Music
Church, very nice to see you all here on this Wednesday evening.
Find your seats please, take your song books.
Go to Hymn 179, we'll begin tonight.
Hymn 179, 179, such love.
Hymn 179, once you've found your place, we'll sing it out.
On that first verse together, Hymn 179.
That God should love a sinner such as I.
Let's sing it out together for Hymn 179.
That God should love a sinner such as I.
I'm here to change my sorrow until there's no rest.
Till the end when you make me numb, how wonderful is love I give.
Such love, such wonderful love, such love, such wonderful love.
That God should love a sinner such as I.
How wonderful is love I give.
That God should love so pretty in his name.
Oh, who in their days that love now or age did ever give.
When time went on with me, that love went ahead of me.
Such love, such wonderful love, such love, such wonderful love.
That God should love a sinner such as I.
How wonderful is love I give.
That for a wail-full I'll get such a sign.
A father and a son, a savior and a bride.
Retention for the purpose lives to find.
You're welcome, my praise be mine.
Such love, such wonderful love,
That God should love a sinner such as I.
How wonderful is love I give.
When now he takes me to his heart of stone.
He asks me not to fail a service.
When you are a country wondered, all are cut.
Wide open are his arms of praise.
Such love, such wonderful love,
That God should love a sinner such as I.
How wonderful is love I give.
Thank you for the safety you've given to us this week so that we were able to be here.
We ask the Lord your blessing upon the song service tonight. Help us to sing out loud these praises unto you.
We thank you for your love and that we're able to sing about that.
Please be with our pastor as he preaches the word to us. Help us to be attentive
and to have open hearts and ears to receive the message tonight.
And that all that's said and done would be to your honor and glory. We'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen.
Hymn 180.
180, not too far from where you're at.
180, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Hymn number 180, let's sing it out.
On that first verse, hymn number 180.
There will never be a sweeter story.
The story of the Savior's lovely mind.
Of the pride above the realms of glory.
Just to save a sinful soul like mine.
Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Wonderful, wonderful.
Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Wonderful is to be.
Boundless as the universe around me.
Reaching to the farthest soul away.
Saving, keeping love in what's around me.
That is why my heart can truly sing.
Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Wonderful, wonderful.
Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Wonderful is to be.
Love beyond our human comprehending.
Love of God and Christ, how can it be?
This will be my theme at never ending.
Great redeeming love of Calvary.
Isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Wonderful, wonderful.
Oh, isn't the love of Jesus something wonderful?
Wonderful is to be.
Alright, this time we'll go ahead and go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
Sunday mornings at 10 30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
Tonight we will be in Deuteronomy chapter 31.
test.
t
tossed
.
Coffee,
80
8
60
because
32
on Saturday, February 24th.
Talk to Brother Alexander Larson for details on that.
And then men's preaching class is on Tuesdays at seven.
Any soul winning men are welcome to attend,
but no spectators are allowed.
And then we got some small town soul winning trips
coming up in Dripping Springs and at Coolidge Dam.
That's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning
from the past few days.
So going back to Monday, anything from Monday.
Okay, got it, got it.
Okay, and then how about Tuesday?
Okay.
And then what about today, Wednesday?
Anything from today?
All right, very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
With that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, so find the insert of Psalm 139.
If you don't have an insert, please raise your hand
and you'll receive one.
Psalm 139.
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked.
Sing it out together on that verse.
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked.
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, oh God.
Oh God, be part of me, therefore ye bloody men.
Be part of me, therefore ye bloody men.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate me.
Let them not I agree with those that rise up against me.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate me.
For they sing against thee wickedly.
And thy enemies say, thy name in vain.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate me.
Let them not I agree with those that rise up against me.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate me.
I hate them with perfect hatred.
I count them my enemies.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate me.
Let them not I agree with those that rise up against me.
Do not I hate them, oh Lord, that hate me.
Thank you, sing everybody.
Go to your song books now.
Go to hymn 186, 186.
Jesus loves me, hymn number 186.
Jesus is such a savior and Jesus is such a friend.
Hymn number 186, let's sing it out together
right on that verse, 186.
Jesus is such a savior, Jesus is such a friend.
Never forsakes nor beats me, Lord builds my needs instead.
Lord builds my needs instead.
Jesus who died to save me, Jesus who sought for me.
Now with his love surrounds me, oh what a friend is he.
Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me.
For me he died at a prison time, who sadly loves me.
And Jesus loves me, so sing it again that Jesus loves me.
Now with his love I'm warming, blessed rejoice in him.
What was it here to Jesus, my joy is full with joy.
Nothing that I persuaded can take me from his hand.
Lord, I, Lord, can, Lord, power, saves him,
Lord, self, Lord, man.
Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me.
For me he died at a prison time, who sadly loves me.
That Jesus loves me, so sing it again that Jesus loves me.
Why should he find the savior, why come and turn away?
Where will you find forgiveness, loving here night and day?
Nobody else could save you, nobody else could save you.
Nobody else could pay, send them for poor, lost sinners.
He could be yours today.
Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me.
For me he died at a prison time, who sadly loves me.
And Jesus loves me, so sing it again that Jesus loves me.
What can I do for Jesus?
How may I give me pain?
Oh, to tell all the story of his salvation's way.
Never a thing for singing, never a truth for praise.
As Jesus loved poor sinners, I'll sing it all my days.
Jesus loves me, yes, Jesus loves me.
For me he died at a prison time, who sadly loves me.
And Jesus loves me, so sing it again that Jesus loves me.
At this time, we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 31.
Deuteronomy chapter number 31.
As we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with brother Hester as he reads Deuteronomy chapter 31.
Deuteronomy chapter 31, Bible reads,
And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel.
And he said unto them, I am an 120 years old this day.
I can no more go out and come in.
Also the Lord has said unto me, thou shalt not go over this Jordan.
The Lord thy God, he will go over before thee, and he will destroy these nations from before
thee, and thou shalt possess them.
And Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said.
And the Lord shall do unto them as he did unto Sion and Og, kings of the Amorites,
and unto the land of them whom he destroyed.
And the Lord shall give them up before your face, that ye may do unto them according
unto all the commandments which I have commanded you.
Be strong and of a good courage.
Fear not, nor be afraid of them.
For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee, he will not fail thee, nor forsake
thee.
And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong
and of a good courage.
For thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their
fathers to give them, and thou shalt cause them to inherit it.
And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee, he will be with thee, he will not
fail thee, neither forsake thee.
Fear not, neither be dismayed.
And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi, which
bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel.
And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity
of the year of release, in the feast of the tabernacles, when all Israel is come
to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt
read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Gather the people together, men and women and children, and thy stranger that is within
thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God,
and observe to do all the words of this law.
And that their children, which have not known anything, may hear and learn to fear
the Lord your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to
possess it.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die.
Call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation,
that I may give him a charge.
And Moses and Joshua went, and presented themselves in the tabernacle
of the congregation.
And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle, in a pillar of a cloud.
And the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.
And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers,
and this people will rise up, and go ahoring after the gods of the strangers of the land,
whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant,
which I have made with them.
Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them,
and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured,
and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day,
Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?
And I will surely hide my face in that day, for all the evils which they shall have wrought,
in that they are turned unto other gods.
Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it to children of Israel.
Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.
For when I shall have brought them into the land, which I swear unto their fathers,
that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves
in wax and fat, then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them,
and provoke me, and break my covenant.
And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are befallen them,
that this song shall testify against them as a witness.
For it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed,
for I know their imagination which they go about,
even now, before I have brought them into the land, which I swear.
Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the children of Israel.
And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage,
for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land,
which I swear unto them, and I will be with thee.
And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing
the words of the law in a book until they were finished,
that Moses commanded the Levites, which bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying,
Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant
of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.
For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck.
Behold, while I am yet alive with you this day,
you have been rebellious against the Lord, and how much more after my death.
Gather unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers,
that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to record against them.
For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves,
and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you,
and evil will befall you in the latter days,
because ye will do evil in the sight of the Lord,
and provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.
And Moses spake in the ears of all the congregation of Israel
the words of this song until they were ended.
Father in heaven, thank you for your son Jesus Christ,
and the earnest of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of your children.
I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson with the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit
as he preaches your word, so that we your children would grow in the faith,
and that we your children would grow in grace,
and in the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Man, Deuteronomy chapter 31, the Bible reads in verse number one,
And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel,
and he said unto them, I am a hundred and twenty years old this day.
I can no more go out and come in.
Also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.
So Moses is about to die.
Not only are the children of Israel about to enter the promised land,
but Moses is about to die.
God has already told Moses and Aaron that neither of them are going to enter the promised land,
and so Joshua is going to be the one that leads them into the promised land.
And of course this is a very important spiritual, symbolic significance,
because Moses represents the law, right?
The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
And then it's interesting when you realize that Joshua and Jesus are the same name.
Joshua is the Old Testament version.
Jesus is the New Testament version.
That's why when you're reading in Acts chapter 7, when Stephen is preaching to the Jews,
he says that they went in with Jesus into the land that was sworn unto their fathers.
What that is, is just a New Testament spelling of Joshua.
So for example, in the New Testament, Elijah is called Elias.
Elisha is called Elisias.
Noah is sometimes Noe with an E on the end, right?
Isaiah is Esaias.
You know, Jeremy, it says like, you know, J-E-R-E-M-Y.
Jeremy about Jeremiah.
So you have all these different New Testament spellings of Old Testament names.
And so it's interesting, again, in Hebrews chapter 4,
for if Jesus had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day?
Probably a reference to Joshua in context.
But again, it kind of has a double meaning because of the fact that these are the same name.
So if you think about it, the law can't get them to the destination.
Jesus can.
So this is a picture of the fact that we're not saved by the law, but we're saved by Jesus.
And also, that's why Aaron can't go in the Promised Land either,
because Aaron represents the Levitical priesthood.
And of course, it's the priest after the order of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ,
that gets us there spiritually, that gets us safe.
So that's just a little bit of a symbolic thing about Moses dying.
And so he's about to die.
He's at the end of his life.
He's giving his final preaching, his final instructions,
and that's really what the book of Deuteronomy is.
Now, if you remember, the word Deuteronomy itself literally means the second law,
because it's the second giving of the law.
It's really a review because these things have already been given in Exodus
and Leviticus and Numbers.
And Deuteronomy is just kind of going back and retelling things and summarizing things.
And it's not like Deuteronomy is just some brand new set of laws.
It's really just going back and reiterating the laws that they already have.
Like, for example, the Ten Commandments are in Exodus chapter 20,
but they're also in Deuteronomy chapter 5, because it's a second installment.
And again, this is what the Bible does all the way from start to finish,
even into the New Testament, where you don't just have one gospel of Jesus Christ,
but you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John giving you four different perspectives.
You don't just have the stories in 2 Samuel,
but then you also have that same material, you know, over in the book of 1 Chronicles,
you know, and then you've got 1 and 2 Kings is mirrored in 2 Chronicles and so forth.
So God often does this, and it's really helpful to understand things,
to hear it a few different times from a few different angles,
and then you can compare scripture with scripture.
You can have your finger in Exodus and go back and forth with Deuteronomy,
and Deuteronomy ends up being the commentary for Exodus and vice versa.
And so it really helps to get these things repeated
so that we make sure that we understand them properly.
And that's what this book is.
Deuteronomy is second law, is what that literally means.
And so Moses says, I can't take you into the Promised Land for two reasons.
Number one, God told me I can't.
And number two, I'm 120 years old, so I can no longer go out and come in.
Going out and coming in is literally, or I mean, it's not literally, sorry,
it's figuratively or euphemistically talking about fighting a battle or going to war.
It doesn't mean, he's not saying like, I can't even get up and go to the bathroom,
you know, I can't even leave the house or come home.
That's not, he's not that crippled because the Bible actually says
that he was, you know, a strong man, even at 120, and that his natural force was not abated.
So he's a healthy man, but he's not able to go out there and lead the troops.
He's not able to be a general out on the battlefield.
And that's going out and coming in is a reference to warfare.
And so Joshua is going to be that military commander
that's going to lead them into the Promised Land
and actually be on the field, directing the troops and so forth.
As the conquest of Canaan takes place throughout the book of Joshua.
Verse three, the Lord thy God, he will go over before thee,
and he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess them.
And Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath said.
And the Lord shall do unto them, meaning those wicked nations over in Canaan land,
the Hivites, the Jebusites, the Perizzites, the Amorites, and so forth.
He'll do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, kings of the Amorites,
and unto the land of them whom he destroyed.
And here's another common biblical principle.
If God has done it in the past, God will be able to do it in the future.
And this is why tribulation worketh experience, the Bible tells us in Romans chapter five,
and experience hope.
Because when we go through trials and tribulations,
and then we make it out unscathed on the other side,
well then the next time something like that happens, we go, okay, you know what?
I've done this before.
God's been faithful.
God's always taken care of me in the past.
He's going to take care of me in the future.
And that's why the Bible says, mark the perfect man.
The end of that man is peace.
If we look at the example of the prophets or Job,
and see the sufferings and trials and tribulations they went through,
and how they ended well, then we know that our situation is going to end well also.
And so he's saying, look, God delivered into your hands Og and Sihon.
And so if he delivered these mighty kings and their armies into your hand,
he's going to do the same thing to the Canaanites.
You just have to trust the Lord and believe that he can bring you into the promised land.
I'm not going to be there, but God's going to be there,
and Joshua is going to be there, right?
It says in verse number five,
the Lord shall give them up before your face that you may do unto them
according to all the commandments which I've commanded you.
Be strong and of a good courage.
Fear not nor be afraid of them for the Lord thy God,
he it is that doth go with thee, he will not fail thee nor forsake thee.
And Moses called unto Joshua and said unto him in the sight of all Israel.
So he kind of brings him up in front of everybody
and says to him, charges him before the people,
be strong and of a good courage for thou must go with this people
unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them
and thou shalt cause them to inherit it.
And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee,
he will be with thee, he will not fail thee,
neither forsake thee, fear not, neither be dismayed.
And Moses wrote this law and delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi,
which bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and unto all the elders of Israel.
Now what's very interesting about this is that this tells us for sure
that the writing of the Bible goes all the way back to the time of Moses.
So we don't want to get the idea that somehow the Bible is written all much later.
Now obviously a lot of the Bible is written much later.
Even a lot of the Pentateuch is written much later.
But the law of God was written down at Mount Sinai.
Because if we went back to the book of Exodus,
it talks about the law of God being written down at Mount Sinai.
Here's another reference to Moses writing down the law of God personally.
Now this makes sense for a lot of reasons, okay?
Number one, it makes sense because of the fact that Moses, the Bible says,
was learned in all of the wisdom or knowledge or training of the Egyptians, right?
So Moses is a guy, remember he was 40 years old
when he went out and viewed his brethren, the children of Israel,
who were being enslaved and mistreated.
But up until 40, he's pretty much living as an Egyptian.
And then at age 40, when he was come to years, when he is 40 years old,
he had a midlife crisis, thank God.
This is a good kind of, instead of buying a convertible,
he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
So anyway, you know, he gets to be 40 years old,
and he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt.
And he refused to be called Pharaoh's daughter.
But up to that point, what is he doing
as a person who's growing up in the royal family, the son of Pharaoh's daughter?
He is becoming extremely well educated, trained.
He's probably being physically trained.
He's being mentally trained.
He's growing up with that luxury.
You know, you think about today, kids, they complain about having to do their schoolwork.
But you know, a lot of times in history, kids didn't really even get
the chance to spend a lot of time studying and learning
because they're just out working in a factory.
They're working in a field.
They're doing farming.
And so actually, being able to just have the leisure to spend several hours a day
studying as a child and learning how to read and write, math, kids don't think that,
they don't think it's a blessing.
I'm wasting my time.
I don't even know why I'm even up here saying this
because I'm just wasting my breath right now.
But the point is that, you know, studying is a luxury.
You know, throughout history, a lot of cultures had a portion of the population that's illiterate.
And then the people that are the most learned are obviously going to be the nobility,
the royalty, and whatever.
And God worked things out in his providence that Moses would have the type of learning
that would make him be someone who could do a good job at writing all this down.
Now, obviously, he's writing it down from the mouth of God,
especially we have, of course, the Ten Commandments that were literally written
in stone with the finger of God, just the Ten Commandments.
But then also he's writing down other laws and statutes that he gets up on the mountaintop.
Another thing that's really fascinating about this is the fact that written language obviously
is, you know, I believe humans have always used written language.
You know, I don't think that it just took humans thousands of years
to figure out how to write things down or something, you know.
I think that, you know, humans were created smart from the beginning.
Adam and Eve are smart.
Cain and Abel are smart.
Everybody's been smart.
There's never been an ooga booga phase in our development
because we don't believe that we evolved from apes.
We believe that God created us in his image, in his likeness,
and that he right away gave us intelligence.
And so, but if you look at earlier writing systems before the Hebrew Bible
or before the writing system used to pen down the Hebrew Bible,
most of them did not have what we would consider an alphabet, okay.
You know, we have our wonderful English alphabet, 26 letters.
It's so easy to learn as a kid.
You just learn 26 letters, right.
But then think about other writing systems like Chinese and it's pictographic, okay.
Or even part of the Japanese writing system that's pictographic.
Well, what's Egypt famous for when it comes to writing?
Hieroglyphics, right.
So hieroglyphics are the famous Egyptian writing, but they're pictographs.
They're not an alphabet.
A picture represents an idea, whereas an alphabet, each letter represents a sound.
There's no idea of the letter D.
D is a, it says duh.
It doesn't mean anything.
You have to combine them.
And the wonderful thing about our alphabet is that you can combine it
in an infinite number of ways and you can write anything down.
Even if we hear something in some weird language,
we figure out a way to put it in our script.
We could get in the ballpark with it.
So an alphabet is something that we might take for granted,
but ancient languages were not alphabetic.
You know, you look at hieroglyphics, other like Sumerian, Cuneiform writing systems,
they're not alphabets, okay.
Whereas the Hebrew Bible was written in an alphabet, right.
And if you read Psalm 119 in the King James Bible,
you have those 22 sections, aleph, bet, gemel, daleh, right.
Those are the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
And if you actually just look up, even just from a secular source,
just a secular history book, you know, where does the alphabet come from?
What was the original alphabet?
And they will tell you that the original alphabet is the Paleo Hebrew alphabet,
is what it's called, because it's not the same one they use today for Hebrew.
The Paleo Hebrew, or sometimes they'll call it the Phoenician alphabet,
and these are both the same thing, Phoenician alphabet,
Paleo Hebrew alphabet, they will tell you that that's the first ever alphabet,
and they will tell you that it developed around 1500 BC,
and that it was developed by slaves in Egypt.
That's literally what they'll tell you, because what it is,
is you can look at it and see that it's kind of like a simplified form from the hieroglyphics.
It's like you're taking the hieroglyphics and simplifying it,
and having just less symbols, and just having an alphabet of say,
22, or there are other variations of it where there's 24 letters, or you know, whatever.
But the point is that God worked it out perfectly,
where they're down in Egypt, and then the alphabet is invented,
and then now God's word can be written down.
Whereas before this, what did people do before the Bible is written down?
You know, the Bible says, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners,
spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
hath in these last days spoken unto us by his son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.
And so throughout time, before the Bible was a written text,
you had prophets giving the word of God orally, right?
Spirit of the Lord comes upon his prophets, and they would preach God's word orally,
but it wasn't a book that people had written down.
And I don't think it's an accident that God allowed the alphabet to be invented
around the same time and in the same place as the Bible is first being pinned down,
because I believe that God wanted the Bible to be written down in a precise way.
Because think about how people will twist the Bible
and have all these different interpretations of the Bible.
Can you imagine if it was a pictograph?
Because they'd look, they'd just say, well,
I'm looking at this picture and I'm seeing something different.
And it'd be too vague, too much open for interpretation, right?
And so with an alphabet, you actually just, it's able to just be literally spelled out.
This is exactly what God said.
And so I believe that God cares about precision when it comes to his word.
And that's why he said,
you know, one jot or one tittle shall no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled.
Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.
And so we want to have a precise Bible.
So God allowed the Bible to be first written when the alphabet is first invented.
And so this is around 1500 BC, approximately is when this happened with Moses,
Mount Sinai, wandering in the wilderness, on the verge of entering Canaan land.
So that is the beginning of the Bible.
There is no book in the Bible that is older than the law.
Does everybody understand that?
So the first thing that gets written down as part of our Bible starts
at Mount Sinai with the giving of the law.
And the very first thing that's written down for the Bible is literally written
by the finger of God, the 10 commandments in stone.
And then of course, shortly thereafter,
Moses is writing down laws at Mount Sinai 40 years before this, he's writing it down.
Now, this does not mean that 100% of the material in Genesis through Deuteronomy
was written at this time.
That is demonstrably false because there are things
in the first five books of the Bible that are clearly written later.
They talk about things that go into the future and later,
but that doesn't matter.
That's not the point.
Obviously, down the road, more material is added, more of God's word is added.
Because frankly, when you read the first five books of the Bible,
not all of it feels like even the law.
Because does Genesis really feel like the law to you?
It has almost no commandments.
I found a total of 13 commandments in the entire book of 50 chapters.
And so it's 99% narrative or genealogies.
It's not what the Bible is talking about here.
Because I think the tendency when you read this is to think,
oh, you know, you just had a nice little leather-bound Genesis through Deuteronomy,
stick it in the Ark of the Covenant, and it's done.
That's not really the case.
But the important thing to see here is that the law, at least the skeleton of it,
the basics of it, the meat and potatoes of it, the law parts were written down.
Something was written down by Moses as the law of God,
and it was done back then around 1500 BC in Moses' lifetime.
So there's no question about it that if you believe the Bible is the word of God,
that Moses wrote part of the Bible, and that Moses wrote down the law of God,
and that Moses is a real literal person, this all literally happened,
Jesus verifies all that, and Jesus credits Moses with writing down the law, and so forth.
So that's important to know that.
Now we're going to get more into that a little bit later in the passage,
but I don't want to spend too much time on that right now.
So it says, Moses wrote this law and delivered it on the priests, the sons of Levi,
which bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and unto all the elders of Israel.
And Moses commanded them, saying, now this is interesting,
at the end of every seven years in the solemnity of the year of release,
in the Feast of Tabernacles, when all Israel has come to appear before the Lord thy God,
in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
Gather the people together, men and women and children,
and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn,
and fear the Lord your God, and observe to do all the words of this law.
Now here's the thing about this.
Is God saying we only need to read the Bible every seven years?
It's a new Bible reading plan.
Once every seven years we read the Bible.
No, but obviously people who are spiritual, people who love the Lord, people who are interested,
they're going to be spending a lot more time in God's Word than just
showing up for the mandatory public reading every seven years.
I think this is just a requirement of just everybody because he spells it out.
Man, woman, boy, girl, and even foreigners that are just living around you.
They all have to be there.
So it's just a mandatory every seven years this thing gets read out loud to all the people.
Everybody's gathered together.
Everybody has to listen to it.
So to make sure everybody's without excuse.
Now let's stop and think about this.
First of all, this is another reason why we're not talking about 187 chapters.
Because it's not realistic that they're all gathered together
and reading to them 187 chapters.
But they're being read the part of the law that was written at that time, the actual law part.
They're getting all the rules and regulations from God.
Now here's another big mistake I think people make when interpreting the Bible.
Is that they get this idea that at certain periods in history,
whatever book of the Bible was written at that time, that's all they had.
So you'll hear people be like, oh, well back then, all they had was the law of Moses.
Or, oh, back then, all they had was just, you know,
up to this certain point or just the Old Testament books or whatever.
But what you have to understand is that until the Bible was completed,
and the Bible is not completed until when?
AD, right? The first century AD, because the New Testament is the Bible.
And so therefore the Bible isn't complete until the time of the apostles.
Until the Bible is complete, there were still lots of prophets of God
speaking God's word orally a lot.
Because stop and think about it.
Even if you say, well Pastor Anderson, I think you're wrong.
I think they had all 187 books.
I think it was just Genesis through Deuteronomy
that got stuck in the side of the Ark of the Covenant.
Even that doesn't seem to be enough of a Bible.
You know what I mean?
Like, like to me, like this is a Bible.
Right? 66 books.
I mean, this is everything I need.
Like if I just had the first five books, you know, that's not really,
I mean, you know, am I really going to be able to spend my whole life
thinking about that, studying that, meditating on that, you know?
I believe that it's obvious that, first of all, before the Bible is written down,
you have prophets speaking the word of God.
But, but even after Moses writes down a bunch of laws at Mount Sinai,
writes down a bunch of laws in the wilderness,
and even when you have, you know, these, these early books of the Bible,
that's not all they had.
There's all kinds of preaching going on.
Because sometimes people will be like, well, you know,
I don't know, did they really know the Messiah is coming just based on just
these couple books and just these couple references?
Because there's not really like that many super clear references.
I mean, it's easy to find them now that we know what we know today
in the New Testament.
But for them back then, they didn't just have the law of God written down.
They're still getting the oral prophecy.
Because think about all throughout the Old Testament,
the Spirit of Lord's coming upon all kinds of prophets and they're preaching.
And I guarantee you, they're preaching all kinds of stuff about the Messiah,
all kinds of stuff about Jesus.
They're not using the name of Jesus.
They don't know those details, but they're getting all kinds of preaching.
Even some things that are in our New Testament,
they're getting it orally back then.
And, and you say, that's crazy.
Okay, well, how about this?
The Book of Jude, it says Enoch also, the seventh from Adam,
prophesied of these saying,
Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment.
So the New Testament is giving us preaching that Enoch did back then.
So now we have what Enoch said as part of our New Testament.
There are probably other statements in the New Testament
that some Spirit-filled preacher in the Old Testament gave.
Obviously not specifics about the name of Jesus or something,
but I'm just saying just principles, ideas from the Word of God.
Because the Word of God is eternal.
You know, the Word of God has always existed and always will exist.
And so because it's eternal, the Spirit of the Lord is coming upon prophets
and they're preaching all kinds of stuff.
And so we don't know exactly what they had to be able to say,
well, all they had was just the first five books.
First of all, you know, there's no guarantee that they had the complete first five books,
because I think a lot of the narrative material is being added later.
I think that's obvious.
And a lot of Deuteronomy, I believe, is clearly added later.
But the point is, though, that other preaching is going on to supplement that.
They're getting all kinds of other Spirit-filled preaching.
And so the godly Israelite, he's meditating in the Word of God day and night.
He's constantly praying.
He's constantly reading what written scriptures they do have.
He's constantly listening to the prophets of God.
He's listening to preaching and so forth.
Okay.
I believe that this every-seven-year thing is more just for the people that aren't that into it,
that aren't that spiritual, that aren't that interested,
just to make sure everybody, at least once every seven years, gets the basics and understands,
look, we're not supposed to worship idols.
In fact, if anybody tries to get a town or a city worshiping idols,
we're supposed to kill that person because we've got to worship God only.
And we're a special nation.
We're special people to the Lord our God.
And these are the laws.
These are the rules.
These are the blessings.
These are the cursings, right?
Those basics are being read out loud every seven years.
They get everybody together.
And we don't know how many hours it took, but I'm sure it took several hours to read
whatever portion was written down by Moses at that time.
And they read it for several hours.
And everybody's forced to hear it just to make sure everybody's on the same page.
I thought it was kind of funny, too, that this happens every seven years at the year of release.
So everybody's in a good mood because all their debts have just been forgiven.
You know, that's the idea, right?
So you're like, man, you know, we've got to go sit and listen to the Bible read out loud
for several hours.
It's like, well, hey, did you check your credit card statement?
Because it's a big zero, you know?
So cheer up, buddy.
But, you know, also, even within the Book of Deuteronomy itself, elsewhere, it says
that someday when Israel gets a king, he's supposed to be reading in the Book of the
Law of God every day.
So it's not, again, just every seven years.
People who are actually loving God and serious about the Word of God, they're going to
be reading it every day.
They're going to be constantly listening to preaching and so forth.
This is just a minimum for just Joe Shlomo that just, he needs to hear the basics.
Every seven years, he's going to hear this read out loud.
And so it says in verse number 13, that their children, which have not known anything,
may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land,
whether you go over Jordan to possess it.
So it's very important that the Word of God gets transmitted to the next generation.
Those who did not live through these things, we need to make sure that they all hear it.
Not that it's just in a library somewhere, but that it's read out loud.
Also, if you stop and think about it, even in a society where people are literate,
children are often not literate, right?
Because you learn to read at a certain age.
But long before you can read, you can understand the Bible being read out loud, right?
This is why we should make sure that we're reading the Bible out loud to our children
or playing audio of the Bible to our children so that they can hear it their whole lives.
From a child, they can know the Holy Scriptures,
even before they're able to read it for themselves.
Or even people that are not good at reading, right?
They can actually hear the Word of God.
Even someone who's totally uneducated can sit down and listen to the Word of God being read.
And this is why I'm such a strong believer in reading the Bible in church, okay?
This is why every single time we have a church service, we read the entire chapter here.
Before the sermon, we read a whole chapter.
That's very rare.
The vast majority of Baptist churches do not do that.
They'll read one verse, maybe five verses, maybe six or seven.
They'll read a small selection.
But I made the decision when we started out 18 years ago that,
no, we're going to read the entire chapter because I believe that the public reading
of God's Word should be a part of our service.
It's something that should just be a part of our culture.
And by the way, in the front of the King James Bible,
it literally says on the cover page, appointed to be read in churches.
And I realize that that's not inspired scripture,
but it's a good little instruction on how to use this thing.
Read it in churches.
And not only that, but the Bible says, Paul told Timothy,
till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
So it's not just about me giving exhortation and doctrine.
It's also about reading.
So that's why we read three chapters every week out loud.
We read one on Sunday morning.
We read one on Sunday night.
We read one on Wednesday night.
If you think about it, obviously, there are chapters getting repeated and so forth.
But if you stopped and thought about it, if we're reading three chapters a week or something,
then in the course of a decade, we've read more than the entire Bible
worth of material at that point, right?
So we're getting through the whole thing,
even though we have much more Bible than what they had back then,
that they're reading every seven years.
We're reading it week in, week out, reading it out loud.
Also, I try to make sure that when I preach my sermons,
that I'm constantly quoting scripture and constantly putting the Bible into my sermon.
Because the Bible says, preach the word.
And it's not just my opinion or my ideas and stories.
But rather, I try to saturate my sermons with the word of God
and either turn to scriptures or quote scriptures.
Make sure that we're using the Bible a lot when we're in church,
because it needs to be read out loud.
Because otherwise, the toddlers, the children,
that's their only avenue for getting the word of God is to hear it.
Is if you read it to them or play it to them
or bring them to church where it's being read publicly.
And so he says, everybody's going to be there, the little ones,
so that the next generation can also have the word of God.
We need to make sure to pass on our faith to the next generation.
The Bible says in verse 14,
The Lord said unto Moses, behold the day's approach that thou must die.
Call Joshua and present yourselves in the tabernacle of the congregation,
that I may give him a charge.
And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tabernacle of the congregation.
And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud,
and the pillar of a cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle.
And the Lord said unto Moses, behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers,
and this people will rise up, this is encouraging,
and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land,
whither they go to be among them,
and will forsake me and break my covenant, which I have made with them.
It's like, hey, by the way, Moses, you're about to die.
And after you die, everything is just going to go to hell in a handbasket, buddy.
But of course, the good news is that in the days of Joshua, they do serve God
and all the elders that outlive Joshua.
So it takes a little while before it all goes down the toilet.
But he says in verse number 17,
then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day,
and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them,
and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them,
so that they will say in that day,
are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?
And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils
which they shall have wrought in that they are turned unto other gods.
Now, again, the Old Covenant, the Old Testament,
the covenant made with Israel at Mount Sinai is a conditional covenant.
There is always this condition of if you keep the commandments,
if you obey my statutes and ordinances,
I will be your God, you will be my people, you'll be a chosen people,
you'll be a peculiar treasure unto me if, there's a big if,
versus the covenant that God made to Abraham, there's no if.
And I preached a sermon on this a few months ago,
how it was totally a one-sided deal.
I preached that sermon about the mediator of one, okay?
Not a mediator of one was the title of the sermon.
And so Abraham got that unconditional covenant, okay?
Now we in the New Testament,
we have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved.
And when we get saved, not only do we get salvation,
we also become one of God's chosen people.
When we believe on Jesus Christ, we are the elect.
We are the chosen people.
It's not Jews over in Israel.
It's not some other ethnicity.
It's people who in time past were not a people,
but now are the people of God,
which in time past had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
And the Bible says that we as Gentiles are brought nigh by the blood of Christ
and that we are now citizens of the commonwealth of Israel
and that the unbelievers have actually been discarded.
They've been rejected and they're no longer God's people,
the unbelieving Israelites.
The unbelieving branches have been broken off.
The believing Gentile branches have been graphed in.
Jesus said the kingdom of God shall be taken from you
and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
And that's not a particular physical nation.
It's a spiritual nation made up of all believers.
So the condition to enter the new covenant,
to enter God's people in the New Testament is believing on Jesus Christ.
And then once you have believed on Christ,
then your status as one of God's chosen,
as a saved Christian, as a member of God's people is unconditional.
Meaning that you don't have to do anything to stay saved.
But not only that, you don't have to do anything to stay one of God's people.
You're in the, if you're saved, you're in the chosen nation.
You are one of God's chosen people.
So the old covenant was different than the new covenant.
Okay, the new covenant is very different.
The old covenant is a thing where it says, you know what?
If you disobey, I mean, what did he just say repeatedly?
I'll forsake you.
Now, does that remind you of a New Testament verse?
I'll never leave you or forsake you.
So, I mean, God's flat out saying in the Old Testament,
I'm going to forsake you if you go worship other gods,
because he's talking to the nation of Israel.
He's not talking to a saved individual saying, I'm going to forsake you.
He's talking to a nation and saying, I'm going to forsake you.
And here's where people get mixed up sometimes.
The difference between God's dealings with a nation
and God's dealings with the individual with regard to salvation, right?
I'm a saved individual.
God's never going to leave me nor forsake me.
Okay, I'm saved.
Nothing can separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I'm saved.
I'm going to heaven.
God will never leave me or forsake me.
But think about, like, America, right?
If America forsakes God, God would forsake America.
And maybe in the past, God was with America, and then we become super wicked,
and then God says, okay, I'm against you, America.
I'm not with you, America.
I'm going to forsake you, America.
I'm going to hide my face from you, America.
That doesn't mean that there's not a group of people in America that are a righteous remnant,
that God's not going to forsake the remnant.
Well, same thing in Israel.
When Israel goes off and worships other gods, there's always a righteous remnant,
always the 7,000 that haven't bowed the knee to Baal.
God's not forsaking those individuals.
He's forsaking the nation, okay?
Now, in the New Testament, it's different because the nation is not a physical nation.
So there's an actual one-to-one correspondence between people who are saved
and people who are part of the spiritual nation.
Everybody who's saved is part of the nation.
Everybody who's part of the nation is saved in the New Testament because
what defines the nation in the New Testament is salvation.
He says to believers, you're a chosen generation.
You're a peculiar people.
You're a holy nation.
Whereas in the Old Testament, there could be saved people that are not part of the nation of Israel.
Saved Gentiles, just saved people out there in the world.
And then, obviously, there are people that are in the nation of Israel that are not saved.
So personal salvation and membership in the nation are two different things in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament, they're the same thing.
Okay, so that's a big difference.
So when God's saying here, I will forsake you,
he's talking to a physical nation of Israel saying,
look, I'm going to be with Israel as long as they're worshiping me and following my commandments.
Now, why in the world do people believe today in 2024
that God is with the so-called nation of Israel in the Middle East
when they don't worship the God of the Bible?
Like, this should be obvious.
First of all, the New Testament flat out says
that God is taking the kingdom away from Israel and giving it to a different nation.
But even without the New Testament spelling it out
and saying the unbelieving branches are broken off
and Israel is not going to inherit with Christians,
Israel is Ishmael, Israel is Hagar,
the children of the bond woman will not inherit with the children of the free,
and cast out the bond woman and her son.
Even if the New Testament didn't spell all that out,
even the Old Testament says if you're not worshiping the true God,
you're not my people.
I'm going to hide my face from you.
I'm going to set my face against you for evil.
Those people over there are not worshiping the God of the Bible, period.
And you know what?
If you believe that an unsaved person who says that Jesus is not the Messiah
is worshiping the God of the Bible, then I just wonder, are you even saved?
Like what in the world?
Well, you know, they believe in God over there.
Well, they believe in a God.
Muslims believe in a God.
Hindus believe in a God.
But is it the true God?
Because if it isn't Jesus, it isn't the true God.
Why?
Because the Bible says,
whosoever denyeth the Son, the same hath not the Father.
But he that acknowledgeeth the Son hath the Father also.
You can't say, well, I believe in God the Father, but that's it.
Just God, but not Jesus.
No, because there's only one real God,
and he's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The Trinitarian God is the only God that exists.
All the gods of the nations are idols.
And so if the Jews have some other God that's not the Trinitarian God,
he's not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, then who is he?
I'm hearing all these voices giving the answer.
Satan.
Their God is Satan.
That's why the Bible literally calls them the synagogue of Satan.
Look, if you drive by the synagogue, the Jewish synagogue,
you're driving by the satanic church.
It is the synagogue of Satan.
That's what the Bible calls it.
It's the spirit of Antichrist that denies that Jesus is the Messiah.
And this stuff is so obvious and so clear.
And what's funny is that if you confront any Baptist preacher with these facts,
they'll be like, well, I know they're not saved.
Well, I know that they're not really worshipping God.
Well, I know that they're going to go to hell when they die,
but I just still think God's blessing them.
How can you bless somebody who's going to hell?
But they're still God's people, and he still blesses them,
and protects them, and takes care of them.
It's like, here you go, buddy.
Let me just take care of you on your way to hell.
Here you go, little birdie.
Oh, you're the apple of my eye.
See ya, sucker!
Doesn't make any sense.
Folks, if you go to hell when you die,
nothing that happened in your life mattered.
When you're burning in hell, you're not going to be like,
hey, it was a good ride.
At least I was one of the chosen.
Hey, God really thought I was cool at one point.
You're burning in hell.
Nothing you ever did or said mattered.
All your love and your hate and everything,
none of it means anything.
You're in hell!
You're discarded.
You're eternally trashed.
Oh, but by the way, did I mention I'm one of God's chosen people?
That doesn't even get you a drop of water in hell.
Abraham!
You're my ancestor.
You're my father, grandpa, great grandpa.
Nope, sorry, you don't even get a drop of water
for being one of the chosen people in hell.
It's absurd.
What it is is cognitive dissonance.
It's the holding of two contradictory ideas at once.
It doesn't make any sense.
But yet, 99% of our Baptist churches in America are teaching this.
They're teaching the Jews are God's chosen people.
God will bless those who bless them, curse those who curse them.
America has to politically support Israel, militarily support Israel.
Let's raise money and send it to Israel.
Let's fly a flag of the Star of Rimfan out in front of the church building.
I mean, this is what people...
I mean, I knocked on somebody's door, what, an hour and a half ago.
We knocked on somebody's door.
And they had all this like Jewish paraphernalia on the door.
And multiple of those little deals.
And I knock on the door, the lady comes to the door,
and she has a big giant Star of Rimfan hanging around her neck.
And I said, are you a Christian?
She said, yes.
And I was like, well, I'm glad I asked.
I mean, I didn't say that.
But like, I'm thinking to myself like, oh, great, cool.
And she was saved.
She's a very nice lady.
She was saved.
She gave us a really clear answer on salvation.
And you know, it's just by believing in Christ.
And you know, you can't lose your salvation and whatever.
You know, so she gave a great salvation testimony.
She's a Christian.
I mean, I just assumed.
She must be Jewish.
But I'm telling you.
But then I thought about it.
I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
Other people don't get it in our society.
Like, I forgot how Judaized our churches have become in America.
That people would literally wear symbols of a Christ-hating,
Christ-rejecting religion and think that it's something good to wear.
And I'm not mad at this woman at all.
Because you know what?
Hey, when I was a child, when I was a teenager, when I was 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, I thought
the same thing as she does.
You know, I mean, I didn't go to those lengths.
I wasn't wearing those symbols.
But I'm just saying, like, I thought that the Jews were God's chosen people, too.
Because that's how I've been taught my whole life.
But it's false.
And it makes no sense.
And it's not biblical.
And so you see that God flat out says, man, I'm going to forsake you if you worship
other gods.
This is a big condition on being God's chosen people.
You got to worship moi, is what he's saying.
OK, so let's keep going here.
I got to hurry up.
Let's see.
Verse 19 is where we left off.
Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach it the children of Israel, and put it
in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.
For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swear unto their fathers
that floweth with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves
in wax and fat, then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke
me, and break my covenant.
And then we already read this before the service.
But basically, well, let's read verse 21.
It shall come to pass when many evils and troubles have befallen them that this song
shall testify against them as a witness.
For it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed, for I know their imagination
which they go about even now before I've brought them into the land which I swear.
So there's something about music that it really sticks with you.
And the words really stick with you.
In fact, a lot of times when people are memorizing something, they'll make a little
song out of it or memorize scripture.
They'll make a song out of scripture and so forth.
Because it just really helps you remember things.
I mean, I literally, I don't know if I'm just weird like this, but I walk through
the grocery store once a year.
And when I do walk through the grocery store, like, just every time I see a product,
I'm just hearing the jingle for that product in my mind.
So it's just like, I mean, who else does that have?
Just every time you see, like, I can't look at a box of Rice-A-Roni.
With that here, like, Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco treat.
Like, I never would see Rice-A-Roni without that song coming into my head.
You know, I mean, I drive by Big O Tires.
It's like, a reputation you can ride on, Big O Tires.
You know, and I mean, I just have all these jingles in my head constantly.
And it just, you know, I see a Toyota.
It's just like, I love what you do for me, Toyota.
Just every time in the store, just all these, you know, slogans and songs are coming at
me from all these jingles because music sticks with us.
And I mean, you know, I'm not going to spend the whole night just singing jingles
to you, but I could, though.
I could, and especially if we were in the grocery store, because then I'd have all
the, you know, reminders.
Oh yeah, I know that song, you know.
Because music really sticks with us, right?
And that's why these advertising companies make those jingles.
Because you end up buying that stuff.
Because you like the song.
You have kind of a weird kind of connection with the song.
And you're just like, all right, Rice-A-Roni, let's go.
And so, music is powerful.
And this is why I want to make sure that, you know, when we sing songs in church,
I want to make sure that they're doctrinally sound.
And not just sing songs and who cares, let's just get whatever is popular and just indiscriminately
sing songs.
No, no, no.
And the wonderful thing about this hymnal is that this hymnal was produced by people
that were pretty like-minded to ourselves.
This is a pretty mainstream hymnal.
I mean, you know, you're going to find this thing in many thousands of churches.
It's a mainstream hymnal.
It was produced by an organization called the Sword of the Lord.
Used to have a big-time newspaper that a lot of people would read.
I mean, it still exists.
I'm just not sure if as many people read it anymore.
But like, this hymnal is made by independent, fundamental Baptists that are King James.
They're into soul winning.
They have the right gospel, right salvation.
And so, this hymnal is a great hymnal.
99% of the songs in this hymnal are great, but there are some songs in the hymnal that
we don't sing because the doctrine might be flat out wrong.
Or, you know, there's a whole section like coming today and all that.
You know, we don't sing those.
But anyway.
But some of the doctrine is just flat out wrong.
But not only that, sometimes the doctrine is just maybe misleading.
Like the song kind of sounds like it could be teaching a workspace salvation.
You know, I don't even want to sing stuff that even could be interpreted that way.
You know, we like to make sure that the stuff that we sing is really doctrinally clear,
good doctrine.
And not only that, but this hymnal has a lot of good doctrine in it.
You think about some of the stupid heresies that come up and how the songs rebuke it.
You know, like for example, this thing of, oh, the blood of Christ isn't really what
saves us or whatever.
You know, the stupid John MacArthur doctrine.
You know, we got a whole section in the hymnal on the blood really hammering those
good doctrines about being washed in the blood and saved by the blood and all that.
You know, and then I was thinking about this stupid doctrine says, you know, God
can't die, you know, claiming that God didn't.
You know, when Jesus Christ died for us, that wasn't really God dying for us.
It was just like it was the human.
You know, his body was the human part and his soul was the God part.
You know, and this idea that somehow you can separate the God part and the human part
of Jesus.
When in reality, no, Jesus Christ is God and Jesus Christ is man.
There's not a God part and a human part.
There's just Jesus who is 100% God, 100% man.
And so when Jesus died on the cross, that is God dying on the cross.
That's why the Bible says the blood of God, that God purchased the church with his own
blood.
God was manifest in the flesh, right?
God was preached under the Gentiles.
God was received up into glory.
All of those scriptures that teach that and obviously that's a whole sermon of itself.
But the point is, you know, you think about some of the songs in the hymnal and we
have this.
How about this one?
Amazing love, how can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Doctrinally sound or what?
So, you know, obviously this hymnal is not perfect.
I'm not saying this hymnal is perfect.
I'm not saying it couldn't be better, but this is a great hymnal.
And so it really meets most of our needs at this church.
But we like to supplement this as well with Psalms that have been put to music.
King James Bible, Psalms that have been put to music as a supplement because this
unfortunately doesn't have much of that.
It has a little bit of scripture put to music in some of the songs.
Obviously a lot of it's paraphrasing scripture.
But, you know, we want to actually sing some Psalms.
And so we supplement that.
Why?
Because it's so important that these doctrines get hammered into us.
And I feel like part of the problem with Christianity today is that the music is either
teaching false doctrine or it is just stripped of doctrine.
Now every once in a while you'll, you know, get exposed to like a Christian radio
station or something.
I mean, I'm assuming that there's one in Phoenix.
I don't know.
But anyway, I know I was riding in an Uber the other day and somebody was playing it
for a long time.
They were playing, this was in another city though.
But they were playing some kind of a Christian station.
And here's the thing, I'm listening to the lyrics to the CCM music that's playing
in my Uber.
And here's the thing, the vast majority of it that you hear, it's not heresy because
it's kind of just not saying much.
So you're not like, oh, that's doctrinally wrong or oh, this is heresy.
You know, you're not playing like heresy bingo, like listening to the songs.
Because honestly, the modern Christian music industry wants to make money.
You know, it's just in many ways patterned after the worldly music industry.
It's about making money.
So here's the thing, if you want to make money, you want to market your product to
as big of an audience as possible.
And so therefore, if you want to have the next big Christian hit song, it's probably
not going to hammer doctrines that are controversial.
It's probably not going to hammer eternal security, the believer, right?
It's not going to sit there and hammer the Trinity because of the fact that then
you're going to lose all your oneness Pentecostals.
You're going to lose all your work salvationists.
You're going to lose your salvation types.
So it's just, hey, our God's an awesome God or whatever, you know.
Somebody pointed out to me that some of the verses to that song have some solid doctrine
or whatever.
It's just an example, folks.
I don't know the whole song.
I only know the chorus.
But anyway, the point is, though, that, you know, it's easy to just come out with
a lot of just we love you, Jesus, and good, you know, good God, good sin, cold
hell, whatever, and just really vague, broad kind of lyrics that everybody can kind
of get behind.
But the problem with that is that you're not learning good doctrine.
You know, I would rather sing songs that are explicitly teaching salvation by faith,
salvation by the blood, not losing your salvation, you know.
And I mean, you look at a lot of those Fanny Crosby classics in our hymnal.
I mean, just it's just just they're just such great doctrine, you know, in these
songs, you know, the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon
receives.
I mean, you just go through.
There's just all these great lines in there about salvation by faith, about the deity
of Christ, just all these good doctrine.
So I like the doctrinally rich songs of the hymnal.
But again, they don't really cover everything, you know.
And this is why I love the song that we sang earlier today, the Psalm 139 song that we
did, because it makes liberals heads explode.
And here's why it makes this is why it makes their heads explode.
Because they hate the song and they're just like, how dare you sing that?
And I've had people say to me, like, why would you sing that in church?
But then it's like, well, it's literally the Bible.
But not only that, because then somebody could come along and say, well, OK, but it's
an odd portion of scripture to sing in church.
Yeah, but it's the part of the Bible that's designed to be sung in church.
It's literally the part of the Bible that is labeled as a songbook.
You know what I mean?
It's not like we're just taking some obscure law from Deuteronomy and setting
it to music or just, you know, we're not we're not taking that part of Malachi
where he says, you know, I'm going to spread dung in your faces or whatever and
say, you know, I'm singing that or whatever.
You know, I can see how somebody would say, OK, that's a weird choice.
What are we doing here?
You know, we're not getting up and singing through the story of Lot's cave or
something.
You know what I mean?
Like, OK, that'd be a little weird.
I would agree with you.
But the Book of Psalms is literally a songbook.
We did not make this a song.
It was already a song.
We just put it to our own American style tune and we're doing it in the
English language.
But this is something that God wanted his people to sing.
And in the New Testament, he literally says that we should sing Psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
And so we love to sing the Psalms because the Psalms are packed with doctrine and some
of them are negative.
Some are positive, some are negative.
Whereas the songs in the hymnal tend to all be positive.
Which I get it, but no, because we need to have some negative songs, too, because
if God wrote the songbook, then that should be the pattern.
So if we're looking at the Book of Psalms like, OK, yeah, this is what God's people
singing should look like.
And so it always, like to me, saying that basically our Psalm 139 song, which is literally
just verbatim King James Bible put to music straight out of the labeled songbook.
For someone to say that we should not sing this in church is a flat earth level
of stupidity.
Literally.
I mean, literally, if you think that I'm going to put you in the same category with a flat
earther for how stupid you are.
To literally take a song from God's songbook and say, well, we shouldn't sing that because
it said hate in it.
Oh, I'm so sorry that I forgot that hate is not a family value.
What I mean, like what religion are you like?
Where do you get your truth?
Because I get it from the Bible.
The Bible is the final authority.
How do I even decide what to sing or what singing should be like?
The first place you go is the Book of Psalms.
And say, OK, God, show me what a songbook looks like.
And then I'm going to go make a songbook that looks like that.
But not only that, we're supposed to sing this songbook.
Because he said Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
That's not the same thing.
He didn't say just sing Psalms only.
Because some churches, they only sing Psalms.
No, because you can sing Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
So it's OK to sing a new song unto the Lord.
There's nothing wrong with writing a new song and singing it.
The problem with the new Christian music isn't that it's new.
The problem is that it's often made by people who are not saved.
And so they are not even singing from the right place spiritually or doctrinally.
And even the ones that are saved who are producing the music,
they're maybe keeping it vague about doctrine.
So as to sell more, I don't want to say records,
but I don't want to say CDs either because I sell more downloads, I guess.
I don't even know what they sell anymore.
They sell more concert tickets or something, I guess.
So anyway, we're out of time.
But basically, this whole chapter is kind of setting up the next chapter, which is a song.
And the song, he says, man, this is really going to stick with them.
Even once they're not reading the Bible anymore, the song is going to stick with them.
And I bet you people who grew up in church, even when they get away from God,
I bet these hymns come back.
You know, especially because sometimes even in a worldly setting, you'll hear the hymns.
Like you'll hear, you know, I don't know, some worldly singer singing Amazing Grace
or, you know, Elvis is singing In the Garden or something,
you know, or around Christmas time, you start hearing all those wonderful Christmas hymns.
And, you know, that stuff really sticks with you.
And so we want to make sure that our music's doctrinally sound,
that it's patterned after the Book of Psalms,
and that it also includes some stuff from the Book of Psalms.
And so we want to make sure that our kids grow up
with the Word of God ingrained in them and with good doctrine ingrained in them through music.
And so we don't want to take it lightly and say, well, you know,
yeah, this song's doctrinally wrong, but let's just sing it anyway.
You know, we really should be careful what we sing.
And that's, and at least with the Sword of the Lord hymnal,
you know, you're starting from a place of, OK, the people who put this book together
are Bible-believing, saved Baptists.
And so, you know, that's a great place to start.
Doesn't mean we agree with every one of their choices,
but, you know, it's a great place to start.
And so I, you say, oh, I like the music down at the liberal church better.
You know what?
But here's the thing, though, our music's just better.
So, yeah, that's just, it just is.
So let's pray.
All right, dear Lord, thank you so much for this church, Lord.
Thank you for giving us the chance to look within the pages of your word, Lord,
and to read the Book of Deuteronomy together and to find relevance and meaning for us today
as New Testament Christians.
Lord God, I pray that we would study the Bible and not just once every seven years,
but, Lord, that it would be our meditation daily.
And, Lord God, that we would also sing good spiritual songs
that would get the right message ingrained in us
and that we would be filled with the Spirit as we sing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs unto you.
And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Let's take our hymnals, please.
Go to hymn 183.
Hymn number 183.
Oh, how I love Jesus.
Hymn number 183.
Let's start on that first verse.
183.
There is a name I love to hear.
I love to sing.
It's one of the hymnals.
One hundred and eighty-three.
Sing it out together.
There is a name I love to hear.
I love to sing its word.
It sounds like music in my ear.
The sweetest name on earth.
Oh, how I love Jesus.
Because he hurts lovely.
It tells me of a Savior's love who guides him, set me free.
It tells me of his precious blood, a sinner's perfect plea.
Oh, how I love Jesus.
Because he hurts lovely.
It tells me of my Father and his store for every day.
And though I dread the dark, some death will sunshine all the way.
Oh, how I love Jesus.
Because he hurts lovely.
It tells of one whose loving heart can fill my deepest hole.
With many sorrows there's a part that none can bear me more.
Oh, how I love Jesus.
Because he hurts lovely.
Thank you for watching!