thus you will exterminate such wickedness from Israel all the people will hear about it and be afraid to continue continue acting presumptuously when you have entered the land of Adonai the land that Adonai your God is giving you have taken possession of it and are living there you may say I want to have a king over me like all the other nations around me in that event you must appoint as King the one whom I deny your God will choose he must be one of your kinsmen this King you appoint over you you are forbidden to appoint a foreigner over you who's not your kinsman however he's not to acquire many horses for himself for half the people returned to Egypt to obtain more horses and as much as that and I told you to never go back that way again like why is he's not to acquire many wise for himself that his heart will not turn away and he's not to acquire excessive quantities of silver and gold and when he has come to occupy the throne of his kingdom he's to write a copy of this Torah for himself in a scroll from the one that the Kohanim the priests and the Levites used it is to remain with him he's to read it every day as long as he lives so that he will learn to fear adonai his God and keep all the words of this Torah and these laws and obey them so that he will not think that he's better than his kinsmen so that he will not turn aside either to the right or the left from the commandments and this way he will prolong his own reign and that of his children in Israel the first group of government leaders that we discussed last time is called Shull team judges and they were usually tribal elders they were well the purpose of this for their selection was to behave as as a lower court handling manners within their own tribe about things that happened within their own tribal territory an upper court then was also established and it was to consist primarily of Levites therefore the place where these upper courts met were the 48 Levitical cities scattered throughout the land now these upper courts were not appeals courts they were courts to design designed to handle matters that were too difficult or too complex or just beyond the scope of the lower courts and since the Levites and that part of the Levites who were the priests were Israel's experts on the Torah the laws of Moses it is logical than if layman the elders couldn't reach agreement on a case it would be referred to those who are the recognized legal experts legal meaning the law of Moses the ordinance of God that establishes this legal structure also states that since this upper court consisting primarily of Levites is a federal court so to speak then it handles matters from or between members of the various tribes their rulings were not to be questioned and that anyone who refused to carry out their rulings was to be executed here is a key in understanding the role of the judges the typical ones those who form the lower courts only dealt with in Matt with matters concerning your own tribes that's it you're a Benjamite you deal with matters of the tribe of Benjamin you're a Judah I you deal with matters of the tribe of Judah and while we get this mental picture by the way of a judge sitting behind a bench ruling on legal issues in fact many of israel's judges came to assume entirely different roles than those ascribed or possibly even envisioned here Samson for instance he have superhuman strength acted as a protector of his people and an instrument of God's wrath upon the Philistines he certainly did not sit as an arbiter of legal matters among his tribe of Dan the next class of governmental leaders that Moses discussed was Kings and it would be nearly 300 years after the time of Moses before Israel actually had his first King that was Saul so the instructions regarding the boundaries and the limitations around what an Israelite King should be and what he could and could not do we're looking well into the future and we must grasp that what this is is both knowledge of the future and it's a kind of concession on God's part in other words he foreknew that Israel would eventually want to be more like their neighbors than to be said at scene as set apart and unique so he makes provision for Israel to have an earthly King because the Hebrews were in time going to demand it it's not an all unlike circumstances that Paul was dealing with and the thoughts that he gave to us recorded them concerning divorce it's not that our God ordains or condones divorce it's that in his foreknowledge and grace he knows that fallen humans will go this route so he sets up procedures and boundaries to deal with it God is in no way setting up the parameters of kingship because he accepts the governing philosophy of a man ruling over his people as a king he's doing it because in time Israel will buy their own folly insists that a human King be appointed over them and indeed that is exactly what eventually happened now Deuteronomy 17 verses 16 and 17 speak of the limitations that the Lord puts upon Israel's future Kings in three different contexts that is three different spheres of influence that every King has sway over are covered here military political and economic and the first injunction is the Kings not to amass too many horses and since the finest and most well-trained horses came from Egypt Israel would be tempted to rebuild their ties with their former slave master so that they could get these valuable animals there is also a deeper sense of instruction contained in this admonition it is that for Israel's leadership to create a relationship of convenience or a personal benefit with an enemy of God is not something that ought to be pursued by God's redeemed today this admonition of God is not only ignored by Israel and the church and is considered wrong not to seek after these kinds of relationships very foolish there are many logical reasons why this practice of worshippers of you holy you hope a commingling and even striking up alliances with God's enemies is dangerous but the only reason that really ought to drive us to obey that instruction is that God has prohibited it prohibited it I got that out cutter when the church buddies up to Islam and so-called love and peace that is a direct violation of this commandment when Israel trades with its sworn enemies and even gives them political concessions that is a direct violation of this commandment the results are inevitable it's not that the church ought to go around killing Muslims or even necessarily shunning them it's that whatever relationship is established with them should be all about building an honest relationship that deals to evangelizing of people who worship a false God it shouldn't be about tolerance or appeasement of personal gain or business or legitimizing that which is aberrant to God it's not that Israel ought to find reasons to aggravate or fight with their neighbors it's that whatever relations Israel has with their neighbors is not to be for Israel to try to be more like them and includes Western Europe and America by the way or to give up any portion of the unique relationship with God and God's land just for the sake of geopolitical peace or to essentially give up their set-apart status so that they can join the world's League of Nations and partake of global wealth further there's an interesting side comment that Israel is not to turn to Egypt for more horses you must never turn back that way again lots of interesting exegesis has come from this passage and its intent is not thoroughly agreed upon but keep in mind that this is a warning to any future Israelite King and the least it is is that Israel is an to turn to their former masters Egypt for help or for sustenance Israel's not necessarily to be a war with Egypt but neither are they to ally themselves with Egypt or become dependent on Egypt for items that the King thinks is important to him and I think this the wisdom of this and its point is probably best expressed in as an unequal yoking or an illicit mixture what have the people of God got to do with Egypt God's answer nothing you know it's ironic that in the 21st century the very same people Islam that the Western world is at war with are the same ones that we've made ourselves dependent upon for a key element of our economy and our military we have made a pact with the devil so to speak and although it's taken a while that debts coming due what began as a Western debate on oil as it relates to warring against Islam has now turned you to do it to a debate on whether or not is better to appease them than to continue to hold on to our traditional judeo-christian values recently the new approach to this seeming intractable problem is essentially removing religion as an issue altogether by reforming the world as a universal secular humanist society that demands tolerance of all gods but it holds none I'm afraid that everything that I see and that the Bible prophesies is that appeasement and surrender to evil is well underway and it is this that leads to Armageddon well the world is doing everything it humanly can to prevent it it banks this is what the verse of not going back that way is primarily about because if Israel's Kings ever start looking to the same people who view them as no more than escaped slaves for friendship and is a source of strategic military hardware or economic benefits the price is going to be to compromise or even abandon God's principles in order to achieve that and of course that's exactly what the West and even frankly a great portion of the churches in the process of doing as we speak and Moses day horses were for one primary purpose to pull chariots and chariots were used for two things as limos for the king and more importantly there were key armaments for ancient warfare the more chariots a king had in his arsenal the more formidable he was in battle the kings of Israel were instructed to place their trust in God not in military armament their power was to be their faith in the God of Israel not in that eras most advanced weaponry even so God does not speak against Israel being well-armed or having a substantial military rather it is that their hopes of victory are the Lord and thus obedience to him is the key to their survival and the source of their power and their ability to survive certainly shouldn't come from a people in this case Egypt who could pull the plug of that power source anytime they feel like it further as has always been Kings who taste great power are very jealous to keep it so they often turn their military against their own people so they can maintain that power God does not want Israel's Kings to be that strong they don't want them to be so arrogant as to be impervious to the will of the civilian population the command that Israel's Kings must not have many wife senators around a uniquely middle-eastern societal unit this called a harem Westerners tend to think of a harem it's simply a pleasure palace well it full of beautiful women for use by the king in his court that's far from reality political power in the Bible era came as much from forming strong alliances as it did from existing rather from exercising military might and those alliances almost always entailed intermarriage between the families of the king that were involved we miss the point in the infamous story of Solomon and the enormous number of wives and concubines in him in his harem because the idea that seems to be prevalent among the churches that Solomon was on some level of self-indulgence sex maniac rather the Bible story was meant to brag about the immense number of alliances he created throughout the region and how wrong minded that was every wife every concubine meant an alliance with a foreign power harems were not large palaces full of only women it was where the children of these women also resided for a king to disgrace or show disrespect to one of his wives among his harem well that was tantamount to an international incident it could bring about war with the family that wife represented so the warning that comes that a king's heart might go astray should he have a large harem means this king would be tempted to be more focused on keeping his wives and the alliances they satisfied than paying attention to the to God's people into God's commandments what a compromise and let me also remind you that the use of the word hark here was referring to the Kings mind his intellect what interested him what he felt was important not as emotions or his love and affection towards his Hera and finally is issued a warning for the King not to go about amassing a personal fortune on the backs of his subjects and how would it King go about doing that by heavily taxing his people by confiscating wealth from those smaller nations and city-states he's conquered and then put under his control and while all of that was standard operating procedure for Canaan's Kings the Israelite King was only to gather wealth for the good of his nation in order to fund a proper military to care for the neediest of his Society and for national building projects like roads that truly benefited the people on a corporate level the biblical reality is that the story of David's son King Saul is told in a fashion meant to highlight that he violated all the provisions of the law he was supposed to abstain from an overly large military to avoid having many wives in the alliance's they represented and to not store up wealth for himself even with Israel having a king the law we are reading in Deuteronomy was designed to retain God as the ultimate king of Israel and the human king simply being God's representative on earth with the intent of accomplishing the Father's will even though much more imperfectly than if Israel had not insisted on having a human king in the first place you know it's difficult in a short period of time to explain by God's definition of an earthly king as ordained in Deuteronomy is so opposite of mankind's definition of the king but suffice it to say that earthly Kings typically created the laws for their people and just as typically exempted themselves from all those laws we don't see any of that going on do we and since Israel's laws came from God Almighty then Israel's Kings were to be as much under God's laws as was any other Hebrew citizen and from verse 18 to the end is one of the most interesting instructions that brings a lump to my throat whenever I read it upon his selection the first duty of a new king is to borrow the original Torah scrolls from the priests of Israel and then to write a copy of that document for himself the king is not to have a scribe make a copy for him he's to take whatever time is needed to write it word-for-word and then to keep it close by his side is that instrument that he governed that governs his life and is the law of the land for governing the people who looked to him for leadership there is only one detailed narrative of the coronation of an Israelite King in the Bible and it is of a very young boy yo wash Josh in second Kings chapter 11 Josh was only seven years old when he became the king of the southern kingdom of Judah this is well worth taking a few minutes to read for a whole variety of reasons turn your Bibles to 2nd Kings chapter 11 we're gonna read from verses 1 through 16 2nd Kings chapter 11 if you have a complete Jewish Bible as page for 14 verses 1 through 16 when I told yah the mother of a hacia saw that her son was dead she said about destroying the entire royal family but Yoho Sheva the daughter of King yo ROM sister of a Hodja took Josh the son of a Hodja and stole him away from among the princes who were being slaughtered she took him in his nurse sequestered them in a bedroom and hid them from Italia so that he wasn't killed he remained hidden with his nurse in the house of Adonai for six years and during this time Italia ruled the land in the seventh year jehoiada summoned the captains of hundred man platoons of both the khari and the guard and he brought them into the house of Adonai and made an agreement with them and had them swear to it in the house of Adonai then he showed them the king's son and gave them this instruction here is what you were to do of you who come on duty on Shabbat Sabbath he third a third normally of the guards a third guards the royal palace a third is at the surra gate and a third is at the gate behind the guards the first third is to continue guarding the palace and serve as a barrier while the other two groups of you who come on duty on Shabbat will guard the house of out and I where the king is you were to surround the king each man with his weapon in his hand anyone who penetrates the ranks is to be killed stay with the king whenever he leaves Anders the captains over hundreds that exactly is Johanna Dada Cohen the priest ordered each took his men goes coming on duty on Shabbat those going off duty on Shabbat and came to yo ho yo da the priest the priest used issued to the captains of hundreds the Spears and shields that had been King David's and were kept than the house about an eye the guards then took positions each man with his weapon in his hand from the right side of the house to the left side of the house alongside the altar alongside the exterior of the house and around the king then he brought out the king's son and crowned him gave him a copy of the testimony and thus made him King they anointed him clapped their hands and shouted long live the king and when Italia heard the shouting of the guard and the people she entered the house of Adonai where the people were looked and saw the king standing there on the platform in keeping with the rule with the leaders and trumpeters next to the king all the people the land were celebrating and blowing the trumpets at this Italia Torah close and cried treason treason yo ho yo da the Cohen ordered the captains of hundreds the army officers escort her out past the ranks of the guard but anyone who follows her killed with the sword for the priests said she must not be put to death in the house about an eye so they took her by force let her through the horses in trees of the Royal Palace and there she was put to death first we see that the Hebrews had become just like their pagan neighbors when it came to the attributes of a king and how he came into power we see secrecy we see a power struggle we see personal agenda and we see the death of all rivals second we see that has always happened when a king came to power instead of the king serving the people the king quickly turned to making the people his servants what possible wisdom and strength and leadership could a seven-year-old child offer Israel none it was his parents it was those who wanted to manipulate this boy for their own personal power and gain who were actually in control of Israel of Judah and third noticed that the army was under the control of the ruling family and was the Army's job number one to keep the king and his family safe from the people fourth also noticed the rather fleeting mention in verse 12 of giving the copy of giving the King a copy of the testimony meaning the law of the Torah this was supposed to happen not as mere symbolism as part of a coronation ceremony but rather as something the king was to do in earnest after he was put into power what was a seven-year-old gonna do with the Torah scrolls he had no ability to copy them let alone carry out the Justice they contained this was just crass pomp and ceremony and a hollow gesture that didn't have any real meaning by this time it was something they just did his tradition probably didn't even remember why they did it yet later on we'll read that as this King grew older he did apparently take the Torah seriously and he turned to it for wisdom on the other hand he still still ruled much like a typical typical middle-eastern King he even gave away we read about him some of the Temple treasures so that he could make peace with an Assyrian King and then later on he was murdered by his own servants I can tell you one as one who manuscripts every lesson I have ever taught the act of fully writing something out has this mysterious component to it that allows one to remember it better and to contemplate it deeper back in the day before the new progressive teaching methods that have made reading writing and math secondary for learning secular human social agendas such as tolerance and diversity and anything-goes sexuality repetitive writing was used to facilitate memory and retention but know something it works it works and here in Deuteronomy the king ordered the Lord orders the king of Israel to employ his muscle memory if you would for the purpose of drinking in deeply and never forgetting the Lord's commandments put upon the king and of the laws that he is to enforce upon those that he serves few of Israel's Kings paid these laws any heed let's move on to chapter 18 Deuteronomy chapter 18 you have a complete Jewish Bible its page 217 the Kohanim the priests or Lev ìiím Levites and indeed the whole tribe of levy are not to have a share or an inheritance with Israel instead their support will come from the food offered by fire to add anion from whatever else becomes his they will have no inheritance with their brothers because Adonai is their inheritance as he is said to them the priests will have the right to receive from the people from those offering a sacrifice where their ox or sheep the shoulder the jowls and the stomach you will also give him the firstfruits of your grain new wine and olive oil and the first of the fleece of your sheep for Adonai year God has chosen him from all of your tribes to stand and serve in the name of Adonai him and his sons forever if a Levite from one of your own towns anywhere in Israel where he is living comes highly motivated to the place which ad and I will choose and then he will serve there in the name of ad and I has got just like his kinsman the Levites who stand and serve in the presence of Adonai such a Levite will receive the same share as they do in addition to what he may received from selling his inherited ancestral property when you enter the land of Adonai that night your God is given to you you are not to learn how to follow the abominable practices of those nations they must not be found among you anyone who makes his son or daughter pass through fire a diviner a soothsayer an enchanter a sorcerer a spellcaster consultor of ghosts or spirits or a necromancer for whoever does these things detestable to that an eye and because of these abominations that and ie or God is driving them out ahead of you Yuma's whole heart be wholehearted without an eye your God for these nations which you are about to diss possess listen to soothsayers and diviners but you add and I hear God does not allow you to do this ad and I will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves from your own kinsmen you're a paid attention to him just as when you were assembled at horev and it requested that and I your God don't let me hear the voice of Adonai my god anymore let me see this great fire ever again if I do all die on that occasion ad and I said to me they are right in what they're saying I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen I will put my words in his mouth and he will tell them everything I order him whoever doesn't listen to my words which he will speak in my name will have to account for himself to me but if a prophet presumptuously speaks a word of my name which I didn't order him to say or if he speaks in the name of other gods then that prophet must die you may be wondering how are we to know if a word has not been spoken by how to die when a prophet speaks in the name of Adonai and the prediction does not come true that is the word is not fulfilled an ad and I did not speak that word the Prophet who said it spoke presumptuously you have nothing to fear from him the previous chapter outlined the general boundaries and limitations for two of the four classes of government leaders judges and Kings this chapter now does the same thing for their two remaining classes priests and prophets first one begins with the matter of the priests and it reiterates that the official group of priests of Israel comes only from the tribe of levy it's noteworthy that sends Exodus and the establishment of the priesthood the phrase Levitical priests is often included when matters concerning the clergy of Israel arise the reason is is simple on the one hand as it is complex on the other it is simple because while God has declared that only one tribe levy is to provide God's authorized servants and only one clan within that tribe Aaron's clan is to provide the priests that was not something that the other tribes of Israel found very easy to accept it was the norm for most other Middle Eastern cultures of that era for the King to choose the highest priests then the highest priests would choose the lesser priests and a new king meant a new batch of priests what families these priests came from played a role in that selection but it was far more a matter of political meaning economic influence rather than some long-established hereditary right to that position and remember let's get some basics here until the law was given on Mount Sinai there was no official priesthood for the Hebrews certainly no priestly tribe had been appointed by God rather the first Born's from each family from every tribe tended to behave as sort of a family priest this was a special status that was just relished by the firstborn of each family who held it so when Moses told the twelve tribes of Israel that God has ordered that this firstborn system is coming to an end and it was to be replaced by members of the tribe of levy it was met with stiff resistance as we've talked about mankind's propensity to be in a never-ending search for loopholes no matter what our faith our religion to the tribes of Israel they did their best to punch holes in the laws concerning who could be priests therefore we're gonna find the phrase over and over Levitical priests Levitical priests it makes it abundantly clear it's only members of the tribe of levy that can be the clergy for Israel nobody else another reminder is contained within the first verse is that while the Levites were blessed with the higher than everyone else holiness status needed to be God's servants they paid they paid a very heavy price for that election for that privilege they were not given hereditary tribal land holdings and Israel has worthy other tribes look at this ma'am in the days of Joshua and for several hundred years after and we'll find fairly well defined districts that were assigned as forever land holdings for each tribe of Israel but nowhere is there such a thing as a territory of levy instead the Levites were assigned 48 cities scattered among the twelve tribal districts along with a few acres of pasture land just outside the walls of those cities it is this understanding of both the Levite status and of their lack of land that Israel is to respond to that by means of their corporate to support the tribe of levy in exchange for the Levites duties to the central sanctuary into the local courts and as teachers of the law Torah teachers and the focus of verses three through five is to address the livelihood of these priests and levites and we're told that this livelihood is to come primarily from the sacrifices of first blings that are offered by members of the other tribes meaning the firstborn animal sacrifices the firstfruits from the field from the crop and so on and as we covered a long time ago in leviticus there were many specific classifications of sacrifices each with a different protocol each with a different purpose therefore back in verse one were told that a group of sacrifices typically rendered in english as fire offerings or something like that is to be the source of sacrificial offerings from which the priests and Levites get to keep a portion of it for themselves the hebrew term for fire offering is a she--she it's not the same thing as that common term the burnt offering which in Hebrew is Ola ashay represents a series of sacrifices that are designated as those that while a portion of it gets burned up on the altar another and larger portion can be used as food for the clergy while olá indicates a kept class of sacrifice in which the entire animal is burned up none of the meat can be used as food for anyone I want to be clear about something because someone has asked me about this before it's a good question was all the meat from the sacrificed animal placed on the altar fire and then some of it removed for food when it was cooked the answer is no that which was held for the clergy and the worshiper was not put on the altar fire this wasn't a backyard barbecue where the meat was cooked on a communal grill that if everybody kind of grabbed a rib or a burger the altar was not a place where meat was cooked this is important meat was not cooked on the altar meat was destroyed on the altar it was burnt up till ashes although my father used to do the same thing with the meat we had on our barbecue grill I'll tell you my wife can testify to that by the way three specific parts of the various sacrificial animals when used as fire offerings were to be set aside as food for the priests and the Levites the shoulder meaning the upper part of the right fore leg that goes from the shoulder to the knee and that part of the stomach that is also called the fourth stomach also the clergy is to receive the jowls and the tongue now for most modern those last couple of items are considered as waste meat that was not the case in that era these were good desired portions of meat and and not just within Hebrew culture and verse full four were told that in addition to these meat portions certain agricultural produce was to go to the priests and the Levites and we've talked on several occasions about firstfruits offerings well it was understood that all firstfruits were to go to the Levite clergy as their portion and in addition to grain into fruit this included olive oil wine even wool from the shearing as a sheep that's just the beginning of thought of the list and starting in verse six we get this cryptic statement that a Levite can go from any settlement within the Land of Israel to the place the Lord has chosen and if that Levi desires he can serve there here's what this is getting at most Levites lived in small towns and cities and remote areas of the various Israelite tribal territories it was in one of these 48 Levite towns where they lived and they served many Levites however desired to serve at this awesome central sanctuary the seat of religious power and not just at some local village and dealing with mundane everyday matters therefore the Lord makes it clear that all Levites are to be given an opportunity to participate at the tabernacle if they want to and later we're going to see an interesting system of courses devised whereby the Levites are organized into groups from various areas and are given terms as a unit to officiate and serve at the temple and a kind of set rotation and it says in verse 8 these out shelves share and share alike from the offerings and the sacrifices no one is to be excluded or to get any more than the other next chapter 18 discusses the all-important office of profit and it is interesting what has been set down as limitations and warnings for judges and Kings not to abuse their power and then the instruction for Israel to make provisions for priests and Levites this now turns to the duty of people to pecos heed to God's prophets and in this case it is that all Israel is to listen to these prophets judges Kings priests citizens at large everybody is to listen to God's prophets prophets represented an official office within Israel these people were not self-appointed while priests were to observe and teach and in some cases adjudicate the written word of God the prophets were more Moses like or maybe more Samuel like the prophet were those who had a legitimate line of communication directly with God since prophets are God's messengers to Israel and Israel's leader than Israel is of course to obey the words of the prophets because they're God's words beginning in verse 9 a couple of scenarios are laid out for Israel first is what Israel's attitude is to be towards the aberrant practices of the nations that is pagan practices as concerns communicating with the gods and what pagans were usually doing in an attempt to communicate with the spirit world was to find out about the future I'm not sure there's a greater temptation among humans then to find some way any way to find out about what the future holds Nostradamus Edgar Cayce so many other psychics and fortune tellers that were held in high regard in every part of the world they were held up because it seems everyone has a reason to want to know what lies ahead God has authorised exactly one way for us to know about the future through him if it isn't from him or not this even we're not even seek it further he says that the way he lets us know what part of the future he deems he wants us to know is by means of his prophets and/or is already written word verses 10 and 11 lists a series of unauthorized means to attempt to get at the future Ana ranges from offering a child sacrifice in exchange for receiving information to divining sorcery even attempting to talk to the spirits of the dead while this is not intended to be an exhaustive list of every possible means of trying to find out about the future it does cover the most common and well-known methods of that time and what is listed includes things like reading the entrails of animals talking with ghosts looking at patterns of oil or blood dripped into bowls of water magic all of this Lord says anyone who does these things is aberrant to him I want to be clear none of those cute little psychic hotlines advertised on TV those tarot cards we can buy at Barnes & Noble it's palm readers next to the tattoo parlors we can joke about them I want you to know these folks are serious about what they do serious God serious about it too all I can tell you is that for God's people to even get close to dealing with these folks who do such things even as a lark just something fun to do on a boring afternoon this puts us in direct confrontation with God not a very good idea and the Lord says that this is the reason he's kicking those Canaanites out of their own land and giving it to Israel because they do all this stuff so Israel is certainly not to do what the Canaanites have been doing in trying to divine the future rather the Lord says in verse 15 he'll raise up a prophet for Israel for this purpose when it's God's will that Israel should know things about the future God will appoint a prophet to tell them and in that quote it's made crystal clear that when a prophet speaks all Israel is to obey but it also says in verse 20 that if a prophet speaks something that God didn't tell him to say or he speaks in the name of false gap gods what happens to that prophet to die to be executed this is a Hebrew prophet that's being spoken about here so the first issue concerns pagan prophets now the issue is Israelite prophets and the question becomes a sticky one because it's bedeviled Judaism and Christianity forever how can we tell a false prophet from a true prophet of Jehovah God when both are claiming to be loyal believers of the gods God of Israel both are claiming that their words directly from God and so it's trustworthy how do we know the simplistic answer lies in verse 22 when a prophet says he's speaking a word from the Lord and it doesn't happen that person is a false prophet should not be listened to yet sometimes the prophecy that is spoken is to occur so far into the future how will the people hearing it ever know which guy to believe sometimes have quite a can of worms I think also a pet peeve of mine and it concerns those who have who make a habit of saying to others I have a word from the Lord for you I don't like that very much in other words they have declared themselves to be prophets whether they realize that or not if you are tempted to put yourself in that position or if you're convinced the Lord has anointed you as a prophet but I want you to think very long and hard about what we've just read and Deuteronomy 18 God doesn't leave any wiggle room here if you truly have a message from him it is infallible it will happen precisely is given if it doesn't happen it's not from him it was from another source and the prophet has spoken falsely prophet can speak the truth 10 times and be right but if she could carry it away say something one time it's not from God the consequences for delivering a false message are severe with the loss of credibility being the least thing to worry about even God's greatest prophets the ones who have books of the Bible name for them we read how they worry constantly whether to even tell the people what they believed God told them they often had doubts about whether they were correct they wondered whether or not what they had it actually entered their minds was was was a divine origin or was it their imaginations working overtime or even worse God's greatest prophets knew that being chosen is his prophet didn't mean that they were incapable of being wrong it meant he was incapable of being wrong they all therefore therefore all of God's prophets were by definition reluctant prophets in every sense of the word and that they weren't seeking to be a prophet when God called them they weren't even sure they wanted the job they were usually full of doubts about whether to actually deliver the Lord's message to the people as he told him to do I think part of the reason for this insecurity was that prophets were often beaten jailed and martyred about that for a job description and the least they usually had difficult and often isolated lives this is because the message is from God not usually ones that people particularly wanted to hear they liked it the way things were you know the old saying about how people seem to always want to kill the messenger of unwelcome news there was another facet to this predicament as well prophets understood understood God's sovereignty to a point that most of us generally don't they knew full well that God I send them a message that if the people don't stop doing the sand so and repent that God was going to destroy them the prophets all understood also understood that it was God who would determine if the people complied that's what he told him to do the Lord didn't consider the views of humans who've just stood back and observed the whole thing so like the story of Jonah at Nineveh Jonah was concerned that the people of Nineveh might actually listen to God's ultimatum repent in their hearts invisibly to humans but exactly what God was looking for and avoid the prophecy of destruction that Jonah was sent to pronounce upon them the result would be that God would overturn his decision to annihilate the city and withhold his wrath from Jonah's viewpoint the prophecy of destruction that he preached then might not occur and guess what that would do and make him a false prophet in the eyes of people and at the least his own people wouldn't want to hear him any longer and at worst you might be executed for being a false prophet he was so concerned about this prospect what did he do he fled he tried to hide from God God had to retrieve him threaten him to deliver his message to the people of Nineveh all of this anxiety in trouble the Jonah face was completely standard operating procedure for God's prophets in the Bible and it's my contention that that pattern has never changed so let's understand being a prophet is a great and honorable thing it's also fraught with danger a lot of difficulty it's not something we ought to seek after telling someone what you believe is a word from the Lord for them there's no trivial thing and the Bible's prophets are about the greatest example of that next week will begin Deuteronomy 19 we stand [Music] you see [Music] you see you

Channel: Torah Class

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Length: 58min 49sec (3529 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 02 2019