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Man Deuteronomy chapter number 18 verse number 1 the Bible reads the priests the Levites and all the tribe of Levi Shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel They shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire and his inheritance now This is again one of those themes that is hammered over and over again in the book of Deuteronomy It's one of the main overarching concepts that just comes up repeatedly and you can trace it through Chapter after chapter after chapter how it's so important that the children of Israel worship God in a central location That they go to the place which the Lord will choose Not that all the towns and villages are just kind of doing their own thing and running their own version of the Old Testament Worship of God and the sacrificial system know everything is supposed to be centralized at the place Which God shall choose which ultimately is going to be Jerusalem But before it's Jerusalem It is the tabernacle which resides in various places throughout the history of Israel And so it's very important to God that they worship at the central location and that the Levites are taken care of Financially by the rest of the nation. So they are not supposed to have secular jobs. They're not supposed to be out farming and Making their own living that way they're supposed to be working full-time For God and this is what we really see happening in David's reign right when King David is reigning you have a lot of Levites list. I was just today reading the end of first chronicles and and There's a lot of talk about the Levites that are doing this job and that job and so forth It seems like David really had this thing going on all of its cylinders where the Levites are doing what they're supposed to be Doing serving God full-time day and night. You have a lot of them doing that in his time And so God wants the Levites to be full-time serving God and that the children of Israel bring their offerings and bring the tides and bring the sacrifices to that central location So that the Levites can be taken care of when it says in verse 1 that they have no part nor inheritance with Israel This is saying that they do not inherit farmland like everyone else and remember throughout history Ninety-some percent of people have been farmers in today's world It's a very small percentage of people who farm because of machines But in the past it was not so and so the Levites are not to be farmers. They don't have any farmland They are fed from Working for God and getting those offerings made by fire unto the Lord verse and by the way They're not vegetarians or vegans because they're eating offerings made by fire unto the Lord, which is talking about animal sacrifices, but then also if you remember there is the meat offering and The meat offering in the Bible this confused me when I was a kid because I first saw Meat offering and then it's just fine flour mingled with oil and I'm like, you know, where's the beef, right? But it's meat in the Bible Used to mean just food, right? So sometimes words will narrow in their meaning right so 400 years ago meat was just food now That's been narrowed to just meaning Flesh sort of like the word hound used to be just all dogs in general like German hoot And then now that's narrowed to just a certain kind of dog. That's a hound, right? So words often narrow meaning now a lot of people would look at something like that and say well You know the meat offering fine flour mingled with oil, you know Get rid of the King James put it in a museum where it belongs because it's just too hard But even as a little kid It didn't take me long reading my Bible about the meat offering and seeing that it's flour and oil After a few repetitions of that I realized you know what meat must just mean food in general Meat must be like meal just it has a T instead of an L on the end It really isn't hard to figure these things out They're not complicated and especially if you're going to church three times a week and you have a pastor explaining stuff to you Then the learning goes really fast Right, so just get some smarts learn the vocabulary stick with the King James don't join the Bible of the month Club So it says here that the Lord is their inheritance as he has said unto them. They get their food they get their Carbohydrates and their fats from the meat offering because it's fine flour mingled with oil oil is your fat and The flour is your carbohydrate and then they're getting meat and then they also get the first fruits of the crop So they're getting fruits and vegetables. They're getting everything that they need from the people bring it to them It says in verse number three this shall be the priests do from the people from them that offer a sacrifice Whether it be ox or sheep that they shall give it to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the mall So there we go. What part of the animal do they get specifically? This is what they get the priest. Okay, but remember the Levites need to be fed also But the priests in particular they eat the shoulder. Okay, and then it says In verse 4 the first fruit also of thy corn of thy wine and of thine oil The first of the fleece of thy sheep shalt thou give him So even the fleece of the sheep, right if they're tithing and giving an offering of the fleece of the sheep This is even giving the Levite the textiles that he needs right the clothing and the materials that he needs For the Lord thy God has chosen him out of all thy tribes to stand to minister in the name of The Lord him and his sons forever I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time on this part of the chapter because we've seen this before in Deuteronomy and it's something that comes up over and over again because it's a major theme in Deuteronomy taking care Of the Levite and if a Levite verse 6 come from any of thy gates out of all Israel where he sojourned and Come with all the desire of his mind unto the place which the Lord shall choose then he shall minister in the name of the Lord is God and All his brethren leave as all his brethren Levites do which stand there before the Lord They shall have like portions to eat beside that which cometh of the sale of his patrimony Here's what the Bible saying, let's say you have a Levite who his family has kind of gotten away from serving the Lord they've gotten away from being at the place which the Lord chooses or or Participating in these things and he's just kind of part of like a like a Jack Levite family You know, we think of like the Jack Mormon, right? So he's like a Jack Levite, right and they're out just kind of doing whatever and the kid grows up and says, you know Hey, I'm a Levite. I'm supposed to be working full-time for the tabernacle or the temple and So if he shows up and says hey, I'm a Levite. This is my lineage. This is whose family I'm a part of then He's supposed to be able to get reinstated and be able to do that job and jump in and actually become a proper Levite once again because remember When we read the actual history of the children of Israel It's not just this smooth history of just serving the Lord century after century it's a constant going back and forth between Serving false gods and Baal and Ashtaroth to coming back and serving the true God you got the Levites forsaken and then now the Levites are coming back So a lot of people you could see how they could get disenfranchised as a Levite, but then later in a time when? The worship of the Lord is thriving say in the reign of a King David or something where then they would start coming out Of the woodwork and God's saying yeah You know get those Levites in here doing what they're supposed to be doing because God wanted there to be an army of Full-time servants that are actually just ministering before him day and night Preaching the Word of God teaching the Bible to the people running the sacrificial system and so forth And so God is making provision for the Levites who've gotten away to come back and get back in on serving God full-time Says in verse number nine When they are coming to the land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee Thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire Or that use of divination or an observer of times or an enchanter or a witch or a charmer or a Consulter with familiar spirits or a wizard or a necromancer. So let's talk about some of these different things First of all, he says no one should make their son or daughter to pass through the fire What this is talking about is? Human sacrifice and it specifically is talking about the sacrifice of a baby Now here's the thing about this Supposedly They're offering this as a sacrifice to God to please God God, of course says in the Bible I never asked for that don't ever do that. It's wicked. It's abomination. He says that never even entered into my mind Let alone did I command such a thing? It's wicked. It's satanic. Don't do it. Okay, the Bible is clear on that But supposedly they're doing this either as an offering to God or as an offering to some other God some other false God offering it to Baal or Molech or whatever whoever the false God doesn't really matter because it's Satan or some demon that they're worshipping when they offer human sacrifice But I'll tell you what's probably really going on in the minds of the people who are doing this Human nature being such that it is and Understanding that there's no new thing under the Sun and that people today are in many ways going to be the same as people 2,000 3,000 4,000 years ago is That this becomes a handy way for people to get rid of Babies that they don't want that's what's really going on and then they can dress it up as something spiritual Oh, I'm making a sacrifice unto God, you know, I'm just super religious I'm just being really pious and I'm just so dedicated to Baal worship that I'm willing to give up something So precious to me when really they want to discard their child It's not even making a sacrifice because actually they want to get rid of it Now you say pastor Anderson. How could anyone? Want to discard a living baby? Why would anyone want to get rid? Well, I don't know but Ask Planned Parenthood and maybe they can explain it to you Because last time I checked all kinds of women all across America and all over the world are murdering their babies And it's called abortion in This time period it's the exact same phenomenon unwanted child Except it just gets burnt in the fire and oh, it's spiritual It's religious right for them to murder babies and perform a human sacrifice That's what's going on and it and make no mistake abortion is murder Okay, and and people are tempted to do this because they don't want to have a child. They don't want the work They don't want the effort. They don't want to make the sacrifice of raising a child They don't want to spend the money because they're selfish and they just want to live an easy life Whatever the rationale it's never right to murder someone to make your life easier You say well, but pastor Anderson, I'm single and I'm well then quit being a whore Right, and then you won't have this problem, you know, you don't just magically get pregnant you get pregnant out of wedlock by being a whore If you would be a virgin and you would be pure and you would wait until you're married to have intercourse Then you're not gonna get pregnant. It's that simple. It's impossible to get pregnant Without having sex there. I said it it is impossible. Okay, it's not human I mean, I'm sure you could go to some laboratory somewhere and whatever but you know You're not gonna get pregnant without fornicating without committing whoredoms. Okay. Now if you're married Then you know what go ahead and have kids Because God wants you to have kids God wants you to be fruitful and multiply God is gonna bless you and God will will supply all your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus So don't stress out and say well, I don't know if I want to have kids or you know, well, here's the thing You know, you might rather Have a fancier house fancier clothes fancier vehicle, but guess what? That's not the meaning of life And so having a bunch of kids is a virtue Happy is the man that had this quiver full of them And so we want to have a lot of kids we want to multiply we want to have children And so if you're married go ahead and have children. Well, I can't afford it. Well, you got nine months to make something happen You know what I mean like once once once you get pregnant Yeah now all of a sudden that the clock starts ticking but you got nine months to figure it out nine months to pray every day and Work and figure out how you're gonna make it work financially So that's not responsible. No, you're not responsible For taking care of your own needs when God promised that if you seek first the kingdom of God All these things will be added unto you So it really has to do with trusting in the Lord That God can come through and God can take care of you and you know what when I first got married You know, I was really poor and my wife and I just barely got by and yet We had a child and we we didn't really know like how are we gonna pay for this child when it comes? You know how I mean we're just getting by with two people on this income, what are we gonna do? How's that gonna work? But you know what? We just went ahead and just did it Anyway, and guess what it all worked out because you know, I got a raise at my job And then you know there were times in those early days when yeah I had to get a second job or I had to work a bunch of extra hours or whatever But you know what God always provided our needs and we've been married now for what 23 years Is that right something like that should be easy to calculate since we got married in the year 2000 But you know, we've been married for 23 years and guess what? There's never been a time when we couldn't pay our bills There's never been a time when the bill was due and ah, we can't make our house payment. We can't pay the rent We can't pay this bill Every bill has always been paid and if any bill was late It was just because we just got sloppy and sent it a couple days late But we've always been able to pay the bills for the last 23 years Okay, and it didn't always seem like we knew how to pay for that next job But we just kept just just having another one. Just having another one Just we'll cross that bridge when we come to it take no thought for tomorrow The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the days the eviler. Oh, by the way I'm quoting Bible verses right now Lest you think I'm just a wild man up here just spouting some kind of street corner wisdom at you know, this is the Bible I'm quoting Okay, so don't make your kids pass through the fire He says or I don't want anybody among you to use divination Now what is divination divination is the type of thing where let's say you chop open an animal and you look at its liver And then you know, there's a chart somewhere explaining to you What that liver means and you kind of read that liver like you're reading an oracle of God Now does this sound legitimate to you? No, or how about or how about reading entrails? You know So you chop open an animal you throw its guts out and then a priest who's an expert or a diviner an expert in reading entrails Will explain to you what those entrails mean, you know, because you got to know how to read deliver You got to know how to read the entrails. These things are mentioned in the Bible, right? There are also a bird Interpreters, so, you know, let's say a bird flies over. Well, you better know that's a sign from God every single time But you might not necessarily know how to read that sign So that's where you need the bird interpreter to tell you what this bird means This kind of bird how many birds there are what's the bird doing? Right, and so that's a big thing, you know is people who read bird signs All kinds of divination we could go down the list of all the different kinds of divination It's it's those type of fortune-telling kind of hocus-pocus Figuring out the future through looking at signs is what we're talking about Outside of what the Word of God gives us outside of the Bible just these kind of side You know magic 8-ball type of ways of figuring out the future observer of times this has to do with astrology and you know basically looking at different signs in the sky to Tell the future and so forth an enchanter right somebody who's basically casting spells People who are performing witchcraft a charmer is probably I don't know Making a snake dance a certain way or something right whatever that exactly is a consultant with familiar spirits Now we know from our vantage point in the New Testament looking backward. We know that these familiar spirits are demons They are devils. They're fallen angels. They're unclean spirits and So a familiar spirit somebody who's consulting with familiar spirits is someone who is basically communicating with demons Okay, and There are all kinds of people who would do this with a Ouija board or have a seance or do channeling or something right this is all under that category of Consulting with familiar spirits a wizard is like a witch, but it's a dude, right? I Don't know what else to say about that he wears a pointy hat a necromancer The first part of that necro Okay means dead all right. That's where that comes from the Greek word necros Which means dead and so necro you could think of something being necrotic Medical term right and then you could think of what's another word is there another word that we use? That's Not super perverted so you don't want to bring it up anything else Okay, all right, so the necromancer is basically the person who is communicating with dead people and Again, is it possible to communicate with dead people to actually pull up your dead grandpa and pull up your dead grandpa? No, but what you're typically going to communicate with are demons And then you say that you're communicating with your ancestors right all these indigenous type religions that are Communicating with their ancestors worshipping their ancestors. They're really worshipping demons and communicating with demons but this would be called a necromancer because they're attempting to speak to the dead and If you think about it the Roman Catholic Church is totally pagan Okay, if you think about it, but the Roman Catholic Church one of the things that they'll do is they'll pray to dead Saints You know and and you could make a case that that's necromancy because they're basically community singing to communicate with the dead Which is never something that God tells us to do we're supposed to pray to God And there's one mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus We don't need st. Thomas to go to bat for us. We don't need st. Bartholomew going to bat for us. All we need is Christ to go into bat for us. That's it So we don't need the Saints nuts to them, right? The only Saints we need are the living breathing Saints because every single born-again child of God is a saint according to Scripture everyone who everywhere calls upon the name of the Lord is a saint according to the New Testament and So it says in verse 12 all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord notice It doesn't say that doing these things is an abomination. It says that the people who do them are an abomination of the Lord Lest you think that God just is so loving and having such warm feelings toward every single person on this planet No, there are people on this planet that are an abomination to God That he abhors that he loathes that he hates and so it is possible for a person to be in a category Where they are an abomination unto the Lord, I'm just showing you what the Bible says, right? That's what it says all that do these things are an abomination to the Lord not that the things are an abomination but that the person is an abomination and Because of these abominations, so there we go The thing itself is also an abomination. The person is an abomination and what they do is an abomination Because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out the people out from before thee Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God For these nations, which thou shalt possess they hearkened unto observers of times and unto diviners But as for thee the Lord thy God hath not suffered these so to do God has not allowed you to listen to these people Meaning don't go to the psychic reader Don't go to the horoscope don't go to the fortune teller don't go to Wizards and sorcerers and necromancers and seances and channelers and whatever the New Age Mumbo jumbo God says you're not allowed to do that. God has not suffered you to do So these wicked nations they all did that they listen to those kind of idiots You are not to listen to them Now what is the alternative Okay, so if we want to think about this chapter as a whole we started out the chapter by saying hey you need to Take care of the Levites and we had many verses about taking care of the Levites. Why because these are the legitimate Clergy these are the legitimate divine officers, right These are the legitimate people that are going to help you worship God the priests and the Levites under the Old Testament system Then you have a list of these other people These are not legitimate right priests and Levi that's legitimate going to the place Which the Lord shall choose making a sacrifice hearing the Word of God there the law being that's legitimate Okay, but then you have all this illegitimate stuff human sacrifice all of the Psychic readers and so forth Now in the third part of the chapter we're gonna talk about the other Legitimate way to get the Word of God or to get information from the Lord besides going and worshiping God in Jerusalem Ultimately with the priests and Levites. It's through a prophet. God will send a prophet unto you Okay. Now this passage here has a double meaning Okay, there's a double meaning because of the fact that there's an immediate meaning that actually just refers to any prophet that the Lord raises up but then there's also an ultimate fulfillment in a single prophet that God will raise up the Prophet par excellence, which is whom? Jesus Christ that God is going to raise up. Okay. So what does the Bible say it says in verse number 15? The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brother now Why have the King James Bible translators? Capitalized the word prophet here, right? They have capitalized the word prophet because they are focusing on that ultimate fulfillment with the Lord Jesus Christ right, but of course obviously the capitalization there is just that's just a Capitalization and I wouldn't read too much into it because of the fact that the Word of God is a spoken word ultimately number one number two There are no capitalizations in Greek or Hebrew and number three in English the capitalization and non capitalization of words has changed repeatedly since 1611 if you go back to the 1611 replica back there a Lot more words are capitalized than in our modern day KJV and a lot of people will make a big deal out of that or or Try to build a whole doctrine on whether something's capitalized or not Capitalized or they'll build a whole doctrine on whether something's in italics or not in italics okay, let me explain something to you if your Interpretation relies on Something being in italics or not in italics something being capitalized or not capitalized you're wrong Because I should be able to read this out loud and it should mean the same thing when I read it out loud because this book the King James Bible was specifically Translated and designed to be read out loud. It literally says on the cover page appointed to be read in churches and Part of what the King James Bible translators did when they translated it was that they made sure that it sounded good being read out loud Because the primary the primary way that people were gonna get exposed to this is not by reading it in their home When it first came out the primary way they were gonna get exposed to it is by hearing it in church Because we're talking about a time period when many more people were illiterate than they are now, right today Thank God in America and even around the whole world literacy rates are at an all-time high so today in 2023 virtually everybody in America knows how to read if You don't know how to read you better figure it out pretty quick because you're not gonna make it very far in Modern day America without knowing how to read So it's super important that we all know how to read well that we teach our children how to read well But throughout history a Lot less people have been literate. You know, I was just reading a book on the history of Mexico a few months ago I want to say around around the turn of the century is like 80% of the country was illiterate around the turn of the You know the 20th century I should say, you know, it's like 80% of the country wasn't literate or something like that Don't quote me on that statistic, but it was it was incredibly high number Of course now in Mexico the vast majority of people are literate. Okay, but I'm just saying throughout history In this world there have been a lot more people who were not literate They were not able to read and so they would hear the Word of God being read out loud Right, and not only that even if they did know how to read This is the early days of the printing press and so reading materials are not as prevalent It's not just a matter of oh, let me go down to the Dollar Tree and pick up a King James Just came out last week hot off the presses. Let me go pick one up for a couple bucks The first King James that was printed that replica back There is not just a replica of what's on the page that replica back There is literally the same weight and size of the original I've actually held one of the original 1611 King James Bibles in my hands first edition It's worth about 300 grand or something So I was really careful with it But if you pick it up and feel it and if you feel the paper it feels exactly Like that replica back there that replica back there. I've compared it to the real thing. That is a legit replica in every way pick that thing up and carry it around a little bit and See if you're gonna take it out soul-winning See if you know You're not gonna necessarily be able to buy something like that own something like that have something like that So in 1611 when this book came out It's mainly being read out loud and people are showing up and listening to it being read audibly That's what it was designed for and in fact the translators while they were in their committees Translating it read it out loud and they would sit back and listen to it and see how it sounded And that's why you'll notice that the King James has a great sound it has a great rhythm It has a great music and flow to it. It really rolls off the tongue Because that's what it's designed for it's designed to be read out loud So to sit there and build a whole doctrine on well, you know, that's not capitalized there You know, that's not a legitimate point Capitalization or punctuation or spelling is never going to be a legitimate point doctrinally Okay. Oh that comma here that changes everything No, because we don't even use commas the same way that they did 400 years ago. I would say that the spellings punctuations and and capitalizations and italics are not part of the Inspiration of Scripture. It's the Word of God that's inspired. It's the Word of God that's preserved Not necessarily, you know a certain font You can get into just kind of a superstitious Overboard view here of you know obsessing over capitalization punctuation spelling and here's the thing then the enemies of the King James will come along and say Oh the King James Bible has been changed so many times It's not even the same as 1611 it's been revised five major revisions, but what are they talking about with the revisions? What are they talking about? They're talking about spelling Oh tens of thousands of changes Talking about spelling font punctuation Right and and fixing a few typos. That's it. Nothing has been re-translated since 1611 No translation work has happened on the King James since 1611 just correcting typos spelling font punctuation changes and like I said different things are gonna be capitalized in the replica versus the 1769 edition because typically what we're reading today is the 1769 edition Okay, that's what we typically have in our lap some people might have one more modern than that but the 1769 is the good one Right. That's the one that we like But guess what? It doesn't match up to the 1611 on spellings or punctuation or capitalization, but it has the same words and it's about the Word of God and Blessed is he that heareth and he that readeth the words of this prophecy It's not like oh, I couldn't hear that back. I didn't hear that capitalization And so I'm gonna get totally the wrong doctrine here You know, so the by the way, the way that things are capitalized in the King James Bible is not necessarily even consistent The way things are put in italics is not consistent So don't obsess over those things. Why don't you focus on what the text says? What it says, all right, so when we come to this and it says The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren Like unto me unto him shall he hearken you don't want to just walk away and say well That's only talking about Jesus cuz capitalized That's an interpretation That is a legitimate interpretation but it's not the only legitimate interpretation and a lot of times what people make a mistake when they're reading the Bible is Thinking that everything's one way or the other well, my friend the Bible is a deep book and the Bible has multiple layers of meaning and a lot of times when people argue about doctrine about does it mean this does it mean this a lot of times it means both and there's no point in arguing because you're both right because the Bible means both because Often the Bible has layer upon layer of meaning and you could have two preachers preach through the same book verse by verse and preach Completely different sermons and they're both they both could be true They both could be legitimate. There's a lot obviously have a lot of wrong things and illegitimate things that could be preached as well I'm not a peer said everybody's interpretations, right? No, because there are a lot of just wrong interpretations But often there are two three four or five good interpretations that are all correct You know, I've had people come to me and say well, you know I heard you preach this passage this way, but then I was listening to this other pastor He preached it this way and I'm like, well if I heard that sermon I would say amen to that Well, yeah, but you said this I'm like wait, it's both In fact, here's a third interpretation right and so I'm telling you there are a lot of people out there who don't get that concept that I just told you That concept that I just told you is pretty revolutionary If you grasp that the Bible often has a whole bunch of different meanings that are all legitimate as long as you're not contradicting other scripture Right, then obviously if it's contradicting other scripture, you're wrong But if it doesn't contradict other scripture there could be layer upon layer of meaning especially with a parable I mean the story of the prodigal son. There's not one right way to read that I Could give you three very different interpretations of that parable right now at the top of my head that are all for sure Legitimate and that I would guarantee God intended all three even though they're very different one another and And that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's just the beginning Okay, but you never want to base your doctrine on a parable without having clear statements from scripture to back up your doctrine the parable Really illuminates and brings life to the doctrine but you better get the doctrine from a clear statement of what the Bible just flat-out tells You so what I'm saying here about this prophet is that God is telling us in this chapter that he's gonna raise up a Prophet not one time but throughout their history. He's gonna raise up a prophet. He's gonna raise up another prophet He's gonna raise up another prophet He raises up prophets throughout their history to speak the Word of God to them But then there's another interpretation here that we find in the New Testament that this is referring to a single Prophet that God is going to raise up and it's Jesus That's why they asked John the Baptist, you know, are you the Christ? He says no. Are you that prophet and He says he's not what do they mean when they say are you that prophet? They're saying are you the Deuteronomy 18 guy? Right the ultimate prophet that is going to come so that capitalized Interpretation is for sure legitimate because Acts chapter 3 we just read it on Sundays anybody remember how we just read this On Sunday, and in fact in case you don't remember let's quickly turn there because this is such an important point look at Acts chapter 3 and This is a great point We're not talking about father Abraham tonight But we kind of have father Abraham in our minds from Sunday and we've still got one more sermon to complete the trilogy on that Okay, we're not gonna forget about father Abraham. All right, we got one more one more hoorah with that Two two down one to go but the Bible says in Acts chapter 3 verse 20 and he shall send Jesus Christ which was preached unto you whom the heaven must receive until the times of Restitution of all things which God had spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began For Moses truly said unto the fathers a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brother like gonna be Isn't funny how prophets not capitalized here? So anybody who's like, I don't know if pastor Anderson was right a minute ago, you know, these capitalizations are inspired Well, that's funny because why isn't it capitalized here when it's literally the exact same situation the exact same word Anybody answer me that you want to know why because the capitalization is totally inconsistent That's why The italics are totally inconsistent. So quit obsessing over them and go by what the word actually says a Prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brother and like unto me him shall you hear in all things? Whatsoever he shall say unto you and here's the best part I love it and it should come to pass that every soul which will not hear that prophet shall be destroyed from among the people now Again, we talked about this on Sunday You know You can't just be a member in good standing of the nation of Israel and ignore The prophet whom God raises up in that generation you got to listen to the prophet The ultimate prophet is who? Jesus if you don't hearken to Jesus. Are you a part of the nation of Israel? Are you still God's people? Are you just the chosen people anyway? No, because guess what even long before Jesus came if the man of God Gets up and preaches the truth that speaks the Word of God and you're just rebelling against the truth of God's Word And you're rebelling against the prophet in those days. You're also going to be punished You're also gonna be cut off. I mean look if you don't listen to the judge We just saw it was that last week or the week before in Deuteronomy We saw that if you don't hearken to the judgment that the judge pronounces Right, you'll be put to death Other places talk about how if you're defiant or doing presumptuously you will be exiled you will be cut off from among the people Sometimes it means sometimes it's talking about being killed Sometimes it's talking about just being kicked out of the nation of Israel So guess what all the Jews who reject the Lord Jesus Christ are officially kicked out of the nation of Israel They are officially destroyed from among the people Acts chapter 3 Alright, we got to hurry though. So let's go back to Deuteronomy 19 fish finish up I just wanted to refresh your memory on that wonderful passage that we saw on Sunday and by the way, that's not the only place because in Acts chapter 7 when Stephen's preaching Stephen brings up how Moses said that a prophet will the Lord your God raise up of Your brethren right from among your brethren. So this prophet has to come from the children of Israel Okay, the the big one which is Jesus who is what of the tribe of Judah, so he qualifies So he's not gonna be a foreigner. It's not it's not Mohammed Because that's what the Muslims will try to say No, just no for about a thousand reasons that we don't have time for According so it says in verse 15 just simply The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee of thy brethren like unto me unto him He shall hearken verse 16 according to all that thou desirous of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly Saying let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God neither Let me see this great fire anymore that I die not and the Lord said unto me They have well spoken that which they have spoken. So here's why we need a prophet because when God speaks audibly to man out of Mount Sinai and there's a fire burning and the glory of God is there and he speaks out of the cloudy pillar it freaks people out too much and They can't handle it they're scared they're terrified it's so Upsetting and unsettling that they they said don't ever talk to us that way again Talk to Moses and have him talk to us now the point is that Jesus Christ coming to earth and Living amongst us as a man took upon him, you know the nature of Abraham, right? he took upon him the form of a son of Abraham of a man a Normal guy if we could use that term talking about his physical appearance demeanor Obviously, there's nothing normal about the fact that he's divine but I'm saying he looks and talks like one of us Well, then, you know, that's something that we can handle we can relate to that, right? I mean we can sit down across the table from Jesus and talk to him You know rather than dealing with the cloudy pillar. It's a little intense. Okay? Therefore After Moses is gone God's gonna send other prophets to communicate as opposed to just speaking audibly at the tabernacle speaking audibly at the temple He's going to send other prophets He's gonna raise up a prophet from among their brethren and then ultimately he's gonna raise up the Prophet Jesus Christ Even The word Christ has a double meaning because the word Christ means anointed Right and you have all of these anointed Kings throughout the Old Testament You have all these prophets that are anointed throughout the Old Testament But then you have the anointed one the big one the Messiah, which is of course Jesus Same with the Prophet here So then it says in verse 18 I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren like unto me like unto thee Like unto Moses and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him and It shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words, which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him now remember in Acts chapter 3 when Peter's looking back at this He's saying hey, you know God said that whoever Will not hearken unto that prophet shall be destroyed from among his people He's basically reading between the lines he's not quoting it verbatim He's just referencing it because what it actually says literally verbatim is just basically Listen to that prophet. Here's how I would say this in our modern vernacular listen to that prophet or else Because I will require it of him is kind of vague But it's saying like something bad is gonna happen It's not stated specifically here but if we read between the lines in the rest of the Bible the rest of the Mosaic law if you don't listen to the Priest if you don't listen to the judge if you don't listen to that what happens, you know you get exiled you get destroyed You get killed whatever and so here it's more vague because it just says I will require it of him Okay, if you don't listen that prophet now Ultimately, this is Jesus But it could like I said refer in a short term to just whatever prophets the Lord raises up Because God gives his word to a lot of prophets and then they speak but here's the difference Okay, we saw this at the end of Deuteronomy last week There was never a prophet again in Israel quite like Moses was there So that's why we know that there's an ultimate prophet coming because you say well If if every little prophet kind of fulfills this Every time God raises up a prophet it speaks through that prophet. This is fulfilled. How do we know that there's a big one coming? Right. Why did they say to John the Baptist art thou that prophet, you know? Why is the woman at the well looking for the Messiah, you know, how do we know the big ones coming because here's the thing The prophet that the Lord's gonna raise up is gonna be like unto Moses and those prophets are not quite like Moses Because Moses was special So the big one that comes is gonna be special but almost every prophecy in the Old Testament has a dual fulfillment This is Bible 101 prophecy 101. There's almost always a dual fulfillment and The day that you eat of that fruit of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt surely die Now in the day they ate thereof did they physically die? No, but in the day they ate thereof they spiritually died that's the shadow fulfillment then 930 years later when Adam literally dies, that's the ultimate literal fulfillment so whenever God raises up a prophet you have a shadow fulfillment the literal fulfillment is in Jesus when he shows up and Again, I could I could literally give a hundred examples right now at the top of my head And in fact, I believe I did a whole sermon called dual fulfillment of prophecy something long If you go on our church website just type in dual You know and and don't spell it like I challenge you to a duel But spell it like, you know dual with a UAL right then it should come up No issue dual fulfillment in prophecy and I just give just so many examples so many examples and this is an example of that And Then it says in verse number 20, but the Prophet verse 20 which shall Presume to speak a word in my name Which I've not commanded him to speak or that shall speak in the name of other gods even that prophet shall die So two kinds of prophets die number one if they're prophesied in the name of false gods they die. I Don't care what they're preaching They die because remember we talked about last week why this is so important because the nation of Israel Is supposed to be a special nation that serves God and so forth not gonna re-preach last week's sermon But the other kind of prophet that's put to death is the one who speaks in the name of the Lord But he's just making stuff up Like God has not spoken to him. God has not sent him. He doesn't actually have a revelation from God He's just making these up. He just decides. Well, I want to prophesy too. So I'm just gonna make stuff up Yeah, yeah exactly Yeah, I mean we could go down the list right so just basically just oh Here's what the Lord told me and it's just made up stuff. And of course we see a lot of this in Jeremiah Jeremiah is is you know? Preaching against this and so forth so The presumptuous Prophet who just decides Hey I'm just gonna preach stuff and say thus saith the Lord and I'm just gonna make up a revelation from God because I want to be a prophet too He'll he'll be put to death verse 21 and if thou say in thine heart How should we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? You know, how are we gonna know if it's real I mean if it's coming at us in the name of the Lord How do we know so here's the first thing we need to understand Not everybody who speaks to you in the name of the Lord is telling the truth Not everybody who speaks in the name of Jesus Christ is telling the truth When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord if the thing follow not nor come to pass That is the thing which the Lord has not spoken, you know, if he's saying oh, you know Here's a prediction and then the prediction fails. Well, there's no way God could have told him that because God knows everything Okay But the Prophet has spoken it presumptuously Thou shalt not be afraid of him. Don't listen to his Pronouncements or prognostications because he's full of beans because he said that something was gonna happen. It didn't happen Now here's the thing about this the Bible is not saying hey as long as he's 75% accurate That'll work is that what it says I mean it sounds to me like You got to be a hundred percent accurate because if you're actually speaking for God Presumably you're not just making this stuff up if it's actually coming from God There aren't gonna be any spurious prophecies Coming out of your mouth. And if you have a guy who spits out some spurious prophecy Well, then the guys are fraud because here's the thing. Maybe he could just be lucky a few times. He makes a prediction he gets lucky Or maybe he did some insider prophesying You know sort of like insider trading, you know what the stocks are gonna do and you make the trade, you know He maybe he's just an insider prophet and he's predicting stuff because he knew it was gonna happen Anyway, sort of like Columbus, you know Christopher Columbus. He was having some trouble on Hispaniola And so he basically told the Indians Hey, God's gonna punish you guys and you know, here's the proof that God's gonna punish you guys, you know The shine is gonna be darkened In ten days or so, you know and basically he's got all these charts He's got all this European knowledge of astronomy. He just knows that there's a solar eclipse coming And so he's like I'm gonna punish you guys I'm gonna cause the Sun not to shine and then you'll know that you know, I'm have power and it's really just that he knew When there was gonna be an eclipse because of the clockwork universe It you know, he he just had that he had an almanac that told him when it was coming And of course the Indians, you know, they're just like whoa, man this what did this guy do? He's gonna easy He's controlling heavenly bodies Okay But you think that Christopher Columbus the first person to pull that number Because all throughout history You know priestly classes have been educated and studied astronomy And been able to predict these type of things and and really freak people out or even What was that? Tecumseh's brother is another example of a guy who you know predicted an eclipse and You know just droves of people said he's his true prophet now You know back in the what 1800s or whenever that was and so the point is that That You don't just say well he got he got a couple things right Therefore he's of God. No. No, let's focus on what he got wrong Because if he's getting stuff wrong he's making stuff up It's not like well part of the time he's making stuff up and part of the time He's actually got a message from God. I mean the legitimate prophet is only speaking when he really has a message from God Apparently the Prophet knows when he's got a message from God He knows that if you have to wonder it didn't come from God Because if you just start saying stuff you could be playing with your life If you're just like I don't know I had a weird dream last night I've got a feeling and then you just start predicting stuff You know you might die soon and so therefore Obviously the legitimate prophet of God knows that God has called him he knows that his call is legitimate He knows that the word that he's speaking is from the mouth of God So he's not scared to preach this stuff and the people are gonna see that the stuff that he says is Actually right and it happens and it's true and so forth right what about the Jehovah's false witnesses? You know the Jehovah's false witnesses have falsely predicted the coming of Christ six times They have set a date and said Christ is returning on this date, and it didn't happen right What does that tell you about them? They're false prophets? The whole Seventh-day Adventist religion is based upon a false prediction that Christ would return in the year 1844 Now Christ didn't return in 1844 so then they came up with this doctrine of well He did stuff in heaven in 1844 So then if you it's funny if you go to the Seventh-day Adventist website and look at the Seventh-day Adventist statement of faith and You'll see on their statement of faith a whole bunch of things that make sense Make sense make sense make sense make sense now I'm not saying all of its right some of its false doctrine some of its correct doctrine It's a every false religion is a mix of truth and lies But my point is you go down and it's all kind of like making sense like this You know it's like okay. I get it. I get I see what they're doing here, okay I see where they got that blah blah blah got it. Got it. Got it. Got it Then all of a sudden. They're like we believe this is part of their statement of faith like their core beliefs We believe that in 1844 God began to cleanse the temple and he started and they have this whole elaborate doctrine This is a hundred percent made up not found in Scripture at all Because it just it's all based on just justifying 1844 and So they're like well he did this he started cleaning up the temple in preparation for a second coming, but then it's like well It's 2023 now How long is it gonna take to clean that temple? Like if you're cleaning up because they're like well, he's just cleaning he started cleaning the temple You know maybe in the 1840s you could buy that like okay? Give it a you know he's got he's got some cleaning to do But it's like okay. Do you do you expect me to believe that Jesus has been cleaning that thing? for like a hundred and seventy nine years, and he's still cleaning How dirty was it? It's stupid. It doesn't make any sense But that's what they believe it's right on their statement of faith Why because they just don't want to admit that they're following a false prophet? That they themselves are false prophets and That's what it is Seventh-day Adventist Jehovah's what and the Jehovah's false witnesses also came out of that same 1844 event which went down history as the great disappointment If you want to look it up on Wikipedia, that's what you need to type in Okay So if it doesn't happen It's not the Word of God Now look obviously Sometimes the Bible will prophesy something and it's a little bit cryptic And it's a little bit you know, but it it better happen You know and I mean there are a lot of times where you've got Jeremiah saying Jerusalem's gonna fall and we're going into captivity of the Babylonians, and then you have a whole bunch of other prophets saying Jerusalem's not going to be captured Jerusalem will not be captured Jerusalem will not follow the Babylonians well Jerusalem fell and they went captive all those prophets were lying and that's what Jeremiah is just saying these guys are all lying and Jeremiah even says that to one of them He says you're gonna die by the end of the year You know and then the guy falls over dead because God just killed you know the people aren't killing the guy But the guy just falls over dead But I believe that God's actually telling them to execute these false prophets back in the Old Testament Israel period obviously in the New Testament That's not a thing, but I explained all that last week, and so again just looking at the overview of the chapter There's a legitimate way to hear from God. There's a legitimate way to serve God It's in the Old Testament through the priests the Levites The prophet that God will raise up whether it's the Old Testament prophets throughout the history or the big prophet Jesus the important one And then there's an illegitimate way to hear from God which is diviners soothsayers psychic readers human sacrifice False prophets, that's the wrong way to worship God in the New Testament There's a right and wrong way to worship God the right way is to go to church The place which the Lord shall choose for us is the New Testament assembly of believers the congregation the local church We are to serve God through the local church. We're to listen to Saved men teach us the Word of God spirit filled preachers not listening to You know unsaved Jews give us the Word of God or something you know what I mean like hey Let's learn the Old Testament from from you know Shlomo who doesn't even believe that Jesus is the Messiah That's a wrong way to hear from God Okay, that's a false prophet. That's an Antichrist right there Okay, there's a right way to learn from God. It's called reading your physical Bible I didn't finish this earlier, but you know when the Bible came out in 1611 was that giant book but then next year in 1612 they came out with a New Testament only that was handheld and That started to be found in a lot of homes and ultimately Yeah, they started printing a lot of Bibles that people could have in their home because obviously yeah We want to read this thing every day not just hear it out loud in church The point I was making though is that This book is literally designed this translation is literally designed by the translators and God designed the original to be heard out loud blessed is he that readeth and he that heareth and so if all your doctrines based on punctuation or spelling well Rethink that let's prides in a board of prayer father. We thank you so much for your word We thank you for the prophets that you sent throughout the Old Testament That gave us so much of our scripture and Lord, of course, we're the most thankful for the Prophet Jesus Christ and Lord we pray that as many people as possible in this area would receive Christ as their Savior before It's eternally too late. Please help us to be faithful Preaching Christ to the lost and in Jesus name we pray. Amen