Man, Deuteronomy chapter 17, the Bible reads in verse number 1, thou shalt not sacrifice
unto the Lord thy God any bullock or sheep wherein is blemish or any evil favoriteness
for that is an abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Now this is an abomination to God for two different reasons, right?
To bring a sacrifice that is deformed or crippled in some way or has some physical
defect.
First of all, there's the obvious surface interpretation of God wants our best, right?
He wants us to give Him of our best.
We're supposed to give the firstfruits unto the Lord.
We worship Him on the first day of the week, right?
When we wake up in the morning and we're fresh, that's a great time to read our
Bible, pray, worship the Lord because we want to give God our best.
We want to give God the best years of our life, right?
When we're young and healthy and strong, we want to be serving God, not go out and
waste all that on the things of this world and then when we're old and tired and
don't have as much to give.
Now look, if you're old and tired and you're just now starting to serve God, great,
better late than never.
But ideally, we should all want to give God the best years of our life, the best
part of our day, the best that we have to offer.
Whatever talents and abilities and things that we're good at, we should use those
things for the Lord and give Him our best, not just give the Lord our leftovers,
you know, some animal that's a little messed up like, oh man, look at that animal
kind of limping around, there's something wrong with it, maybe we should just sacrifice
that to the Lord.
That's an abomination to God because that's a wrong attitude.
But then another reason why it's an abomination is because remember, everything in the Old
Testament is pointing us to Jesus Christ.
Every animal sacrificed pictures the Lamb of God which take away the sin of the world.
And so if you were to offer the Lord something that has a blemish or evil favoredness,
then that would symbolize that there's something wrong with Christ, that maybe He has sin
or defect or that He's not perfect.
And of course, we know that Christ was tempted in all points like as we are, yet
was He without sin.
And so just as Christ was without sin, every lamb, every animal sacrificed in general
that's offered to the Lord is supposed to be blameless, right, without defect,
without spot, just as Christ was that lamb without spot and without blemish, spiritually.
So that's what's going on in verse number one.
Now, he immediately changes gears in verse number two and says,
If there be found among you within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth
thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God in transgressing
His covenant, and hath gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun
or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and it be told thee,
and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently.
And behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought
in Israel, then thou shalt bring forth that man or woman which have committed that
wicked thing unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them
with stones till they die.
Now, here's the thing about this.
God is prescribing the death penalty for people who would violate the covenant that
God has made with Israel and bring in the worship of other gods.
Now, the key to understanding this is the end of verse two where it says,
Transgressing His covenant, okay, because God's covenant with Israel is what's at
stake here.
Now, in the New Testament, this does not specifically literally apply because we are
not living in the old covenant, which is the covenant that's being referred to.
We're with the new covenant.
Now, what is the colossal difference between the old covenant and the new covenant?
What's the big difference?
Because if you think about it, salvation is the same in the sense that personal
salvation was always by calling upon the name of the Lord.
It's always by putting your trust in the Lord.
Now, in the Old Testament, they did not know as much as we know.
They didn't know the name of Jesus.
They didn't know the whole story of how Jesus Christ is going to be born of a virgin.
And they didn't know the details of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ
and all those things that we have so much detail on in the New Testament.
But they looked forward to the Messiah.
They looked forward to Christ.
They called upon the name of the Lord.
They had their faith and trust in the Lord as their savior, whereas in the New Testament,
we specifically call upon the name of Jesus for our salvation.
Now that that name has been revealed, now that we know in the New Testament the name
of the Messiah, there's none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we
must be saved.
So now that the name of Jesus is out there, that is the only name by which we can be
saved in the New Testament.
But that's not the colossal difference between old and new covenant, because in old covenant,
salvation was by faith, new covenant, salvation is by faith, old covenant, it's by grace,
new covenant, it's by grace, old covenant, it's calling upon the name of the Lord,
new covenant, it's calling upon the name of the Lord.
That's not the big difference.
What's the big difference?
The giant colossal difference between the old covenant and the new covenant is that
the old covenant was made between God and the nation of Israel.
And that the nation of Israel, the physical nation of Israel, would be God's chosen people.
And that was his people.
We're not talking about personal salvation.
We're talking about just who are the chosen people of God, who are the elect as far
as just on this earth.
Whereas in the New Testament, in the new covenant, God is no longer dealing with a
literal physical nation, but rather in the new covenant, all people of this earth who
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, all of those who are saved are part of a spiritual
nation, right?
We are a spiritual nation.
We are the chosen people.
We are a kingdom of priests.
We are the peculiar people in the New Testament, which in time past were not a people, but
now we are the people of God.
I mean, you look around this auditorium and you say, wait a minute, this represents a
people?
This represents a nation?
Because we got people in the auditorium that are red, yellow, black, and white,
but we're all part of one nation here because it's not a physical nation.
That's why when you look at the nation, you wouldn't be able to identify and say,
oh, look, everybody's Navajo.
That's a Navajo nation.
Or, oh, look, everybody is Mexican.
That's a Mexican nation.
No, no, this is a spiritual nation.
So you can't tell physically because it's made up of all people worldwide who believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ.
They make up the chosen people.
So in the Old Testament, the nation of Israel were God's chosen people.
In the New Testament, Christians are God's chosen people.
That is the colossal difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
That's the big difference, right?
Is that now Christians are the chosen people instead of Israel.
And then you've got people today who think that Israel are still God's chosen people.
Folks, if you don't believe in Jesus, I'll tell you what, you're chosen to go straight
to hell as a non-believer.
That's what you're chosen for.
And you say, oh, you know, God's got a special blessing for them.
What does he have like a special couch for them in hell?
You know, a special like blessed session.
They're in the non-smoking section in hell because they're God's chosen people, right?
Because we know they're going to hell.
If you don't believe on Jesus, you're damned.
And in fact, all of the best verses where the Bible is telling us that those who do
not believe on the Son of God are damned, most of them were spoken to Jews.
I mean, you think about when, you know, John the Baptist is saying, you know, he
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not the Son
shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Who's he talking to, right?
Who's Jesus talking to in John 3 16 and John 3 18?
Who's Jesus talking to in John 6 47, John 10 28, all of these verses that we'd point
to that talk about salvation being by faith and that we've got to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ to be saved.
You've got to have the Son of God to be saved.
It's got to be the name of Jesus.
I mean, the very verse itself, neither is there salvation in any other, for there's
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Who was that spoken to, right?
It was spoken to the Jews.
It's Peter preaching.
Peter and John are there in Acts chapter five, and they're preaching that to the
Jews, right?
And so the Jews don't get a pass, and maybe they do get to be in the non-smoking
section in hell.
La-dee-dah!
It's still hell!
But no, they don't get to be in the non-smoking section, because the smoke of
their torment is going to stand up forever and ever because of the fact that if you don't
have Jesus Christ, you are cursed by God, right?
You've got to get saved.
You've got to believe on Jesus.
And so to sit there and say, well, they're not saved, but they're still God's people
and they're blessed.
What the hell kind of blessing is that?
Like you're just blessed all the way to hell?
Like think about it.
Look, if you're going to hell, you'd be better off if God didn't bless you.
You know, it reminds me of my grandma, who told me that my grandpa, back when he was
unsaved, he was a very prosperous man, and he was making a lot of money.
You know, it was the 1950s in Los Angeles, California.
The economy was booming, that post-war boom in Southern California, and so he's making
money hand over fist.
And my grandma prayed and said, you know, whatever it takes for him to get saved,
if it means he has to lose his wealth, then let him lose his wealth.
Why?
Because it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
be saved.
And she knew that it's difficult for the rich man to be saved, and you know, it's
humanly impossible, but with God, all things are possible.
And so she even prayed that he would lose his wealth and prosperity.
So think about this.
If the Jews are unsaved, which we know they are, what good would it be to bless
them on this earth?
That would be like actually almost guaranteeing their damnation, whereas they'd be better
off if they got persecuted and things went badly, because then they might get saved.
Because typically, when things go bad for people, they're more receptive to Christ.
If we go to the rich neighborhood and go knock on doors and preach about Christ,
the people who are prospering and doing well, they don't think they need Christ
because they got their life all figured out and they're doing great.
As people that are just really struggling, they're more open to spiritual things.
And sometimes God has to bring people to their knees before they're ready to receive
Christ.
So imagine just how foolish it would be to think that the Jews are being blessed
by God on their way to hell, because then that would make them even less likely
to get saved.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Just like my grandpa was less likely to get saved when he was prospering and thriving.
The best thing that could happen to an unsaved person is for them to lose everything.
Because guess what?
A man's not profited if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul.
Because your soul is more important than any of that.
And so of course, the children of Israel in the Old Testament were the chosen people.
Now because of this, God had a plan in the Old Testament where the children of Israel
are a special nation, and as a nation, they're going to follow the Lord.
As a nation, they're going to worship God.
As a nation, they're going to keep his commandments.
And that was supposed to be sort of an example nation or a pattern nation to be
a light unto the Gentiles.
Ultimately, it doesn't work, right?
And so what happens?
Then we have the new covenant that replaces the old covenant.
Now obviously, God knew all along that it wasn't going to work because God knows everything.
God knows the end from the beginning.
But one way to read the Old Testament is that when you're reading the Old Testament,
you see that God keeps trying different things with mankind, and they keep failing.
And he tries something else, and it fails, and he tries something else, and it fails.
And the purpose here is to illustrate to us the need for Jesus Christ.
That's the point.
God knew it's going to fail.
But you know, he starts out, of course, and he creates Adam and Eve, and he puts
them in the Garden of Eden.
Of course, they sin.
They get kicked out.
And then you think about how they have children, and then as men begin to multiply
upon the earth, what happens?
The earth ends up being totally filled with violence.
By the time we get to Genesis 6, the whole world's full of violence.
And so God says, that's it, I'm going to destroy the world, and I'm just going
to save Noah and his family alive.
And so he floods the whole earth.
Noah builds the ark.
Noah and his family are on the ark.
Now you'd think that that would fix things, right?
Because he's wiping out all the bad people and just this one godly man and his family.
But of course, it doesn't take long for that godly man and his family to just ruin
the world again and to just go back into sin because human beings are sinful, right?
And so 100 years after they get off the ark, you've got the Tower of Babel.
So then God says, okay, this isn't working.
So the next thing he tries is dividing people into nations.
So he divides them into separate languages and separate nations.
And then he picks one man, Abraham, and instead of saying, all right, Abraham, let's
build another boat, you know, we're going to flood this thing again.
No, he promised he's never going to flood it again.
So instead of flooding it and killing everyone else, this time he says, okay,
we're going to let all these other nations exist, and they're going to have
their false gods and false religion, but I'm going to pick this one guy,
Abraham, and make him the father of a pattern nation that's going to be the
example nation that's going to have my covenant and my laws, and they're going
to worship me and follow the rules and so forth.
So that's what the old covenant is.
It's made with Israel at Mount Sinai, and it's conditional upon them
worshiping the Lord and following his laws.
Well, here's the thing about that is that in order for this experiment to
work, if you want to call it an experiment, because that's one way of
looking at it, they have to actually worship the Lord.
They have to actually follow his laws.
It actually has to be implemented.
So this has to be enforced, and it has to be strict.
You know, if you're going to worship false gods, you better do it somewhere
else because the nation of Israel is God's chosen people.
This is his covenant people.
They have to worship the Lord, and if somebody tries to corrupt that or mess
that up and get them worshiping other gods, they die.
They get stoned to death.
So this is not...I don't believe that this is teaching that in the New
Testament we should have no religious freedom and that we should take over
countries and outlaw every other religion because that's an old covenant
mentality.
In the new covenant, we are supposed to shine as lights.
We're supposed to be lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation
among whom we shine as lights in the world.
So we are ambassadors for Christ in a heathen land.
It's not our job to create a Christian nation state and, you know,
ban everything else.
It's just a different program in the New Testament.
So obviously, we can still learn from this passage because, number one,
it has spiritual significance, right?
And number two, some of the principles still apply even though we're not living
as God's covenant people where only one religion is allowed and you have to
follow Jehovah God.
I just wanted to kind of lay down that background to help you understand this.
So let's look at it now with all that in mind.
It says in verse number five, then thou shalt bring forth that man or that
woman which have committed that wicked thing unto thy gates,
even that man or that woman, and they shall stone them with...and
shalt stone them with stones till they die.
Okay.
Now, what can we learn from that symbolically?
We understand that, literally, the nation of Israel were God's people and it had
to stay that way.
That was the plan in the Old Testament.
But what about spiritually?
The significance here is that if you worship false gods,
if you follow a false religion, you're going to go to hell.
You're going to die spiritually, right, even though you're not going to be
physically killed in the New Testament.
It says in verse number six, at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses
shall he that is worthy of death be put to death.
But at the mouth of one witness, he shall not be put to death.
Now, here's a criminal code that we could learn from and that is consistent
throughout the Old Testament is that people should not be condemned at the
mouth of one witness, right?
If someone's going to be condemned, there should be two to three witnesses.
You can't just believe what one person says, your word against theirs.
Okay.
It's funny, my brother was called in for jury duty a few years ago and they
were doing the voir...I don't know how to pronounce it.
Do we have a French person that can help me out with this?
It's like, I wanted to say like voir dire, but I know it's like voir dire or
something.
Come on, French people.
Where are my French people at?
Help me out.
Does anybody know what I'm talking about?
The jury selection?
I just don't like pronouncing things wrong.
Voi...
Voi dire?
Voi dire, monsieur?
I don't know.
So let's just go with that, okay?
I just don't like sounding stupid, you know?
But I won't sound stupid because nobody even knows what I'm talking about, so I could
pronounce it anyway and no one's going to know the difference.
But anyway, so they have this process called voir dire where they go through and they
eliminate jurors that are too biased or they're too partial.
Maybe they know the people involved or whatever, right?
And so my brother was going through voir dire for this trial and they asked this question
of the jurors.
Would you be willing to, would you be willing to return a guilty verdict if there's, if
the only evidence is just one person's testimony?
And so my brother said, well, no, because the Bible says, you know, at the mouth of
two or three witnesses, shall every word be established.
And then he was removed from the jury.
He was deleted for giving that biblical answer because the prosecutor wanted somebody because
he said, what if it's a really good witness?
And my brother's just like, well, no, you know, the Bible says that we, there
should be two witnesses.
And so then he's like, you're out.
So anyway, but my brother was right because that is a biblical principle that, you know,
we shouldn't just condemn someone based on the word of one person.
Now obviously that today, that other witness doesn't necessarily have to be a human being.
It could also be something like a video or a recording or, you know, some piece of DNA
evidence or something, right?
Those could be witnesses if we still follow the biblical principle, but just not one person
says this is what happened and there's no other evidence, right?
Because you'd rather let 10 guilty people go free than to condemn one innocent person.
You know, that's what the saying goes.
Obviously the Bible teaches that letting the guilty go free and condemning the innocent
are both an abomination to God.
But in the end, if we look at God's law, he seems pretty interested in protecting
innocent people by saying, Hey, you got to have a high standard of proof in these
things.
And so that is a timeless principle of two or three witnesses.
And this is reiterated in the new Testament in first Timothy chapter five when it says
against an elder receive not an accusation, but before two or three witnesses, Matthew
18 says that in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
So this is a new Testament thing as well.
Let's keep going.
It says the hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death and
afterward the hands of all the people.
So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
So he's saying, look, if you're going to accuse someone of something, if you're going
to testify against someone, then you have to participate in their execution.
If they actually committed a crime worthy of death, you can't just kind of let someone
else do the dirty work.
When you're making these accusations, you got to be in there and actually participate
in stoning them.
It says in verse number eight, if there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment
between blood and blood, between plea and plea, between stroke and stroke, being matters
of controversy within thy gates, then shalt thou arise and get thee up into the place
which the Lord thy God shall choose.
And thou shalt come unto the priests, the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be
in those days and inquire and they shall show thee the sentence of judgment.
Now this is another great principle about escalating difficult cases to a higher authority,
whereas things that are simple, things that are easy, should just be dealt with
locally or just dealt with in the home or dealt with in the neighborhood or dealt
with in the town.
And we somewhat have this principle in our judicial system in the United States because,
you know, let's say something happens in court and someone's either declared guilty
or not guilty and there's some question about it and it doesn't seem like it was
the right decision, then this could be appealed to a higher court, right?
And it could be appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court or something like that.
And so even in a church, this is something that functions amongst God's people in the
New Testament where, let's say there's a dispute between you and a family member,
you know, you don't just have the pastor on speed dial every time you get in a fight
with your spouse, every time you get in a fight with your brother, your sister,
you know, you just, well, let's call Pastor Anderson, he'll settle this.
That would be absurd, wouldn't it?
Just constantly having Pastor Anderson, you know, arbitrating, or that's not even a word
I don't think, but being the arbitration for your disputes, that doesn't make any sense, right?
You know, you'd probably just deal with stuff in-house.
You'd figure things out more locally.
And then maybe if you have a really basic Bible question or a really basic issue, you'd
probably ask just another believer in the church who, you know, knows the Bible.
And they could probably help you out, just, you know, a random faithful word church member
who knows the Bible pretty well could answer basic questions all day long.
And then maybe it's a little harder question, you might go to someone on staff and ask
somebody like Brother Russell or Brother Segura or Brother Raymond Cooper or, you know,
you'd go through and ask different people in the church that are on staff or, and
then if it's something really difficult, then they might say, hey, let's ask Pastor Anderson
about this.
You know, not, for example, people email the church questions all the time, they leave
voicemails all the time, and the staff is usually able to answer those questions
or point them to a sermon or point them to a scripture that's going to answer the question.
You know, I'm not just on there all day just answering everybody's questions, and
because that would just be too much, right?
And so there's this idea of kind of escalating the more difficult things up the chain of
command, right?
And you know, you don't even necessarily have to go to mom and dad with everything
if something's just really obvious.
You can just kind of figure it out yourself, hey, we're not supposed to be doing this,
or hey, you know, this isn't a thing.
And so there's this concept of escalating things up to the Levites and the priests
if they're difficult matters, but that other things are just taken care of locally,
other controversies are just dealt with locally, they don't go to Jerusalem.
Now of course, when this sermon is being preached by Moses, when Moses is saying these
things, Jerusalem does not exist yet, but it's just the place which the Lord shall
choose, and we'll probably talk about that a little bit later in the sermon as well.
And it says in verse 10, thou shalt do according to the sentence which they of that place
which the Lord shall choose shall show thee, and thou shalt observe to do according to
all that they inform thee.
According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the
judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do, thou shalt not decline from the sentence
which they shall show thee to the right hand nor the left.
He's saying, look, if you go to the place which the Lord shall choose, ultimately that's
going to be Jerusalem, if you go there and the priests and the Levites pronounce judgment
on a crime, that is final, and you can't just say like, well, yeah, we went
to Jerusalem and he said, the judge said that, you know, I owe you this money, but
the judge, he judged wrong, and I'm just not going to do it.
Now, the Bible's really clear that if they do take things to the judge or to the Levites
or to the priests, their judgment stands.
That's what you have to go by.
That's the final word.
And the man that will do presumptuously, verse 12, and will not hearken unto the
priests that standeth to minister before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge?
Even that man shall die and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel, and all the people
shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously.
So not only do we have people bringing in the worship of false gods being put to
death, but also someone who just rebels against and refuses to listen to the judgments
of the government that has been appointed by God here for the children of Israel,
the priests, the Levites, the judge, the spiritual leadership, they are also put to death.
If they try to rebel or defy the law of the land, they will also be put to death
if they will not listen to those judgments.
And then it says in verse 14, when thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will
set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me.
Thou shalt in any way set him king over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose,
one from among thy brethren, shalt thou set over thee, thou mayest not set a stranger
over thee, which is not thy brother.
And then we have several verses explaining what it's going to be like or what it should
be like if they have a king.
If you have a king, these are the rules for having a king.
So God is already anticipating the failure of the system of the judges and that ultimately
there's going to be a king.
And this is what I said earlier, how God is constantly rolling out these different
programs throughout the Old Testament, right?
We have the world before the flood, then there's the flood, and then he says, okay,
I'm just going to have Abraham and he's going to be a great nation, right?
Then he brings the people out of Egypt and he puts them under the system of the judges,
the system of the judges doesn't work out.
Then he puts them under a monarchy and then it's, okay, let's split the monarchy and,
you know, cut off this rotten 10 tribes and just, we'll just deal with the good side
down south.
And then that doesn't work out.
Then he brings them into Babylon to captivity, brings them back from Babylon, starts over.
And again, it's all these failed programs and then ultimately it's pointing us to
the need for Jesus Christ, the need for a new covenant and then Christ's kingdom
and the new covenant never ends.
It's eternal, right?
Jesus Christ is the final answer.
Okay.
So God here is already in the days of Moses, because this is Moses speaking.
Already in the days of Moses, we are seeing that there's an anticipation of the fact
that the system of the judges is going to fail and that ultimately they are going
to have a king over them.
Now, here's what we need to differentiate and understand and pay close attention to
this part of the sermon so that you don't misunderstand what I'm saying, but keep
your finger there and go to Deuteronomy chapter 34.
And the reason that I am going to explain this next part is because I believe in teaching
everything, everything that I know about the Bible, I'm going to teach it to you,
whether you like it or not, okay?
This is my job.
I'm not going to hold back anything that I feel is profitable.
And you know what, whether I think it's profitable or not, you know, I'm really
just supposed to preach the whole Bible and if there's something that I understand
or know or have learned about the Bible, I'm going to teach it.
And I've taught on this subject repeatedly and I know that it may be beyond some people's
level of comprehension or they might get uncomfortable with what I'm about to say, but it's
true.
So I'm going to preach it.
We have to differentiate when we're studying the Bible and I'll explain why I think this
is important too.
When we're studying the Bible, here's what we have to differentiate between.
The time that the events in the Bible are taking place and the time that that book
of the Bible is being written, these are not necessarily the same.
Now here's the thing with the New Testament, obviously the entire New Testament is
written in the first century AD, so it was all written very shortly after the events
of the New Testament took place, right?
So you have the Apostle Paul writing all his epistles in the first century, you have the
four gospels in the first century, etc.
All that stuff's written in the first century AD, the Bible's done in the first
century AD as far as the New Testament, it was done.
But what we have to understand about the Old Testament is that many books in the Old
Testament are written long after the events recorded take place.
Now in certain cases, this should be obvious because for example, the book of Genesis,
right, is talking about the creation of man.
It's talking about Noah's Ark, it's talking about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Those things are not being written down by eyewitnesses.
They're being written down centuries or even millennia later.
And you say, well, how can we trust the Bible?
Here's how we trust the Bible.
Because holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
The important thing about the authorship of the Bible is that it's given by divine inspiration,
inspiration of God.
That's what makes it accurate.
Not because it's an eyewitness account, but because it's divinely inspired.
You see, eyewitness accounts are not always very accurate, are they?
I mean, you could get people from a scene of a crime and get a bunch of stories, and
they're all eyewitnesses, and nobody's lying, but yet the stories aren't quite lining
up because people see things wrong, they remember things wrong.
Look, the only way that you can trust the Bible is to understand that it is the Word
of God inspired by God.
It's divinely inspired.
It's not like, well, I want to know who wrote it because I want to know if I can
trust him or not.
You know what I mean?
That's a wrong mentality.
I mean, think about the authors of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
You know, okay, Matthew, I know who Matthew is.
That's one of the 12 disciples.
Okay, so there's an eyewitness, right?
But even Matthew's going to write about some events that he wasn't there for, okay?
But who is Mark, right?
Mark wasn't one of the 12 disciples.
Mark isn't there.
Mark's not writing for his own.
And at the beginning of Luke, Luke flat out says, well, I heard this stuff from eyewitnesses.
He's flat out telling you this is all secondhand in the first few verses.
Okay, and then John, of course, is the guy, man, he was right there for most of it.
But that's not the point, is it?
The point is that the scripture is divinely inspired.
It's God's word.
Even guys like Matthew and John who were there, are they going to remember everything
perfectly years later?
They had to be moved by the Holy Ghost.
They were divinely inspired.
But the Old Testament is written by a lot of anonymous authors who are divinely inspired.
It's not important necessarily who the author was.
He doesn't necessarily have to have been an eyewitness of the events.
The important thing is that God gave us the Bible exactly as it should be.
So we got these 66 books.
This is what we're supposed to have.
It's inspired by God.
It's perfect.
There's nothing false or erroneous in the Bible.
Now let me just guarantee you something.
Moses did not write the book of Deuteronomy, okay?
He just didn't.
But that being said, what is Deuteronomy?
It's a record of what Moses said.
Now, when you read Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, it is not Moses talking, right?
It's Moses writing, but he's writing in the third person, right?
The Lord said this, the Lord said this.
But when you read the book of Deuteronomy, it's actually Moses talking.
It starts out, Moses said.
Everything we're reading, chapters 16, 17, everything in Deuteronomy is coming out of
the mouth of Moses.
Does everybody understand?
Don't miss this.
Moses stood up in front of the people.
Remember, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness is over.
They're about to enter the Promised Land.
And Moses gets up on a couple of occasions, and what does he do?
He speaks God's word to the people.
He prophesies to the people.
He gives them the law a second time.
He's speaking.
So the words that we're reading in Deuteronomy 17, they were spoken by Moses.
A literal person, Moses, literally stood up and said everything in Deuteronomy 17.
And when did he say that?
He said it right before they entered the Promised Land.
Everybody understand?
But does that mean that the book of Deuteronomy was written at that time?
The answer is no.
Here's the proof, okay?
In Deuteronomy, chapter number 34, verse 7, it says, and Moses was 120 years old
when he died.
Now, I've literally had people, they're so hung up on this thing that it has to
be written by the people back then, that they literally said that Moses wrote that,
and then he went and fulfilled it.
But again, this is just like a real struggle to try to fit the square peg into the round
hole.
And what's funny is that it makes it seem like these people are like more fundamental
or that they have more faith in the Bible, but it actually makes me feel like they
have less faith in the divine inspiration of the Bible.
Because if I can be comfortable with this book being written hundreds of years later,
it's because I believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, so I don't really care when
it was written or who wrote it, I already know it's God's Word.
And I know it really happened, and I know this is what Moses really said before they
went in the Promised Land.
That's good enough for me.
But these people are like, and I've even literally had people say, well Adam wrote
part of Genesis, and Noah wrote another part, and then Abraham wrote another part,
and they were like compiling it, and then they kept it in Egypt as slaves.
There is no evidence for that.
That's absurd, okay?
Just no, okay?
But who's heard that theory out there where people talk about that, like that Adam is
writing part of it?
And then people, they're always searching for some author, like the book of Job, they're
looking for a character in the book of Job who wrote it.
But here's the next piece of proof, because what these people will then say is like,
well, the rest of Deuteronomy is written by Moses, but it's just that last little
part about him dying was tagged on by Joshua.
They always have to pick a person, when the Bible says holy men of God.
But here's the proof that they're wrong about that, because look what it says in
verse 10, in chapter 34, verse 10.
And there arose not a prophet since in Israel, like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew
face to face.
Now what sense would that make if five minutes after Moses died, you're like, you
know what?
Ever since Moses, there's never been a prophet like Moses in Israel.
That would only make sense if a lot of time has gone by.
Does everybody understand?
Now if hundreds of years later, you're looking back and saying, you know what?
Of all the prophets we've had in Israel, there's never been a prophet like Moses
in all that time.
That actually makes sense, okay?
Because that's the truth.
That's what's going on.
But again, Moses said these things as they're going into the prophecy.
Now stop and think about this and go back to Deuteronomy 17.
I got to hurry because I'm running out of time.
But stop and think about this.
What sense would it make when we're reading, for example, in the book of Judges, and Gideon
doesn't want to be king, and then later we're going to get to 1 Samuel chapter 8,
and basically the people are saying, give us a king so that we can be like all the
other nations.
And Samuel's like, you guys don't want to have a king, it's going to be bad if
you have a king.
And they're like, nope, give us a king anyway.
Why is nobody bringing this up?
Why is nobody saying, well, it says right there in the law of Moses, we're going to
do this eventually.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Wouldn't somebody at some point say, hey, you know, we have the rules for how to
have a king and stuff.
Obviously God knows we're going to do this.
Obviously this is ultimately the plan.
But that's not the case because the book of Deuteronomy is written after they already
have a king.
Okay.
And Moses did preach this to them when he's giving the law, he's explaining, hey, someday,
you know, this, you're not going to have the judges anymore.
You're going to want to have a king.
And these are the rules for when that day comes.
He's laying that down because later it's going to be written down when it's actually
relevant.
Otherwise it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy where every single Israelite for hundreds
of years, every time he reads Deuteronomy, he's going to be like, when are we going
to do this?
You know what I mean?
It just doesn't make any sense because that'd be like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
And so, yeah, you must agree that Moses didn't write the book of Deuteronomy because
he dies at the end.
You must, but again, he's the one talking.
You could still call it a book of Moses because I mean, he's definitely the one talking.
But the thing is, the other thing you'd have to agree is that enough time had
to go by for it to be a meaningful statement.
You know, there was never a prophet that rose up since.
Like Moses in the last six months, you know, there just hasn't been one in the last 10
years.
I mean, for that to be meaningful, more time would have to go by.
And I think in light of Deuteronomy 17, it's obvious that this is written after
they have a king.
Now God did inspire Moses to say this long before they had a king.
I'm not saying that Moses didn't say this because he did, because he did.
It's just that it wasn't written down, is the point.
When things were said is different than when things were written, right?
Does everybody understand?
If I lost you, just forget about everything I said for the last 10 minutes, but I hope
I didn't.
So, Deuteronomy chapter 17 with that in mind, here's the point.
It says in verse number 14, when thou art come unto the land which the Lord thy God
giveth thee and shall possess it and shall dwell there in and shall say, I will
set a king over me like as all the nations that are about me.
God knows that they're eventually going to do this because God knows everything.
And so he doesn't want to have to give them a new law at that time.
So he gives it to them verbally here and ultimately it's going to be written down
in the book of Deuteronomy many centuries later.
And so he says, this is the way it's going to be.
You're going to choose.
You're going to have a king that the Lord will choose, like God's going to choose
the king.
So who does God choose to be their first king?
Saul, right?
And then who does God choose to be the second king?
David, right?
And then God specifically chooses Solomon as well, right?
He chooses Solomon to be king.
So God chooses Saul, he chooses David, he chooses Solomon.
That's what they're supposed to do.
Then of course there's a split and then it just goes downhill from there.
But notice it says that they can't have a foreigner as their king.
It has to be one of the children of Israel.
So it has to be someone who's native born, not a foreigner, not a stranger that is not
their brother.
He can't be born in Kenya or something, you know, but he shall not multiply horses
to himself nor cause the people to return to Egypt to the end that he should multiply
horses for as much as the Lord had said unto you, ye shall henceforth return no
more that way.
Neither shall he multiply wives to himself that his heart turned not away.
Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold, right?
So this stuff is very relevant to the kings of Israel.
And so if I had to guess, we don't know exactly when Deuteronomy is written.
Nobody knows exactly when it's written, right?
One thing we know is it seems to be written at a substantial distance from when the event
is actually taking place.
And that it's probably written after they have a king, but it's probably written before
King Solomon.
So if I had to guess, I would say it's probably written around the time of King David, King
Saul, King David, around that time.
Some holy man of God is moved by the Holy Ghost and pens the book of Deuteronomy.
And if you're freaked out by that, well, sorry, but it's true.
Anyway, the point is that these are the exact things that are going to be the downfall
of King Solomon.
And so I would say it's for sure written before that time, because it's meant to be there
for those guys to hear what they need to hear.
David and Solomon need to hear this stuff.
And so they're not to go down into Egypt.
What do we see Solomon doing?
When we read the books of the kings, Solomon literally goes down into Egypt and gets horses.
He literally multiplies wives, right?
He should have one wife.
God invented marriage to be one man and one woman.
So he says, don't multiply wives.
Don't go down into Egypt to multiply horses.
And it says in verse 18, it shall be when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom,
that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before
the priests of the Levites, and it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all
the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the
words of this law and these statutes to do them.
Now, we know that King David is the author of a lot of the Psalms, and what does he
say in those Psalms?
He says, oh, how love I thy law, it's my meditation night and day.
So David was apparently really good about having his nose in the law and studying
the law and meditating upon God's law and reading therein all the days of his
life.
And the point of reading therein all the days of his life is that he would learn
to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this law and these statutes
to do them.
And that's the same reason why we need to read the Bible every day now, right,
because we're looking for New Testament application here.
Now we should be reading in God's word every day.
Why?
So that we will stay humble, so that we will learn to fear the Lord our God,
so that we will keep, how can we keep the word of God if we're not even reading
it?
If we're not even meditating on it, we're not going to be following its precepts.
And then it says that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren.
So it's to keep us humble as well.
Reading the Bible every day keeps us humble.
It's easy to get prideful sometimes in our world.
You start looking down on other people, you start thinking that you're better than
other people.
But you know, when you start reading the Bible, you realize what a sinner you are,
right?
It actually puts you in your place, because when you compare yourself to the standard
of Scripture, it really shows you your shortcomings.
Whereas looking around this world, it's easy to compare yourself to other people
and say, well, I'm better than that guy.
Yeah, but you're not better than this guy, right?
I mean, this is the word of God.
And so this will keep you humble so you don't get lifted up and turn aside from
the commandment to the right hand or to the left, to the end that he may prolong
his days and his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel.
And again, let me just emphasize here that I'm not saying that all of the books
of Moses are written in the time of King David.
I'm saying Deuteronomy is, because if you think about the narrative in Exodus, it records
them writing that stuff down right then and there.
You know, they're writing down a book of the law.
They're putting the book of the law and sprinkling blood on it and everything.
The book of the covenant, it's just that that's part of Exodus.
That's not Deuteronomy, okay?
And so he talks about here, you know, this law, he's going to write a copy of this
law.
You know, he could be pointing at the part that's already written, obviously.
There's already a written scroll of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers.
We don't know exactly which parts were written when, but we know that the law portion of
it, a lot of it, is written at Mount Sinai.
That's where the Bible is first written down at Mount Sinai, and not before that.
There's no Old Testament written scripture before Mount Sinai, right?
Mount Sinai is when the Bible starts to be physically written down.
And so that's around 1500 BC.
So the Bible is written from around 1500 BC to around 100 AD.
That's the time period, the 1600 years over which the Bible was written.
And here's the amazing thing about the Bible, is that the Bible is written over the course
of 1600 years by over 40 different human authors, minimum.
So you have 40 authors, three languages, 1600 years, and yet it all is bundled so
nicely together, and it works.
Genesis to Revelation, it all fits, it all works.
It's all exactly as God wanted us to have it.
It's God's perfect, inspired Word.
It's without error.
And by the way, it's preserved in 2023 without error.
You know, our statement of faith doesn't say, well, it was perfect in the originals.
Well, that does us a lot of good today.
You know, it's perfect right now.
It's been preserved.
The Bible that we have today is divinely inspired and providentially preserved unto
this day.
And by the way, I believe that our English King James Bible is also the Word of God
without error, because that's a cop out that a lot of people use like, well, yeah,
the Word of God is perfect, but you know, it's got to be translated properly.
And they're just relying on the fact that you don't know Greek and Hebrew and that
you can't check them up on it.
And so then, you know, they can just start changing what the Bible says.
This English Bible right here, the King James Bible is our final authority in this church.
You know, Faith Forward Baptist Church, like this is what we believe.
It's right here.
We've all got the same thing.
We can all look at it.
We all got the same Holy Spirit, same Bible.
We can actually have unity that way.
God has preserved His Word.
And you say, well, what's so special about English?
Oh, I don't know, just that it's the most important language in the whole world.
I don't know, just that it's like way more important than even the second most important
language.
Sorry, Spanish speakers.
But, you know, Spanish is probably the second most important language in the world.
Don't come at me with Chinese, all right?
Spanish is second most important.
You know, but here's the thing, Spanish, Chinese, those are big languages, right?
French is a big language.
Guess what?
English is the big one and everybody knows it.
Nobody would dispute that English is the most important, most common, most spoken language.
And the most missionaries have gone around the world with which Bible?
English Bible, King James Bible.
God knew that.
God providentially allowed us to get this amazing Bible version in our language.
He allowed all these top scholars to be gathered, right place, right time, so that God's
Word could not only be providentially preserved, but also disseminated to the masses
and to go all over the world and to be preached to so many, even billions of people, not even
millions of people, billions of people that have heard this actual literal book right
here, the King James Bible.
And so we have God's Word today.
We need to read in it all the days of our life and it doesn't matter necessarily
who wrote each individual book because like I said, it's written over 1600 years, over
40 authors.
That's what's so amazing about it.
That makes it greater.
That makes it more powerful, more magnificent, the fact that it all comes together.
It all works.
It all fits.
It all points us to Christ.
Let's bow our heads in our word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your Word and we thank you so much for the book
of Deuteronomy, Lord.
We thank you for this great preaching by Moses as they are about to enter the land of Canaan
and as he is giving them the law for the second time and expounding upon the law.
Lord God, I pray that we would just apply these things in our lives, that we would learn
from every part of your Word and realize that every chapter is profitable for us in
the New Testament, Lord.
Help us to follow your Word, to love your Word, and to read it and meditate on it
every day so we can stay humble and follow the Bible.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.