Lesson 9 - Deuteronomy 6 Cont.

[Music] now I'm going to ask you for your attention your patience because the first half of this lesson is significantly different in the last and the last half feels with one of the more challenging messages that I have had the privilege to present one of the most revered Jewish sages the Rambam also known as Maimonides lived during the 12th century ad said this the ancient sages said whoever has to fill in on his head and arms sit sit on his garment and mezuzah on his door may be presumed not to sin for he has many reminders and these are the angels that save him from sinning as it is said the angel the Lord caps around those who revere him and he rescues them the Rambam point is at the wearing of tefillin and sit sit and the fastening of a mezuzah to one's doorpost of one's home brings the Lord and His commandments into constant reminder to the Jew who does such a thing and therefore the likelihood that such a person would knowingly sin against you ho phase remote and by the way as I've taught you before the Hebrew word that usually and sometimes an error gets translated in the English as angel is Millat and it is played as sense Milad simply means messenger and that is more the sense Maimonides the Rambam meets means it here and as we continue today in our study of Deuteronomy chapter 6 we're going to look carefully at this practice of Orthodox Judaism in their wearing of devices called tefillin and of course placing a mezuzah at the entry to one's home and often at every interior doorway throughout the house as well so let's reread Deuteronomy 6 starting at verse 6 and we'll go to the end of the chapter if you have a complete Jewish Bible its page 204 Deuteronomy 6 starting at verse 6 these words which I'm ordering you today are to be on your heart you're to teach them carefully to your children you're to talk about them when you sit at home when you're traveling on the road when you light out when you get up tie them on your hand as a sign put them at the front of your headband around your forehead write them on the doorframes of your house and on your gates when I don't know your God has brought you into the land he swore your ancestors Abraham Isaac and Jacob that he would give to you cities great and prosperous which you didn't build houses full of all sorts of things which you didn't fill water cisterns dug which you didn't dig vineyards olive trees which you didn't plant and you've eaten your fill then be careful not to forget I don't know who brought you out of the land of Egypt where you were slaves you are to fear Adonai your God serve him swear by his name you're not to follow other gods chosen from the gods of the peoples around you because Adonai your God who is here with you is a jealous God if you do the anger of AA deny your God will flare up against you and he will destroy you from the face of the earth do not put out an eye your God to the test as you tested him at Mossad observe diligently the meets both Commandments of a denying your God is his instructions in laws which he's given to you you are to do what is right and good in the sight of Adonai so that things will go well with you and you will enter and possess the good land and I swear to your ancestors expelling all of your enemies ahead of you as that and I said someday your child will ask you what's the meaning of these instructions laws and rulings which ad and I our God has laid down for you then you will tell your child we were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and out and I brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand I don't I weren't great and terrible signs and wonders against Egypt Pharaoh and all of his household before our eyes he brought us out from there in order to bring us to the land he had sworn to our ancestors that he would give us and I ordered us to observe all of these laws to fear ad and I our God always for our own good that he might keep us alive as we are today it will be righteousness for us if we're careful to obey all of these Commandments before Adonai our God just as he ordered us to do when verse 6 says these are the words which I'm ordering you there to be on your heart it's referring to the Shema the hero Israel the two verses that come immediately before what I just read to you now and as we thoroughly discuss those two verses last week so I'm not going to review all of that but if you missed it either go to the Torah class.com website and/or pick up a CD and listen to it because this is the central tenet of the judeo-christian faith now please note further that the phrase these words is also referring to all the laws and commands which has already been given and they're about to be given because this section of Deuteronomy is in essence an interruption and the flow of the giving of the law and order for Moses to make a very crucial point that God's commandments are to be carried out within the context of loving the Lord the idea is that to make following these Commandments out to be some kind of heartless or mechanical ritual this is the whole point notice further that the instruction that the law the Torah is to be on your heart I emphasize this because it has been erroneously taught by many church leaders that the Old Testament was a rigid external law code written on stone tablets while the New Testament would have the new dynamic of being commandments of Jesus written on our hearts internally such as obviously not the case as our many of the old testament versus new testament myths verse 7 tells israel to teach these laws and commandments especially the Shema to their children this is not an idle exhortation I mentioned last week that Moses is isn't spending all of this time and energy giving a thorough restatement of the law and then expounding upon its meaning just as some kind of a ceremony celebrating the beginning of holy war to conquer the promised land of Canaan rather this new generation didn't know much of the law their parents who were the original Exodus generation now didn't God did not do their duty they didn't teach their children it was a standing for Moses right now didn't teach them God's laws nor did they particularly follow those laws very closely at this point we get a short series of instructions that has formed a great deal of Jewish tradition it says that the head heads of households are to speak about the Lord in his commands when you're at home when you're away when you lie down when you get up this statement it is is a literary device that is not at all confined to Hebrew culture it's one that's used a great deal in the Bible however and it's called mer ism that is it's a poetic statement meant to convey an idea it's an expression that the several parts of it are combined to present one overarching concept for instance in an earlier example of Meir ISM in Genesis we're told that God created the heavens and the earth now the idea is not that he created only something defined as the heavens and another thing called the earth the planet and then we're left to ponder whether God did not create other things rather it simply means God created everything because to the Hebrews the heavens represented the infinite the earth represented the finite so the statement about when to speak to the Lord one here at home when you're away when you're lying down when you're up simply means all times everywhere every situation that's the point is trying to make now in verse 8 we encounter an instruction that has created significant controversy inside of the Hebrew religion and generally has been ignored in Christianity that we are to bind these Commandments as a sign on our hand a symbol on our forehead and the controversy among the Jews is what you might expect is this a literal commandment and what some form of a ritual device is actually to be fitted to the hand into the forehead or whether this is a metaphorical statement this simply means that just as the Lord's words are to be constantly thought of constantly spoken that they are also to become a part of us in some kind of a physical sense and the purpose is for one to constantly be reminded of God and of his law sometimes well after the law was given a few groups of Jews agreed that this was to be taken literally so the use of tefillin came in to being in Greek and therefore in the New Testament we'll find the mention of these ritual objects using the word phylacteries that's just the Greek word for the same tefillin or phylacteries consisted of two small black leather boxes that contain four passages of Scripture and these are attached to black leather straps one box is placed on the left arm up by the biceps the other is placed on the forehead or up by the air I need a little tattoo of everything anyway they are donned before and during morning prayers by the Orthodox Jews however they are not used on Sabbath or certain other holy days because it's considered that the observance of the holy day itself is a sign no other signer reminder of God's laws is needed before the calf Allah which is singular for TEFL in for the arm is put on a prayer is usually offered and this prayer tells us that for the Orthodox Jew the wearing of tefillin is seen as a commandment from God they say it in Hebrew behold and putting on tefillin I intend to fulfill the commandment of my Creator who has commanded us to put on tefillin as it is written in his Torah and then Deuteronomy 6 8 is quoted buying them as a sign upon your arm and let to fill and be between your eyes now the reality is that last sentence that supposedly comes from Deuteronomy 6 8 the word to fill in is not there rather the word is put to fit which is more correctly means bans so what we have here in the wearing of tefillin is tradition however not all Hebrews observed this tradition and there is no evidence that this tradition even existed prior to around 250 BC we do know from records that Pharisees made the wearing of to fill in a strict part of their doctrines and at some point they took to wearing them not only at morning prayer but at all times except when they were trying to sleep we also know that the Hebrews who lived in Samaria did not observe this tradition which of course was a great an intended insult to the Jews of Judea and piers that was this was primarily a custom of those Jews who lived in Judea and even then close to the center of Jewish orthodoxy which was Jerusalem so there is no record of any widespread use of tefillin in the Galilee where Yeshua lived so was it only the Pharisees back then that wore to fill it apparently not because ancient tefillin were actually found among the artifacts of the essence at Qumran and they are mentioned within the community documents of the Dead Sea Scrolls Josephus discusses to fill it and goes on to explain that at times even the Ten Commandments were included among the writings that were stored inside those little literature of leather boxes so we know how they were worn what was contained in the boxes but it changed over time and that different groups of Jews developed different tefillin or phylactery traditions well the head tefillah is placed in the center to the forehead and then yet another prayer is recited and the straps and the back are knotted so it forms the Hebrew letter dalet and the arms strap by the hands is to be in the form of a yoda so these three Hebrew letters form the name Shaddai an alford enter Shem who is a renowned Hebrew Christian scholar rights of the two fill-ins mystical significance for their value and importance in the eyes of the rabbis it were impossible to exaggerate it they were reverenced as highly as the scriptures it was said that Moses received the law of their observance from God on Mount Sinai that that tefillin were more sacred than the golden plate on the forehead of the high priest since its inscription embodied only the sacred name Yoho way while tefillin contained in it not less contain that name not less than 23 times Alfred inertia also affirms that although the Pharisees were scrupulous about wearing them the admission that neither the officiating priests nor the representatives of the people wore them in the temple seems to imply this practice was not quite universal tefillin was an observance of Judaism not an observance of Biblical Hebrew ISM they were worn in connection with the synagogue not in connection with the temple and these two institutions the temple and the synagogue did not much like each other they saw themselves as opponents the Pharisees who were usually the synagogue leaders wanted to be noticed for their own outward pious 'no sand as will recall yeshua criticized them for this and their other actions such as having a trumpet blown whenever they contributed money to the temple coffers but what is key to notice is that in his typical british manner of understatement edersheim says this practice of wearing tefillin was not quite universal translation it was a minority of Jews who did this and it was those who had more loyalty to the synagogue than to the temple who did it now I have heard Hebrew roots and messianic leaders say Yeshua must have worn to fill him that is anywhere from highly unlikely to approaching not a chance Yeshua was a common peasant Jew from the Galilee he often displayed the typical Galilean attitude of disdain towards these inflated religious egos of the Jewish religious authorities authorities of Jerusalem and this included the Pharisees who were vital part of that religious authority but again remember the Pharisees connected to the synagogue so let me be clear the wearing of tefillin is at least a dubious interpretation of the Torah so is it wrong no but it is in no way a biblical commandment the great Rambam Maimonides many other elite Jewish sages say unequivocally that the statement to bind them as a sign on your arm and on your forehead is a metaphor it is not to be taken literally but like every man-made tradition or invention of a new symbol there's danger in it and we find that de jure evident simply in the Greek word used to translate to fillin which is phylactery see phylactery is not a special invented Greek word to describe this unique Hebrew habit of some Jews of wearing these leather boxes and straps phylactery is just a general Greek term that means amulet an amulets a magic charm it's a small logic set to possess healing powers or protection qualities and as one might expect among the many Jews who did decide to work to fill in some thought of them as objects that possessed godly power in fact we haven't expressly stated in an ancient Jewish targum that the tefillin prevented all hostile demons from doing injury to that Israelite that said I don't think we ought to be too judgmental about the Orthodox Jews use of this ancient cultural tradition however emulating it as Gentile or Jewish believers that's another issue now before we begin discussing mezuzahs I want to make something quite clear the Bible does not prohibit every possible manufacturer use of symbols we were created as visual creatures and so symbols are an important element and helping to remind us of our position and our allegiance to God however there are strict rules and principles governing the making or using of symbols and they're called out in the Torah and Deuteronomy throughout helps us to be very cautious not to develop symbols that can be used or taken by others in the wrong way the Torah tends towards firmly prohibiting symbols that tend to anthropomorphize you horny Hovey that means it speaks against something that would have God taking on human-like man-like qualities expressed in human-like man-like forms therefore there's to be no statues no paintings no carved images of any kind said to depict him truthfully the wonderful works of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel probably ought never to have been done because most of them have God depicted as a bearded old man at least naked from the waist up floating around on the clouds and this kind of image that became so very popular in the Renaissance period has unconsciously in some Kjus cases consciously pervaded the church and it's greatly distorted the image of just who God is it has caused us to think of him as more of an eternal superhuman rather than as an infinitely superior non-human we are also specifically prohibited from using any created things meaning created by God as a model for a symbol that identifies with the Lord things like stars the moon animals any kind of sea creature conversely the bible does give us certain god-ordained symbols that we are divinely authorized to use although within limits among these are sitsit fringe and perhaps the object that we're about to study next the mezuzah and notice that none of these things that our God ordained violate the rules that the Lord sets down about symbols and images the mezuzah is a continuation of the lord's extreme importance that he places upon a worshippers act of remembering who he is that he's our God now this instruction in verse 9 to write his laws on the doorframes of your house and on your gates is universally agreed to within Judaism to be a literal command to place scripture on the entry to your home and on the gate into every village and city however it could also be reasonably construed to be a metaphor about honoring the Lord in your home it was common in Moses era as well as before and after to write some sort of message or epithet honoring one's God above your doorway most societies did this in one form or another it was also the norm to have some type of message at the main entries into cities that pronounced the greatness of that city's king or the God perhaps that was honored in that City and it was no less so in Egypt from which the Israelites had come so it's no wonder that the order to remember the Lord and to sort of dedicate the premises to the premises to the Lord by means of writing some of his scripture on entryways was completely understood to be carrying the carrying on that very common middle-eastern custom in Christ era this was something that all Jews Judea and Galileans Samaritan even the Diaspora Jews could agree upon now how this was to be done wasn't elaborated upon in Holy Scriptures so of course traditions developed to handle it it appears that the practice we see today of placing this small oblong device that can be affixed to a doorway began in the Second Temple period slightly before and during Yeshua's time and inside this device called a mezuzah typically went some Torah portions written using miniature letters on a tiny little piece of parchment using usually using Deuteronomy 6:4 through 9 and Deuteronomy 11 13 through 21 as as the text like with tefillin masseuses we usually say mezuzahs were also found at Qumran and in addition to having those particular verses within them several of those ancient mezuzahs also included the 10 copy of the Ten Commandments now sadly just as with tefillin even this God or Dean's simple at times took on the characteristics of an amulet a good luck charm we find that even the great Jewish religious leader rabbi the Prince sent Rabbi Judah the parents who was really the person who wrote the Mishnah he sent a mezuzah to the Parthian King our Nevada with a message that he had only attached this to his home's doorpost it would be a protector for him now in the end most of the details involving the use of mezuzahs are traditions yet the principle of their use like with tefillin is most definitely biblical my vices if you want to employ a mezuzah to indicate your family's allegiance to the God of Israel or simply to remind you of the Lord's commandments as you come in you go that you at least follow standard Jewish traditions about placement that's primarily so you don't ruin your witness if a Jewish person comes to your home and the main thing to know is it should be placed in the upper third of the right door jamb right aside from the outside looking in with the top of it angled just a little bit towards the homes interior and one more thing while the door posts are referring to your personal home the gates are referring to a city or a village the city gates functioned as the town square and biblical eras and even as the era where judicial court was held it's not unlike the practice that used to exist in America of posting the Ten Commandments in our courts of law to remind everyone in attendance it was from these principles it was from these that the form of our laws came and that the Lord is looking down upon these proceedings and he wants his definition of justice and mercy is missed administers as much as is humanly possible well now in verse 10 the act of remembering takes on a different kind of importance from tefillin and mezuzot it is that whether in poverty or prosperity one is to is exhorted to look back in history biblical history salvation history even our own personal history I suppose at the wondrous things that God has done for us make no mistake the main thrust of these next passages is about our remembering his sovereignty especially in the time of prosperity because it is our tendency to look more to ourselves and our man-made societies away from the Lord when things are going really well for us this is part of this is the part of the day's lesson where the rubber hits the road now so please stay stay up with me the Lord says in Deuteronomy 6 but don't allow abundance to make you forget God and turn to other gods oh man what a unheeded wisdom that warning has been throughout mankind history mankind's history israel's history the church's history and perhaps never before to such a great extent as today in Europe and America it is so ironic that perhaps the single thing that causes more people to go astray is the seeking and the attainment of wealth that is because in my opinion we feel much less dependent on the Lord when we seem to have all we need and more believe me I've been no way glorifying poverty and I'm not criticizing abundance I'm saying that prosperity can be a very dangerous thing and I'm I have first-hand experience with it many years ago in the middle portion of my corporate career success brought a great fall for me it's not that I ever doubted you shoe it was my Savior or that the Lord God was and is it's that I forgot about my relationship with him I saw no need to consult him on a daily basis in my life because I had more than I could ever have hoped for everything I touched seemed to turn to gold I was completely self-sufficient I was prideful actually I think arrogant would be a very fair word I gave no thought to his ways to his laws or even to the reality of an my need for his presence in my life I certainly gave no thought to his holiness nor did I give thanks for the blessings that he'd provided because I was just way too busy congratulating myself for it then came the fall there's a very hard harsh painful lesson to learn that what the Lord says he means and it applies to everyone without exception and so the Lord says beginning in verse 10 that once Israel finally possesses the land that had been promised to Abraham six hundred years earlier and once the Israelites begin to benefit from all the preparations the Lord has made for them that there were going to be a few things they needed to keep in mind or they like I did would find themselves in place they didn't want to be in regard to the relationship with the Lord and there would be severe there would be inescapable consequences so my dear brothers and sisters in Messiah I ask you to hear this warning in a nutshell the Hebrews are told that all they are about to receive they didn't build all they're about to inherit it Herod they haven't earned by their merit the cities and the houses they're going to live in are being forcibly taken from the various tribes and nations of Canaan who built them they're being taken by the Lord and all of it simply to be turned over to Israel for Israel's benefit the vineyards with those luscious enormous grapes that they will enjoy Israel didn't plant them they didn't cultivate them the olive groves they're going to produce the all oyel needed for everything from cooking to powering their oil lamps to being the necessary ingredients for several of the ritual ceremonies that the Lord has ordained for medical purposes they are ready to go gift that others worked for generations to establish and Israel's receiving at all just for showing up Israel is reminded they didn't elect themselves they didn't separate themselves as God's special people the Lord selected the Lord blessed them as his own and by the way they didn't rescue themselves from Pharaoh either God did it all bottom line everything that Israel needs the Lord's prepared to give them what he wants in return is their love and their trust the fundamental truth about the kingdom of heaven is that whatever we build with our own hands that comes from our own minds is going to burn up when the hidden end of history arrives that which the Lord builds through us however has value and it will survive the lesson is that that which is worth anything of real value is willed and accomplished by the Lord and he deserves the credit and we sure don't that in no way indicates now that weird to just sit back passively and wait for good things to come our way no our lives are to be a cooperative effort with the Lord your whole they tells the Israelites that he has prepared the battlefield ahead of them and assured the victory but they're still gonna have to go through with fighting the battle they are to fight when he says to fight where he says to fight and not how it seems good or foolish to them they must put their lives on the line they must be willing to give up everything dear to them the lesson shown to us here is that action on our part is invariably required it's demanded by God but what are the characteristics of the actions that we are to take how do we know that it's the Lord who's leading and not the misguided mindset of an agenda driven human Moses the leader of Israel personally sacrificed everything for the Hebrew nation and he was constantly accountable to the Lord and to the people Moses didn't live under one set of rules and then demand that everybody else live under another set of rules the olders were accountable at every step to Moses Moses was no less apt to be punished by the Lord for a sin or an act of rebellion than anyone to the three million anonymous citizens of Israel the plans and goals though difficult were for the good of the group and for the Kingdom of Heaven it was not to allow Moses to win a popularity poll and each step along the way was a fulfillment of a god-ordained covenant or promise the leader Moses never even got to economically or personally benefit from his 40-year effort some or all of these characteristics play a role in our determining whether it is men's plans or God's plans that we're being asked to buy into now notice what happens as a result a following a plan or an agenda that is not truly of the Lord even though it sure sounds holy verse 14 says don't follow other gods any gods of the peoples about you okay I'm gonna meddle here a little bit we've seen a number of times that the biblical term for following other gods is idolatry we've also seen that God clearly labels idolatry as anything that's placed ahead of him the definition of this definition I just gave you of idolatry this is not allegory this is the lord's actual biblical definition of idolatry do we place our comfortable doctrines our comfortable personal habits our comfortable practices that please us but that often have no scriptural validity ahead of his truth because his truth in his way they're not so comfortable they're not so easy are we bound to determine to fight to the death to hold on to these dubious things because we like them so we rationalized them that is idolatry in its purest sense Israel denied their own idolatry at every step and only upon God's wrath that they ever seemed to recognize it and admit it for what it was what is it the world seeks who is it that the world follows by definition the world seeks the world follows things that either are not God or are more important than God the world seeks other gods the world seeks the god of prosperity the god of inalienable rights the god of sexual freedom the god of happiness and pleasure the God of geopolitical harmony when we believers of the God of Israel seek to use those same sorts of things that the world prefers in order to attract new folks to only we had a little bit of religion to it then we are on a dangerous pathway but since we usually do them in a Christian environment we often deceive ourselves into believing that we can avoid those dangers are such a slippery slope won't apply to us and what are the results of our cavalier attitudes in that regard verse 15 says the angle of the anger of the Lord will blaze up against us if I hear one more time that our Father doesn't get angry at his people or would never punish us I believe I'll have a heart attack this is apostasy it is denial from the plain scriptural truth we are perfect in his eyes we are justified in his eyes we have seen the example of how the Lord deals his justice among his own set apart people Israel redeemed Israel was punished they were disciplined time and again often with significant loss of life we have reviewed the records of the tribes that were regularly said to go astray and we find that in the case of Simeon and in Dan they were decimated and their populations reduced by half and more since 1965 church attendance and America began to dwindle why did our beloved church start to decline I'd beg it but when the church goal became growth and prosperity above almost anything else I'd peg it to when we started to move towards the world rather than keeping our standards high and intact it's interesting that in this era of the megachurch with its ability to provide awesome surroundings a wide array of activities and services for its congregation this all began at the same time we are essentially following the identical trend of Europe 200 years ago Europe was 90% Christian today it's less than 3% churches are now becoming mosques or they're being changed into storefronts or museums in America the most recent studies show without doubt that the number of people who attend church is dropping at the rate of about one percent per year since 1990 Americans who claim to be Christians that's dropping it at even faster rate I mean folks we need to face it the Lord isn't pleased with us we fiddled while Rome burned we Christians have abandoned the simple loveliness of the gospel in exchange for slick marketing we've replaced teaching God's word with rousing sermons about everything from the need to give more money to why we ought to vote we have come to believe that if we present ourselves to a non-believing world by packaging ourselves attractively more will come of course that packaging that that appeals to the world sure doesn't look much like the laws and commandments of God does it and of course the opposite of our intended effort has happened the books of Joshua and judges chronicle the fall of Israel into apostasy idolatry disarray because they decided that rather than follow the Lord's demands that they possessed the land he prepared for them and to fight for what is right in God's eyes they sought to appease their pagan neighbors through diplomacy compromise and peace treaty their hope was to obtain their inheritance by peaceful means in a rational illogical way similar to how the world had always operated and Israel is still trying to do that today and now so is the church and believe me I'm not planting fingers I'm accepting play but now that we've discovered our Bali we know where we stumbled let's determine together to rekindle our love for God to recover his word to cling steadfast to his principles to increase our outward ministry that's always been expected of us let's not scramble after comfort and prosperity instead let's open ourselves to him let's see what service to him he wants of us what glorious blessings he may have waiting for us if only we'll be obedient and not chase after other gods we'll finish up chapter six next week please rise [Music] issues you see you

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Length: 47min 26sec (2846 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 01 2019