Q4 L2 Present Truth in Deuteronomy: “Moses’ History Lesson”

[Music] i'm cameron davis and i'm mark howard and this is talking points we have our fourth quarter well underway here we're on lesson two well underway well underway we're talking about moses history lesson and there's a lot to cover in this week's lesson but before we get to that i'm just gonna say moses history let we have a little contention with with the contributing uh editor author here deuteronomy is almost history lesson so we're kind of having a hard time but other than that good lessons but we have some housekeeping items to talk about before we dive into the substance of our study today what is on our what's our well first of all um just want to make a note that many of you are watching this on our youtube channel the emanuel institute youtube channel uh some of you are not you can access that channel through our website michigansspm.org on the resources page right under talking points if you subscribe to that channel you will automatically get the updated talking points when they post so you don't have to look for it on social media or something yeah because we don't have an outside department firm somebody doing this and there have been times where the lessons didn't post right when they were supposed to and so if you're subscribed to that you'll get that link right away so anyway okay so another avenue to get these resources is the emmanuel institute youtube page now talk about emails what do we need to do here so sometimes you receive department emails cameron and i some of you may not a lot of people don't understand conference work it's like when we were pastors people thought you preached on sabbath and then what do you do all week long right in the conference office what do you do and we sit in a lot of meetings and so there are people who call and leave emails and sometimes we're in full day meetings and then we go home at the end of the day so like why didn't you get my email today so we have a department secretary which we were we didn't during the covenant months and if you want to contact her s l howard s-l-h-o-w-a-r-d at m-i-s-d-a with any of your questions for us that gets through to us and we can get back to you in the most timely manner so if you have questions need sabbath school supplies and other things that we've highlighted that's the way to go all right one more housekeeping item the actual document itself the the how do people access it and what do they do with it okay well you'll find on our michigan sspm.org website resources page under talking points you'll have the weekly outlines there's a link and there'll be three formats on our site one says a device format one says single-sided and one says double-sided and people have requested all of those formats and it used to do them in pdf and they said we want to be able to edit it so we've made it as simple well as simple as possible um but when it comes to out the device the device outline is just one page front and back because on this device you don't need two sides of something typically uh the others are for printout and the two side printouts some people have figured how do i get a two-sided printout it's a half page like this it's laid out that way when you print it look at the double-sided options in your printer options and select to flip it on the short edge anytime you have double-sided it gives you that option and we'll planning to do a video of some of these things in the future but we want you to be able to use these resources you don't have to of course you can feel free to modify them they are editable or in pdf format but we provide them so that you have that uh opportunity as another resource to use new sap schools all right and speaking of opportunities we want to remind you and this is our last housekeeping item but on october 29 to 31 uh just a few weeks away now we have our sabbath school workshop and we're going to talk about all the different things involved with adult sabbath school lesson teaching and and mission and involvement of people and how to increase the attendance and all kinds of things there so you don't want to miss that at campusable and the registration is at michigan ssbm.org all right cool yes let's get into the lesson the moses history lesson itself pastor howard you were the one who studied this one out and outlined our lesson study this week yes what do we have you know i want to revisit something for talking points our the whole point for talking points is that there's a lot covered in these lessons and a lot of times when you're an adult sabbath school teacher trying to cover everything you just can't you're trying to get interaction the class and what have you this is an example this week there are pieces in everyday i could have made a talking point out of every day's lesson even the sabbath after news lesson and so um obviously it gives you too much stuff so i highlighted on those things that i thought would be the most helpful um and you may come up with some different things but here where here's what i drew out of the lesson this week um talking point number one god is a god of order drew that from tuesday uh tuesday's lesson in the quarterly number two talking point number two god's reputation is at stake in the great controversy i was going to put in the dealing with his people but it kind of made it too long with great contemporaries i drew that from wednesday's lesson um this week's lesson and then finally talking point number three god's justice is the fruit of his love and i do that from thursday and friday's lessons and that's we're gonna look at some pretty heavy themes we're gonna be addressing this week so uh let's not waste any more time how about we have a word of prayer and then you lead us through each one of those let's pray heavenly father thank you so much for another opportunity to study your word and especially as we study the themes that have been outlined here uh please send your holy spirit to give us wisdom and understanding and let the sabbath school classes that discuss these things have that same wisdom and understanding from on high for we pray it in jesus name amen amen all right talking point number one god is a god of order all of these themes as you said are weighty themes and we can't exhaust them here that's not our intention may not be even looking up the extent of all the passages the lesson on tuesday takes us to this idea of israel is growing as a nation and then points us to deuteronomy chapter 1 verses 12 to 17 where moses recounts the um what we call the jethro principle do you have that there were you well i was just looking up in that text numbers chapter one i mean deuteronomy i'm sorry deuteronomy chapters 1 12-17 says again this is moses speaking to his people how can i alone bear your problems and your burdens and your complaints choose wise understanding and knowledgeable men from among your tribes and i will make them heads over you and you answered me and said this thing which you have told us to do is good so i took the heads of your tribes wise and knowledgeable men and made them heads over you leaders of thousands leaders of hundreds leaders of fifties leaders of tens and officers for your tribes then i commanded your judges at that time saying here are the cases between their brother and then the righteous between and judge righteously between a man and his brother on the strangers with him am i reading too far no we're still going you shall not show partiality in judgment you shall hear the small as well as the great you shall not be afraid and any man's pre presence for the judgment is god's the case is too hard for you bring it to me and i will hear it okay so moses is recounting something we already saw earlier in exodus and i mentioned the jethro principle because it was his father-in-law jethro who gave him these principles and moses adopted them and not only did moses adopt them we see them throughout church history thanksgiving for instance because when jethro encountered moses he was doing trying to do all the functions of everything for himself and he said what you're doing isn't good oh boy oh boy we could say so much on this this is the modern pastorate where we've gotten to and it's not not what we're reading but the modern pastor is what moses was doing before when jethro said what you're doing is not good well yeah it's interesting because this is obviously ancient history right old testament israel and you think well the new testament church they were just led by the spirit and it was just a freewheeling but you know as you you know and they were led by the spirit they were the organization exactly and so you go to the new testament and lo and behold the church is organized for service again that's right and so the lesson highlights this on tuesday just the importance of order and organization in the church we see it modeled here it became a key to israel's success and it's interesting that it was in the context of israel's growth in numbers that necessitated the need for organization so a lot of times today organization is a top down like we start with the organization then we me and we manage the growth or we we initiate the growth but when you see it in the bible it was the fact that the growth the you know church was growing we see the same thing in the new testament uh new testament church it was growth that drove the need for administration in acts chapter six the appointment of the deacons why because the church is too there's too much going on we have to and we need to keep on ministering the word and not waiting tables and so right the church had this organization uh it was more thoroughly organized and it's interesting also that in acts chapter 7 stephen one of those first deacons appointed in acts chapter 6 refers to the church of israel as the church in the wilderness so that organizational structure we find throughout scripture right and so we should be you know it's interesting that the you know the in moses time the temptation naturalists just do it all yourself but the lord says through jethro you've got to organize this thing better that's right and you look at the apostles time the temptations the apostles do all but you know you got to organize for service and you know there's a statement i think you have in the notes there yes it talks about this need for organization as well i'm going to have you read that i just want to highlight before we read it you had made the point and the reason that we're bringing this up is this has always been you know why are we talking about this there is this mindset as you mentioned the earl the new testament church oh they were just spirit led and for many people spirit-led equals emotional whimsical wherever i'm gonna go like no order certainly not planned certainly not yeah structure to the point that when people start talking about we need to sit down and have some meetings and plan some stuff and write it out oh no no let's not get ahead of the spirit it's almost as if it's it's contrary to spiritual things like to be spiritual is to be just disorganized and whimsical and led wherever but to be um you know to to be orderly yeah that's that's almost the enemy of spirit and that's exactly yeah and that's exactly the language so why don't you read this from testimonies way back in testimonies volume 1 page 650. sure it says satan well knows that success can only attend order and harmonious action he well knows that everything connected with heaven is in perfect order that subjection and thorough discipline mark the movement of the angelic host it is his studied effort to lead professed christians just as far from heaven's arrangement as he can therefore he deceives even the professed people of god and makes them believe that order and discipline are enemies to spirituality now pause there and let that's what we're in what does it mean enemies to spirituality in other words spirituality is is is this free it's the exact opposite of organ unstructured you know that's and and and to be orderly is an enemy to spiritual that's a deception of the devil from his well-studied efforts to trip up the church it's fascinating yeah she goes on to say satan's line of reasoning that the only safety for them is to let each pursue his own course and to remain especially distinct from bodies of christians who are united are laboring together to laboring to establish discipline and harmony of action all the efforts made to establish order are considered dangers a restriction of rightful liberty and hence as are feared as potpourri these deceived souls consider it a virtue to boast of their freedom to think and act independently they will not take any man say so they are amenable to no man i was shown that it is satan's special work to lead men to feel that it is in god's order for them to strike out for themselves and tune their choose their own course independent of their brethren i was pointed back to the children of israel very soon after leaving egypt they were organized and most thoroughly disciplined so it's interesting and i hadn't realized it before this lesson the context that she in after stating this points right back to what we're looking at in deuteronomy in this experience of the organization of israel that continued all the way through the scripture the organization of the church was god's order not man's order and the devil has ever since been trying to disrupt that by making people think that to be spiritual is to be disorderly right and i know that you mentioned like why would you be talking about this we've got so much well apparently satan knows the power of organization christ is trying to organize and we have this misconception that the lord is trying to clear up that order and organization are not enemies to spirituality that's right okay so moving on to talking point number two god's reputation is at stake in the great controversy in the context specific context in the dealing his dealing with his people wednesday's lesson brings this out about halfway through that when moses intercedes for the children of israel after their failure at kadish marnia he has a special concern and that concern has to do with how the nations are going to regard god very interesting now the the if you'll read numbers 14 13 to 16. sure uh scripture says and moses said to the lord then the egyptians will hear it for by your might you brought these people up from among them and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land they have heard that you lord are among these people that you lord are seen face to face and your cloud stands above them and you go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night now if you kill these people as one man then the nations which have heard of your fame will speak saying because the lord was not able to bring this people to the land which he swore to give them therefore he killed them in the wilderness and now i pray let the power of my lord be great just as you have spoken and he goes on to explain so what's fascinating here is that moses's concern is that the failure of god's people is going to have a direct reflection on how the nations view god which is true it's a very big deal and it's not the only time that it's brought up it's interesting that uh the similar thought is brought up by moses in exodus 32 12 also in deuteronomy 9 28 and it's really fascinating if you go into the actual taking of the land of canaan that in joshua chapter 5 the bible tells us that the the the young men were not circumcised those born in the wilderness were not circumcised in the wilderness not until they were going to come into the promised land were they circumcised and you read about that in deuteronomy chapter i'm not sorry joshua chapter 5. and what's interesting is then joshua when he circumcises the males and they're about to take the land of cain and he says now actually it's when they come into atlanta canaan and he says now the reproach of egypt is rolled away and the place was called gilgal which means rolling away the idea meaning that reproach of egypt that language is referring to just what moses concern was like as long as they don't come into the land the nations are always going to say god was too weak to bring them into the land and so once they came into land god re-establishes the the circumcision covenant and now the reproach of egypt is rolled away right god is vindicated if you will as the one who did what he said he said a thing and it happened and that's moses you know issue here it's like lord this is how many times you say you and you're your name here and i was reminded as we were thinking about this is daniel and he was when he was praying about the the 70 years of captivity yes he says lord it's your name you're the one who said it and and not for our righteousness but you're on the line here absolutely we see this scene throughout the bible can you go to ephesians 3 verse 10. sure oh i love ephesians 3 this is now the lesson the lesson is bringing up this thought at the bottom of wednesday and then at the thought question in that highlighted part part of the bottom of wednesday is picking up on this so i want you to read ephesians 3 10 and then i'll pose the question and ask sure and this starts as as almost all the apostle paul's do in the middle of a sentence but it says to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of god might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places now pastor hart whenever i teach on this particular i'll ask people we'll we'll all look it up i'll read it out loud and have them read along and i say now who does he want his manifold wisdom to be taught to and time and again people like to the church and i'm like no that's not what it says it says by the church to the prince heavenly places it's like his audience is the heavenly beings and he's going to use the church as his teaching tool his object lesson so this is this is just astounding because first of all uh manifold wisdom of god just means many faceted like this fullness of complex it's big because and we're going to get into that in just a moment with the justice of god like there are things that we don't fully grasp about god but that's being worked out by what happens on the earth through god's people through the church and so the question posed in in the thought of the end of the lesson says how is the manifold wisdom of god made manifest to the cosmos through the church by the church it says and it's very similar thinking to in fact wednesday's lesson the last paragraph says in other words what we see here is a theme found all through the bible the idea that god is to be glorified in his people that the glory and goodness and love and power of god are to be revealed in his church through what he does through his people of course he doesn't always make it easy for him to do they his people don't always make it easy it doesn't make pardon me his people don't always make it easy for him to do this but ultimately god will be glorified through his people's actions on the earth and so many texts come to my mind we were talking about this matthew 5 where jesus says let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify you no glorify your father in heaven your good works glorify your father in heaven well you mentioned jesus on the cross right jesus on the cross is fascinating because in in john chapter 12 verse 31 he talks about enough i if i am lifted up well how do we quote it typically we always say i'll draw all men or all people because that's what it says right but if you look in the bible there like in my new king james version it has the word people's after all italicized which is not there in the original it's just a clarifying term assuming well we mean all people but what jesus was saying was all you read the desire of ages account about what jesus happened on the cross that it wasn't just winning the loss to him or even showing off his glory here on the earth that's right but there's a cosmic element there's the universal perspective that there's an audience up there as well as down here we just read in ephesians that it was revealed god's wisdom was revealed by the church too the principalities and the mentalities and powers in heavenly places um we see it in uh first corinthians four i'm going to say that's not the only time paul says he's not just using flowery rhetoric he says a repeated thing in colossians he talks about things being reconciled both in heaven and on earth right all through scripture we see that in this whole great controversy god's reputation is at stake and what is happening here in his interaction with the earth is manifesting his manifold wisdom well the universe and in our discussion before this we had mentioned how um some people will push back against that idea of god using us to show anything about himself like why was he need us to vindicate him he's god he can just be himself and that's enough well and i'd kind of mentioned how like an artist he's like an artist has the talent everything is in him but why does he need a canvas why doesn't he need to campus don't you know he's an art well the canvas shows demonstrates his work and this is what christ wants his people to be a canvas of character if you will that he can do something in us well it's interesting ellen white highlights brings up on the bill builds on this point testimonies volume six page 13 paragraph one she actually quotes from deuteronomy 7 6 and then deuteronomy 4 5 through 8 talking about this this is your wisdom in the cycle about how god's people are revealing god's goodness and then she says even these words fail of expressing the greatness and the glory of god's purpose to be accomplished through his people not to this world only but to the universe are we to make manifest the principles of his kingdom the apostle paul writing by the holy spirit says and then she quotes ephesians 3 8 through 10 where we just read so manifold wisdom of god might be being known by the church to the principalities so what's happening here with god's church in deuteronomy and all the way through to our day is a fascinating uh revealing of the wisdom of god and how he deals with men well by the way moses history lesson i mean we're not just learning about history here clearly like the things we've even touched on so far order and organization yes those are themes that are still relevant today exactly right you talk about like the revealing of the character god in his people that is a theme alive and well in the new testament in the last days especially and moving into talking point number three here's you ever hear much about justice these days is that a contemporary theme as well of course it is so we're not just learning about history here we're learning about present application absolutely but what is this justice well let's talk about that now and the talking point of actually taking this from a statement that we're going to look at in a moment that god's justice is the fruit of his love ellen white says that but the lesson highlights the um dispossession of the nations from you know in other words when israelite was to take the land of canaan it wasn't empty there were people there and they had to go and dispossess the the land of the people take the dispense the people of their land take it away from them and they would in many cases destroy men women and children and i can't totally answer that the lesson highlights it this is a thing in fact it's uh brings up this concept of this taking of the land and it brings up this on the fourth paragraph of thursday's lesson there's no question oh no no that's not what i was going to look at the second paragraph of course this brings up the difficult topic which we must at least touch on regarding the destruction of these people though the children of israel would often speak first peace first to a nation and give some examples yet if the people didn't accept that offer sometimes the israelites would go in and destroy them including women and children and it cites deuteronomy 2 33 and 34 and so yeah how do we deal with this issue of god's justice um yeah it's always interesting because i don't know why i didn't think about it but anytime they refer to the land of canaan i'm going to give the land of canaan and then it'll list off the people in the land you know the jews the jebusites the parasites like all the ice are in there it's like well it's occupied right and when they get to the border the promised land you remember the spies go in there and they're like hey it's beautiful but it's not empty god's like i know this is part of it so the lord didn't give them an empty land and you think like well if the lord was picking up these people he would just clear the path but there were these other people there and that's right sometimes i think we read into that like god had his own one special people and all the other ones were just gross to him you just want to get rid of them and i don't believe that's the picture that we see in scripture no the lesson actually brings out earlier i mean you have in the in the beginning of deuteronomy it talks about uh or uh perhaps i may have read it in the lesson but somewhere in this course of the exodus god had told moses don't you know fight against the um uh the amorites yet don't fight against the uh uh i'm trying to think of the the the nations descending from lot the sense of lot the descents of esau and in fact it says that it talks about the giants and how god gave there were other giants beside the anakim and god gave their land to the descendants of life so there were other nations that weren't god's you know direct like israel that god worked in behalf of and they dispossessed the land from somebody else and we get a clue as to what was going on in genesis 15 and the lesson highlights this in this whole account where god called abraham it says in genesis 15 16 do you have that there i do just read verse 16 if you would but but in the fourth generation they shall return here he's speaking about the 400 years of difficulty that his descendants would have right but in the fourth generation there's return here for the iniquity of the amorites is not yet and my virgin says complete but the king james says full full and i and i use the king james just that idea full filling up a cup and i think of babylon whose cup is full and so there's a measure of iniquity that that where it reaches a point where god says that that nation has exhausted all of her privileges and opportunities and i think we have to keep in mind that everybody on this planet is here on probation we all deserve death god gave an extended period for us to choose him and to choose mercy there's all kinds of factors related here one thing that we had talked about before is the israelites did not end up destroying all the people of canaan they started out that way and then they stopped and what happened is they became pulled down and and made idolaters by those that were left in the land in other words god had a foreseeing reason for what he was doing number one number two all that destruction happened under a theocracy when the people it wasn't like there on their own said i'm fed up with these people i'm going to go and wipe them out that's not the venge of the issue it's hard for us to understand how an army acts under the direct theocratic theocratic uh role of god which has not been since israel right you know and what have you so those are the more the other thing that i like about this the sin of the amorites you know the iniquity is not yet full or complete the idea being that god already had in mind his chosen people he's like but i'm going to stretch this out that's exactly not for your sake but for theirs so when they encounter these people groups later on it's not like they're just arbitrarily indiscriminately in the way and god's just wiping them off because he doesn't care he's been dealing with them but for this point and just because it's not recorded in scripture all the details of it we can trust all that we can see of god what we can't see in his dealings with that's right one of the things i i have in the lesson outline here is that you know last week's memory verse is that god is love and we have to remember that what that tells us is the acts of god define love however foreign to our own way of thinking like we want to superimpose our idea of love and we see that a lot of what our society calls love is just indulgence you know what do you do with it what would we do in our society if a person said look i'm going to kill people as long as i have availability to do it so you put me behind bars i'm telling you as soon as i get you try to reform me you put your hands here i'm just going to kill people kill people kill people you got to deal with that brother somehow and i'm just using that as a as a weak example but the point is god knew the direction that these nations were going and his justice is not just for those who have rejected him but what about the others there were times when god moved in look here's a nation who's had his day of privilege in fact there's a fascinating quote in desire of ages 587 it says in every age there may there is given to men their day of light and privilege a probationary time in which they may become reconciled to god but there is a limit to this grace here comes the limit there is mercy may plead for years and be slighted and rejected but there comes a time when mercy makes her last plea the heart becomes so hardened that it ceases to respond to the spirit of god then the sweet winning voice and treats his sinner no longer and reproduces morning cease now only god knows when that time is but when the heart when this person can no longer be reached but this person can and this person is impeding this person what's a god of justice to do right and i'm going to say at the end of the day first of all we know we got to superimpose the gospel upon all this and realize that in the new testament we see it's clear that god wants to save everyone absolutely and the intention is to save everyone so at the end of the day we can come and find fault with god in the judgment but i'm going to say that every one of it when we when we look at everything he's done to save we'll realize that there's no better way that it could have been done absolutely and i love the thought that god wasn't just working with israel he's been working with the whole world he said the whole world is mine you just happen to be a special treasure to reach the world so he's managing more than he's walking and chewing gum at the same time he's doing more things than once that's right so i said i was going to bring this up it's in the outline desire of ages 6 7 62 god's love has been expressed in his justice no less than in his mercy justice is the foundation of his throne and the fruit of his love it's not love and justice it's justice because he's love amen and the lesson brings up a great thing if you look at the last could you read the last paragraph on thursday's lesson sure says the fact is that for now given the limited information we have about the full context of events we just need to accept this hard reality and trust in the goodness of god which has been revealed in so many other ways now that's an important we what we see about god informs what we don't know about god's not asking us to believe blindly we have lots of evidence and he goes on to say faith isn't just about loving god on a beautiful day and a pretty force full of wonderful sights and sounds it's also about trusting him and despite what we don't fully understand that's right brother howard our time is up but these are some heavy themes every one of those talking points could be a full lesson so i trust that the sabbath school classes in every local church are going to be blessed by a deep study of god's word absolutely but let's close with prayer well i want to finish this in conclusion please the lesson started with the statement and we put it at the end i think it highlights really the whole book of deuteronomy what we're going to see speaking of our history it says in reviewing our past history having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing i can say praise god as i see what the lord has wrought i am filled with astonishment with confidence in christ as leader we have nothing to fear for the future except as we shall forget the way the lord has led us and his teaching in our past history and this what we're looking at deuteronomy is a big chunk of that teaching amen let's bear has for prayer heavenly father thank you so much for giving us your word we're so happy to have life and and and all the things in it but you give us the context for the life and the history lessons that we can apply in our daily experience now please lord help us to learn these lessons and put them into practice as your holy spirit leads for pray at all in jesus name amen [Music]

Channel: Emmanuel Institute of Evangelism

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Keywords: Bible, Christianity, God, Jesus, adult quarterly, adventist, apologetics, daniel, ellen white, emmanuel institute, hope, kameron devasher, law, mark howard, prophecy, revelation, sabbath, sabbath school, seventh-day adventist, talking points, truth

Id: qbpfIpUYD3s

Length: 31min 1sec (1861 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 02 2021