Tonight we’ll finish up the book of Deuteronomy.
In doing the notes for tonight I realized we started this in September of
2009. It doesn’t seem like we’ve been going that long.
By summarizing tonight I want to go back into how to
we ought to read the Word of God and do that because increasingly we’re going
to come in contact with folks who walk in here perhaps or they’re parents from
(?) or they may be in your workplace. You start discussing spiritual
things and you perhaps get them to understand the gospel – or the Holy
Spirit does. Then comes the issue of the Scriptures. They’ll have
lots of questions because our educational system has done a disastrous
work. So you almost have to back up and discuss - how do you read the
Bible correctly? So that’s what I wanted to do as we finish up this book
because the book itself is so important. It needs to be read, and it
needs to be read properly.
So let’s look to the Lord for our time together
tonight.
So we go back to the slide that we started with.
This is a slide I did many, many years ago when Dr. Techlemberg
and I were in a debate down – where is it? Columbia I guess, at a Unitarian church. I wanted to
point out the difference in worldview.
So let me review this slide again because this is the
background for anything you do in the Bible. You have to conceptualize
this background. The thing to remember is there are only two views of
ultimate reality. That’s the big news here. There aren’t 15.
There aren’t 46. There are only two. Everything else derives from
one of those two worldviews. Either we have the one on the left side,
which is the Scriptural idea, or the one on the right side here with the
continuity of being.
So we’ve talked about the creator-creature
distinction. We’ve talked about the continuity of being which really
means that there is only one level of existence. It’s one level or two
levels. You can’t get much more complicated than that. It is pretty
simple to me to understand. These two ideas can be traced for
centuries. So it’s not like some fundamentalist made this up last
Monday night. This is something that history gives a complete record of.
Scholars who even are not Christian recognize this history. So, it
shouldn’t be controversial. That is that there is a stream of thinking
about the creator-creature distinction that starts way back in ancient
monotheism.
The remnants of ancient monotheism - anthropologists
have found pieces of it in Southeast Asia. There’s an Indian tribe out in
northern California that have a complete idea and there are tribal traditions
of ex nihilo creation –
absolutely stunning to anthropologists because they had this idea before the
Spanish came up the coast and they had contact with missionaries.
This was done probably, discovered and talked about in
the 1800’s as anthropology expanded. Prior to that they thought
monotheism developed late. The primitive societies were all polytheists
and they evolved upward and higher and became monotheists when actually it’s
the reverse. The older and further back you get the more monotheistic you
get. Later is where you have the contamination.
And you have Israel - which God sort of resurrects
monotheism and invigorates it with direct revelation in Israel - comes to the
Bible and comes down to fundamentalism and conservative theology in the 20th
century and the 21st century of course.
In the right side you have ancient mythology. The
Eastern religions are the best place to go to study paganism because there when
you study Buddhism and you study Hinduism – those are pure
paganism. It’s useful to know something about them so you can spot it in
our culture. But that’s where you have the most complete
exposition.
Then in the West where you have particularly in the
so-called Enlightenment Period – which is a prejudicial term –
makes it sound like nobody had any light before the enlightenment; and they
prejudicially label everything before the Enlightenment as the Dark Ages.
Those are just propaganda words. They don’t have any real meaning.
They’re labels given to it because it somehow makes rationalism appear
authentic and advanced. So then you have modern theology that’s not
original at all. It’s just western philosophy with religious
buzzwords.
The most important thing between the creator-creature
distinction and the continuity of being is what it does to God, man and
nature. In the Bible there’s a separation between God and creation.
Within creation there’s a uniqueness to mankind.
That uniqueness goes away with paganism.
So you have two views of ultimate reality - one or two
levels - in your notes only two ultimate sources of ideas: creatures or the
Creator. Very important! Ideas are produced by minds. If you hold
to the fact that there is no creator, then all ideas come out of finite
creature minds. On the creator-creature side, that’s not so. There
are ideas that come out of God’s omniscience as well as ideas that come out of
creatures’ minds. This is the set up to understand revelation.
Although this sounds so simple, you cannot properly
read the Bible if you aren’t clear in you head on this major point because if
you hold to the idea that all ideas come out of men’s minds; then the Bible is
just men’s product. You can’t have a supernatural Bible unless you have
ideas and information coming out of God’s mind toward man. If that isn’t so; then this is just biography. That’s
all it is. It’s just speculation. That’s
why this is all interconnected.
You may have to stop people who you think are well
educated when they flip off about some stupid thing in the Bible or they call
it the ancient book. The question you need to ask at that point,
“You mean God never spoke into history. You’re sure of that.
There’s not a God and if He does exist He’s never spoken. You’ve made two
theological commitments and I’d like to know how you arrived at those
theological conclusions.”
But this is the prerequisite for understanding and
taking seriously the text of Scripture. So once we get down here we get
into another problem. There’s a moral and ethical agenda subtext in this
narrative here. This often - people either aren’t aware of it. In
scholarly circles I’ve read so much criticism of Scriptures and so on.
It’s like these guys never dream of the fact that behind these ideas are
spiritual impulses, spiritual motives, spiritual agendas.
On the Bible side, because we have a personal Sovereign,
we have ultimate responsibility to the personal Sovereign. I mean this is
basic stuff here. This is not PhD stuff. These are basic ideas. If
you have the God of the Scriptures, you’ve got ultimate personal responsibility
to Him. It’s simple. If you don’t have Him, then you don’t have
ultimate responsibility. It goes away. It only exists if there is a
creator-creature distinction. So that’s why historically if you go back
to the myths and the eastern religions, they look upon themselves as victims
– passive victims of a fate and impersonal cosmos.
On the third blank you have on the first one there:
only two bases for ethical judgments. So this is another fallout. See how
all this is interconnected? These aren’t separate ideas. They’re
all beads on the same necklace here. There are only two bases for ethical
judgments – the creatures or the creator – because ideas are coming
out of one or the other. So if you have a basis for ethical judgments as
the creator, you have a transcendental ethic. If you don’t have a creator
then your ethical judgments are subjectively coming out of man; and you do not
have a transcendental ethic. You have a floating ethic, either floating
because of cultural changes or floating because one day you have allegiance to
this elite group or this group or the vote goes against you or something.
So that’s the nature of what we’re dealing with.
Then finally there are only two religious
classes. That is pagan or biblical. There aren’t 18 different classes
of religion - only two. The definition of a pagan in Webster’s Dictionary
is, anyone who does not believe in the biblical view of God – Old
Testament and New Testament. So we would include 3 basic Semitic
religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Christian cults: what
do we do about all those? We know they’re not biblical. So what was
happening? That’s why I have a parenthesis there. "Genuine biblical
are those that ate the Bible." Those that are trying to add
themselves to the Bible. Mormonism does this. It gets back to
Kaufmann. Remember the Kaufmann quote?
Only
Israel has a contract with God. Only Israel has centuries and millennia
of a sequence of prophets that are self-consistent.
Mormonism, Islam are
religions with one prophet who claims he stands in the continuity of
Scripture. So the apologetic discussion, the polemics around the fact, is
that claimed continuity true or is it false? You can show easily that the
theological ideas of Islam and the theological ideas of Mormonism are not
consistent logically with Mosaic theology and therefore fall under the
condemnation of Deuteronomy 13 and Deuteronomy 22.
So that’s the start and it’s important that we
remember this because I think in coming - the way the society is falling out,
it’s almost like before you hand the Bible to somebody you have to explain this
to them or they’re not going to get it. They’re going to read it like
it’s an interesting old book. That’s all.
Now we come to the next point. That is, the
sections of Scripture; whatever section you may be reading. Sections of
Scripture must be interpreted within the overall biblical network of
beliefs. Now here is where I think in our own evangelical circles we drop
the ball. I have observed this for years and years. That’s why I
started the idea of the Framework because I was working with college students
and I knew very well from working with college students they had not a clue how
to put sections of the Bible together even though they had grown up in what we
would call conservative evangelical churches.
The first thing that happens the first 5 days on
campus they get wiped out by a professor because they just can’t come to grips
with the big idea of what’s going on here. There is a game being
played. You’ve got to learn to play the game.
I have at least four reasons. We have to watch them in
our circles.
What passes for conversation particularly in the media
is rhetoric. Rhetoric is 2 or 3 second sound
bites. Rhetoric is being cute with words.
Sometimes it can be very skillful. You can take
the great orations of history: Washington’s farewell speech. There
is rhetoric there. They were taught rhetoric and how to speak, but it was
rhetoric that was subservient to the content. Today we have very little
content, and we have lot of rhetoric. There is increasing concern about
this. We have a population that cannot spot logical fallacies in rhetoric
and the fallacies are all over the place. One fallacy that is happening
this week right in front of our faces is the conflict between the White House
and the Roman Catholic Church. You have the politicians that favor the
administration talking. “Oh, this is something about conception.
This is just birth control. That’s all it
is.”
No, it isn’t. If
you know the United States Constitution and you understand the issue; this is a
Constitutional issue. Yes, it happens to be about abortion. Today
it is that and tomorrow it will be something else. So if you don’t deal
with the substantive issue, the constitutionality that’s involved here, then
you’re going to be like the 1930’s with the Protestants in Germany. First
Hitler did this and then he did this. Three weeks later he’s doing
something else. It’s always relabeled so you don’t see the real
issue
So the second thing is category 2: illiteracy, the
inability to understand what one reads enough to be able to discuss and
contrast ideas of the Bible with pagan conceptions.
.
When we were working in the prisons in Pennsylvania
with the Warners up there one of the things that Lynn
Warner did that was so good for those inmates. We’re talking 40 year old men
here who for the first time in their life could sit down after Lynn taught them
how to read the Bible and spent 6 to 8 weeks doing that to the point where they
all of a sudden realized, “I can discuss these things. I don’t have to
get mad and punch the wall. I can control my anger because I can think
through my problem.” All of a sudden they come alive. Here is this 60 or
65-year-old lady in there telling these big brutes how to read. They got
all excited. They loved her because for the first time in their life they
could do something like this. It was dominion that they had. So that’s
category 2 illiteracy.
See the problem now is we have a lot of video.
The media is very visual. That’s fine up to a point. But Marsh McCluen said this decades ago -
hot and cool meaning. What he said was, “When you go visual, you will
destroy literacy.”
Literacy and visualization are
not the same thing.
Those are the enemies of reading the Bible and reading
the Bible correctly. We all face them. We have to deal with
this. We have to deal with it particularly with our children and the
upcoming generation.
Then we want to spend a little time tonight about how
do we view Deuteronomy. We talked about the Scriptures in general.
What we want to do here is do the same kind of analysis which we’ve just done
except it’s going to be specific to Deuteronomy.
We want to think. Here’s the Bible. Here
is a book of the Bible. Let’s see how can we read this book with
understanding and set it and be conscious while we’re reading this book about
how the world views it and how the Scripture views itself. We want to
look at those two
Okay, let’s take those two. One level –
all ideas come out of man’s mind and drop down now to Roman II, point A and
let’s apply that to the book of Deuteronomy and try to read it as though we are
pagans. Well if we’re pagans, we don’t believe that God is really there
– at least the God of the Scriptures, not the Creator God. So we’re
all in the same universe together where there may be gods and goddesses
floating around the galaxy some place. But, this is just the universe as
it is; and all ideas come out of the creatures.
So when we pick up the book of Deuteronomy we are
looking at a book the ideas out of which came out of various editors, various
Jewish guys that wrote it and so forth. So we have now under point A we
have three points – 3 sub points there.
This is the set up now of how to misread
Deuteronomy. Then the basic idea that Deuteronomy must have originated
out of the minds of the ancient Jewish community - that is ultimately it’s
merely Jewish autobiography. There you have it. I saved your whole
tuition for a religion course in university. That’s the whole structure
of the course. The rest of it is all detail.
Now we have to say, “Alright, we’re regenerate
Christians. We’re born again. We know the Lord. How do we
read this?” We have to consciously think this through. We don’t read it this
way. If I am in a class like Sharia was at Talson State and I have to deal with a professor, I’ve got
to decide – what am I going to do when I write my paper? Yeah, what’s
my grade going to be now? So this is the tactical issue that Christian
students have to face when they’re dealing with this. But outside of the
classroom, the issue is our neighbors or our friends.
So biblical worldviews starting with the agenda
– see moral agenda. We’re fallen, finite minds. There is a
spiritual warfare going on. Starting with the agenda of seeking
reconciliation with a Creator and Judge, I’m looking for Him now as my
Savior. If I understand I am seeking and I want to know the Lord,
Jeremiah says, “Seek Him with all your heart and you’ll find Him.”
NKJ Jeremiah 29:13 And
you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart."
But if I’m seeking God yet I know I’m a sinner what I want to hear from Him is
a word of grace. “Will you accept me, Lord?” I’m looking for Him as a
Savior, so not just a Creator and Judge but also the Savior. See how the
gospel works its way in here into the very starting point of reading. Once
that occurs and I have that thirst and hunger to know Him, then a recognition that Deuteronomy is His self-revelation
– that is it’s not Moses pulling truth out of God’s mind. It’s God
pushing truth to Moses’ mind.
We speak of that in data transfer. Are we
pushing the data or are we pulling it? Self-revelation means God is
pushing the data.
A recognition that Deuteronomy is His self
revelation that resonates with a heart created for it.
How do we recognize God’s Word? In one sense
there is a mystical dimension to this. It’s just the note. It
resonates with a regenerate heart with a spirit of truth. We’re built for
this. This is sort of a verbal, literary version of Augustine’s famous
statement – there is a god shaped vacuum (and I think Pascal also said this)
– there is a God shaped vacuum in every human heart that can only be
filled with Jesus Christ. So that’s what we mean by resonation.
Contrast this last point we just covered with the last
point under A and there you have the two different ways of reading the
Bible. Under A the bottom line was, it is Jewish autobiography. “Gee, I’m
interested in history. I like to read the Bible because it’s so
interesting. It’s Jewish history.” Yeah, but it’s more than Jewish
history. Do you hear the Word of God in this Bible? Does it
resonate with your spirit? These are ideas not just coming from Moses;
they’re ideas that come from God.
Then we go to Roman III and we zoom in a little closer
– that is the historic context and the effects of
Deuteronomy. So we want to look at history since history now - now
we’re all on the same wavelength. We’re all reading it in a biblical
worldview. History from our point of view in the Scriptures is His
story. Since history is His story, Deuteronomy must be connected with its
contemporary setting as well as its subsequent history all the way to our
day.
So we spent time in the – I should have covered
these other slides here. You guys have seen this – the ameba
slide. What I wanted to show with the ameba slide was there’s what
happens when you read the Bible in terms of paganism. You take fragments
of the Bible and it gets eaten up by the pagan worldview;
whereas if you look at it from the biblical point of view there is a solid
frame of reference with many truths that are all interconnected.
There is not an isolated truth here and an isolated truth here. This is a
network of truths.
So now what we want to do is look at how Deuteronomy
fits into history. This is another example of early higher critics. They
universally have the assured results of higher criticism and all college
students and university students were told that Deuteronomy is so advanced in
its idea of social justice that it could never have been written as early as it
claims. It had to have been written later in time because only later do
we have this social evolution of higher values of social justice.
“So back in Moses’ days – oh, they couldn’t
write back then. They couldn’t think in terms of social justice.” So
it was late- dated.
Deuteronomy was considered a fiction that was
retro-projected back into ancient history. It was written late, but it
was written as though it happened early. Well, the death knell for this
approach happened because as archeologists discovered various documents under
A, the historical context, you’ll see that as more ancient Near Eastern
artifacts became known the old higher critical model that Deuteronomy was late
of an evolved social justice had been refuted.
Remember we started the book I showed you –
that’s why we through the suzerain vassal treaties because here’s a literary
format that is second millennium B.C. – not first, second millennium
B.C. Oh, that must show that a document like this exist in the second
millennium B. C. “Well
gosh. What happened? Gee, social justice must have evolved faster
than we thought.”
So here the historical context of the book fits now
that we have the facts. It’s typical second millennium. It’s not first millennium. We went through the things.
What we have to be careful of here as I point out is the strong parallel structure.
There is a clause in here. Watch it.
There is
a strong parallel.
And this is how you want to think when somebody comes
up with an archeological reference to the Bible, be careful. Don’t let
the archeology dictate your view of the Bible. Let the Bible analyze and
interpret the fragment of archeology.
Strong
parallel structuredl international treaties now are
known although...
Remember these are the differences.
...although major conceptual differences exist between their
view of the source of justice and historical teleology.
What we mean by that is that these treaties as we said
in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, there is no provision of grace. The
suzerain king says, “I’m coming. I’m going to clobber you. I’m
going to destroy you because you violated my love. You don’t love me in
the sense of loyalty. So I’m going to go out and mess you up. I’m
going to destroy you.” “Okay.” That’s the treaty. That’s how
it was. Is this how this treaty reads? Is that what we read in
Deuteronomy 32? No.
There is a plan that is bigger than this treaty.
The whole Abrahamic promise is here. The sovereign election of Israel to
be the blessing to the world is here. That ain’t in suzerain vassal treaties. That is
unique to the Scriptures. That shows you that the Scriptures didn’t
borrow suzerain vassal treaty. If they did, they wouldn’t look like
this. The point is that there is a uniqueness to
the Scriptures.
Here is another point under that same thing if you
follow.
Ancient
Near East pagan judges consistently omitted references to law codes in their
decisions; whereas Deuteronomy informed Israel’s
elders and judges.
In other words they took this law seriously. We
know they took it seriously because you can read the later prophets who took it
seriously. The later prophets have citations. They have
parallels. They get their whole idea out of the Mosaic Law
which tells you they’re applying the Law. That’s not true in the
pagan world.
Also
ancient treaties failed to show any awareness in historical progress toward an
ethical goal or any concept of divine grace.
Totally missing!
Whereas
there are styles of writing that show that the Bible is what it says it is; the
Bible has this uniqueness to it not found in pagan literature.
So what’s the source of that? Jewish genius?
The
conservative view of Deuteronomy has been vindicated. It pictures the
unique historical situation when God actually ruled a nation.
Which now leads us to why we have part B, the
historical affects of the book of Deuteronomy. It wouldn’t have had
these affects if it wasn’t so special and so full of
wisdom principles. You just wouldn’t have had this. It had this
because these principles aren’t anywhere else.
That’s why in Deuteronomy NKJ Deuteronomy
4:7 "For what great nation is there that
has God so near to it, as the LORD
our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him?" There
is a uniqueness to Israel, and it’s been
recognized.
So summarizing for a moment here. The
conclusions - it’s a coherent exposition of the Yahweh-Israel personal relationship. I italicize
personal relationship. Why did I do that? Because ancient Near
Eastern law code don’t describe a personal relationship. There is no god
to have a personal relationship with. It’s just dry, impersonal. Do this, don’t do this. You
do this, you’re going to get fined. You don’t do
this, you’re a good boy. That’s the law
code. Is that what we read here? No.
There is a uniqueness here
because there’s a personal relationship between Israel and Yahweh. And,
you understand why. Why is it that this is unique? Why is it that
there’s not a personal relationship anywhere else? What did we start with
tonight? One level or two levels? If you
have one level you don’t have a personal relationship. You can only get a
personal relationship with God if you have a two level reality. That’s
why it’s missing in pagan literature.
Revelation of Israel’s special place in history.
Now you have braggadocio in pagan literature that
– “We think we’re so great.” But, why do you know that when it says
revelation of Israel’s special place in history that’s not braggadocio? Because, it depicts Israel’s sin. You don’t find that
in pagan literature.
Revelation of God’s condescension to enter into a personal relationship
with His creatures.
You wouldn’t find that anywhere else. Muslim
theologians will tell you Allah would never, never have a treaty with man - to
lower himself and tie himself down to an agreement with man. “Ah. That’s
demeaning to a sovereign god.” Yet the Bible says God condescends to enter into
a relationship. And that’s just the first of many condescensions. What else does He do by
the time we get to the New Testament?
NKJ John 1:14 "And the Word …"
What? "… became flesh". Talk about condescension. This the Creator condescending to walk around as a creature.
Unilateral…
So it’s not a parity.
Therefore the idea there is a lord-servant relationship throughout the book of
Deuteronomy.
The
kingdom culture…
So now here we have material for thinking about
society.
The
kingdom culture was constructed by divine providence and revelation not from
random social dynamics.
This utterly refutes the idea that you can bring in
the kingdom by government policies. Marxism for instance thinks precisely
this.
Example
of how the Word of God was taught to laypeople.
That’s particularly true of Deuteronomy. When
you read Deuteronomy, you are reading what it sounded like when people were
taught the Bible because Deuteronomy is the speech of the ideal teacher,
Moses.
So when you want to know how much you should teach the
Word of God or how do you teach the Word of God – the whole book, it’s a
good example of that.
Now it had a massive effect on Western law in several
areas. The inclusion of civil rulers -one of the most profound impacts of
this book on world history was this point – that
civil rulers are under law. And you by now should be able to go back in
your notes and figure what chapter of Deuteronomy that came out of. It’s
Deuteronomy 17. The reformers in Europe cited that chapter as well as
well as 1 Samuel 8.
The second idea – and there are many ideas.
We have covered them before, but this is just review. Social justice in
the Bible equals equal treatment under the law based upon divine
image-hood. You treat the poor and the wealthy person the same way
because they are both made in God’s image. It is not favoring the
wealthy; it is not favoring the poor. That is explicitly stated –
explicitly stated in the Deuteronomic law code.
What we hear – the idea of social justice today
is a term of manipulation to make you and me feel guilty because we’re not
backing some inefficient unelected unaccountable unqualified government program
rather than if you are concerned with the poor – go help the poor.
“Don’t confiscate my money for your inefficient
government program and call it charity and to try to make me feel guilty
because I didn’t vote for it.” The only thing liberals are liberal with
is other people’s money – certainly not their own. So we’ve got to watch
this business of being manipulated. And we resist this. That is phony
rhetoric, and we ought to call them out on it. “What percent of your
income are you giving to the poor? You answer that one before you come and want
my vote.”
That’s what real charity looks like. So this is
how we’re being manipulated. Social justice in the Bible – and this
is Deuteronomy – so remember we’re saying these ideas come out of God’s
mind, not Moses mind. So this is social justice of Jewish
autobiography. This is social justice as God Himself defines it - equal
treatment under the law. It doesn’t have anything to do with where you
and I reach economically in society. Not at all! Absolutely not
related whatsoever to that.
Forthcoming work on the role of the Ten Commandments
in the Western world by Dr. John Eidsmoe is supposed
to be printed this year. It will be a 3-volume work. It’s taken ten
to 15 years to produce. I will find out in March when I talk to Dr. Eidsmoe the title and when this will be published. It takes
a lot of money to publish a 3-volume text but Eidsmoe
has already told a close friend of mine that his search of legal literature
he’s found over 1,000 references by the courts in jurisprudence and in writing
up the cases that reference as the authority of the judicial statement the Ten
Commandments.
So much for the jazz that we can’t
have the Ten Commandments in the classroom or in the courts. It’s bologna. People who say that kind of thing are
stupid. They haven’t done their homework. Well, Eidsmoe
has taken ten to 15 years to do his homework. Wait till this 3-volume set
gets out there. It takes away another block of this manipulation.
“Oh we can’t have the Ten Commandments in the
courtroom.” We’ve had it there for over a thousand cases. What do you
mean we can’t have it in the courtroom? So once again we have to be careful of
this rhetoric – pagan rhetoric.
Now the structure of Deuteronomy – we’ve been
over this time and time again. This chart about Roman IV summarizes the
highlights of the book breaking it down into those four expositions.
So for the rest of the time we have I’m going to skip
through this. If you’ll turn the book to Deuteronomy 1, we’ll just dip in
from here to there. We’ve gone through it thoroughly before but just to
get the flow of Moses discussion here. Let’s go back to the first chapter
of Deuteronomy. One of the many truths that we see in the book of
Deuteronomy comes up again and again and again is Deuteronomy 1:6 where Moses
is talking about: NKJ Deuteronomy 1:6 "The LORD our God spoke
to us in Horeb, saying: 'You have dwelt long enough
at this mountain. 7 'Turn and take your journey, and go to the
mountains of the Amorites, 8 'See, I have set the land before you;
go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers – to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – to give to them and their descendants after
them.'"
See the whole book of Deuteronomy presupposes the book
of Genesis. See what happens when you start unraveling the Bible. “I
don’t believe in Genesis.” Then you
can’t believe in Deuteronomy. It’s all part of the same thing. It’s
all part of God’s coherent revelation. It’s evidence of the Abrahamic
fulfillment. If you’ll follow the notes here, we’ll stop. We don’t
have time to go into all these verses but see the sequence of ideas.
Verses 29 to 46, the wasted years. Remember what
we said? It only takes 11 days to go from Mt. Sinai to the Promise Land
– 11 days. They took 40 years. Something went wrong.
Then in chapter 2 remember they went up to TransJordan skirting around the Edom’s land, skirting
around the other grants that God had given to Abraham’s progeny. There
were very careful and so on. They wanted to go to TransJordan
to get across to Jericho. All of a sudden they get clobbered by a pagan king
(bully boy) one of whom was 14 feet tall. He
decided he could throw his weight around and stop the Jews from coming through
even though they were not there to militarily challenge them. They just
wanted free passage to get over to their land. Then God said, “Okay, take them
out.” So in that little
maneuver God graciously expanded the land. So now they conquered TransJordan - which is the other side of the Jordan River,
the east side. .
Now in 4:1-8, if you’ll turn to chapter 4. This
is that section of Deuteronomy that speaks to its uniqueness (Israel’s
uniqueness) and why revelation of social justice would be recognized for what
it is.
Moses says: NKJ Deuteronomy 4:5
"Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the LORD my God
commanded me, that you should act according to
them in the land which you go to possess. 6 "Therefore be careful to observe them;
for this is your wisdom and your
understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and
say, 'Surely this great nation is a
wise and understanding people.'" So there’s a testimony. There’s the
center of the book of Deuteronomy’s expectation and Moses’ expectation that
this isn’t any law code. This is a law code that inculcates justice far beyond
any pagan law code such that other pagans would look up to this code.
NKJ Deuteronomy 4:7 "For what great
nation is there that has God so near to it, as the LORD our God is to us …" Remember what Albright
said? How many nations in world history had a contract with their
god? Moses was conscious of that. “No nation has a relationship with God like we do.” [8]
"And what great nation is there that
has such statutes and righteous
judgments as are in all this law …"
So that chapter 4 passage is really critical.
People who were astute and literate and read the book of Deuteronomy over the
centuries - that’s why they pulled legal concepts out of this. I remember
talking to a lawyer, one of the top ten lawyers in Florida – well trained
man, very famous there on television and so on. We were discussing
Deuteronomy. He was saying, “Yes, the passage in Deuteronomy about mercy and
relieving debts, historically that’s where we got bankruptcy laws from.
It came out of Deuteronomy.” Here’s a guy who is a specialist in bankruptcy
law, one of the top ten lawyers in Florida. This is the affect that this book
has had on the thinking inside the legal community. That’s the first
exposition. That’s the background.
Then we go to the second exposition. Remember we
talked about the word love as it’s used there. I showed this slide many
moons ago. Remember the big idea here is that to love pharaoh is to serve
him and remain faithful to the status of vassal. That in context is what
l-o-v-e meant in this sort of literary document. It’s not foreign
because Jesus uses it the same way in John 14. NKJ John 14:15 "
If you love Me, keep My commandments." It’s not a
romantic element of l-o-v-e here. It’s a loyalty issue. That’s how
then we should read
NKJ Deuteronomy 6:5 "You shall
love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul…"
Now we move on to that loving the Lord with all the
heart. Remember it was loving the Lord with all
your heart then with all your soul. There was a whole long exposition
from chapter 5 all the way down to chapter 11 that dealt with just loving the
Lord your God with all your heart.
Now let’s think about that for a minute. In the
little box there I have Deuteronomy makes clear the primary role of the heart
versus traditional emphasis on external force of law. See that? Now
that’s not true in paganism, folks. Go to the library and pullout the
code of Hammurabi. Go read it and come back to Deuteronomy and you’ll see
the difference. Moses spends half of his time before he even gets to the
case laws. He doesn’t even get to case laws. He’s dealing with the
attitude of the heart because this is where the battle is.
This is why when our republic was founded one of the
Founding Fathers (I think it was John Adams) – I’ve seen this
statement. You’ve seen it too where we’ve given you a Constitution but
it’s only going to work for a moral and righteous people. That’s why you
could say that because these men (most of them at least) knew enough about the
Scriptures to realize it’s got to come from the heart or it ain’t coming. The only way you can force things
like that is to have a totalitarian state. That’s why whenever you have
anarchy and riots, you always have totalitarianism because it’s the only way
you can control the chaos. Because people aren’t self-controlled they
have to be controlled from outside.
So then we went to Mt. Sinai. Of course this is
the most important event as far as law and society goes in all of
history. But how many of us sitting here tonight ever took in any social
studies course or history course you took in school was Mt. Sinai an event
studied. Now isn’t this interesting? The whole basis of Western law
comes from the Ten Commandments and what don’t we study in our wonderful,
secular million dollar classrooms? Then we wonder what is wrong with our
culture.
So here we have the great thing. We’ve gone
through the chiasm several times. It’s obviously the structure to
this. Then we have the design of society that flows out of that.
Again we see here why heart allegiance is so important. It’s stressed
over and over and over again not just in Deuteronomy but the prophets.
When they have to deal with the garbage of rebellion against Yahweh and the
disaster that has happened in the country; yeah they deal with case laws here
and there. But they’re saying, “Guys, you’ve got it wrong. Your heart’s in the wrong place.” So we have this sequence
that we’ve endlessly talked about.
Then if you’ll look in you outline in your handout,
you’ll see chapter 6. Remember that one? The idea that how does the
Word of God gets into the hearts of the people? It gets in because
parents, not the state - parents are given the responsibility to put them into
the heart of their children. It goes in some children harder than it goes
in other children, as every parent knows.
Then in chapter 7, we’re introduced to the fact
because this is an abnormal world, a fallen world, fallen universe; we have to
deal with evil. You have a good-evil boundary that always causes
war. Now people get tired of war. Everybody gets tired of
war. Do you think that the soldiers who did ten tours of Iraq aren’t
tired of war? You bet they are. But, they are realistic. They
realize it’s a sinful world and there’s going to be war. People who are
tired of war say, “I not going to have any war. I’m a pacifist.” Then
you are ignoring good and evil. What are you going to do about
evil? It’s always going to be with us. Remember the answer to holy
war because here’s another vulnerability if you haven’t thought it
through. What are you going to do when somebody nails you some day
because the Bible has holy war in it? Sure it does. Then you can
pull a shocker on them. “Christ is going to carry out a holy war on a
global scale when He returns.”
That should introduce the conversation to what is
just. How do you get rid of evil permanently? By
violence.
So then we have chapters 8 through 10 that dealt with
the adversity trials, the prosperity test. Then it’s self-righteousness,
which is in all of our hearts. Moses says God blesses you. It’s not
because you’re good boys and girls. It’s because you’re gracious.
Then part two loving the Lord with the nephesh. We said this
is all the details of life. Once the heart
straightened out we go into these other areas. We won’t go through all of
them; but you remember them. Chapter 12, chapter 13
start out enforcing the first and second commandments. You can’t
have that unity of the nation if you have polytheism and religious
diversity.
Then chapters 14 through 16 we have the economic
policies, which I’m sure - I was surprised this time as I went through the text
to see how much the structure that God was building had economic
implications. I listed 5 of them that are contemporary wisdom. This
is wisdom for our own time. The flat tax is considered the just
tax. I hear all the stuff today. It’s another case of empty
rhetoric. People can’t spot the logical fallacy in this. “We’re
going to make the wealthy pay more.”
You know back in 5th grade I think it was
– maybe Mike can tell us when they teach multiplication. When do
you teach it now? Third grade – okay, in third grade we learned
about multiplication. If you have a flat tax of 10 % and you multiply it by a
big number, do you a bigger number than when you multiply by a smaller number
by 10%? So don’t the rich pay more? It’s just stupid stuff
today. Flat tax rate - God said that’s the proper way to go.
Second, the tax is on income. It is not on
property. There’s a reason for that because you take a widow who’s got a
farm or she’s got her property. You keep taxing that property and she has
no income, she loses her property. That’s unjust. That property was
gathered. She paid for it. People worked hard to get that property;
and it shouldn’t be yanked out from under her because of some silly property
tax. So there was no property tax. There was no sales tax
either. Sales tax biases against the poor because everybody has to buy
groceries. Everybody has to buy basics. So that’s another system we
haven’t thought through.
Three, standards of measurement and money - gold and
silver were jealously guarded so you did not have debasement of the currency
like the dollar has collapsed in the last 20 or 30 years.
Then you have charitable loans were managed without
loss of dignity of the recipient - very careful. Remember? They
could not take a millstone for a deposit at night. The poor people that
were given charitable loans were protected. Their dignity was protected.
Why? Because they are made in God’s image.
Finally the economic policy worked only if the ethical
policies worked. That’s why the heart is so important.
Then we have in chapters 16 to 18 we have standards of
behavior for all the leaders of society – judges, kings, priests and
prophets. That was very important in western civilization.
Chapter 19 through 21- we have protocols for
maintaining social justice and judicial and military procedures including
capital punishment.
Capital punishment, by the way, is socially
just.
In chapters 22 to 23 we have protocols to protect
social boundaries so property for example in chapter 22. The 8th
commandment isn’t narrowly confined to seizing someone else’s
property. The spirit of the 8th commandment, the spirit
of the 8th commandment, includes taking care of other people’s
property. Remember the lost donkey? If your neighbor lost his
donkey, not taking care of that was a form of theft. See that’s a bigger,
bigger picture of theft than what a narrow view would have.
Then we’ve gone through all the other principles
here. Our time is growing to a close so I hope that this book will be a
source document in the future for you in your thinking to read through this
again and read it over and maybe look at some of the outlines and some of the
notes you’ve taken when you hear discussions about how - what’s the wise thing
to do here? We’re citizens. We’re part of our society. How do
we make our decisions about what’s the wisest policy?
______________
Well, we have a few minutes here. We can chew
over a few things if you have questions.
Question
The idea – the difference between conservative
thinking people and liberal thinking people when it comes to charity has been
documented. I don’t know the name of the book; but there’s a book that
studied that very issue. They went back and interviewed a lot of people
so it’s not just something contemporary and political. It was just a
statement. It’s the way they think.
I was kind of forcibly reminded of this last summer
because when I spoke at the summer camp in Denver on my way back before I went
to see Carol, I had to stay overnight in this home. A Christian couple
had me over that night. The man was a World War II vet – no, he was
a Cold War vet. He while on duty in Germany married a German gal.
We were sitting there talking. I was asking the German lady about her peers
back in Germany. She was telling me about her sister back there and so
forth. She’s a Christian. She became a Christian though through her
husband. She’s solid in the Word of God now. She realizes what a
difference the Bible has made in her thinking from the way she was brought up
in Germany. This is not an indictment of Germany. It’s her family
in Germany. However she told me this interesting story.
She said, “I went back to see my cousins and so
on. We were talking about Katrina.”
They were saying – they got the typical media that
we didn’t care for anybody; Katrina was a disaster and nobody cared.
You know the whole story. FEMA was late to respond.
She said, “They were asking me about it. You’ve
got it wrong because people in the United States gave millions of dollars to
charities to help those people in Katrina. There was… You know the
Red Cross was there. The Southern Baptists had a big kitchen, soup
kitchen thing.”
She was going on about the charity in the
country. She gets this blank look from her cousin.
“Huh? What are you doing that for? The
government is supposed to do that.”
See what happens? No concept of personal charity
- absolutely been lost. It’s not charity. Socialism is not
charity. Charity comes from the heart. You give. Charity that way
is a lot more efficient.
That’s why for years I encouraged Erin Wilson to give
that paper she gave at the missions conference two years ago - or a year ago,
when Erin pointed out that all the aid to Africa only 20 cents out of every dollar
ever got to the people. That’s what happens when you have government
programs. You’ve got too many hands involved. It’s too
inefficient. It doesn’t work. You have to do it on a personal
basis. So that’s the difference in charity and this phony stuff that goes
for charity in the name of charity. Anyhow that’s the affect of thinking
that way.
I was just telling Gary before class. By email I
happen to know one of Dr. Ice’s sons that’s studying at Master’s Seminary out
with John MacArthur. He was sitting in class there. Next to
him in class there was an Australian fellow that lived in Denmark for 5
years. They were talking about things and got to talking
about Euro-socialism because they’re studying Jeremiah in the class –
social justice.
The guys said, “You know, Daniel, when I lived in
Europe I noticed that Euro-socialism is hurting the gospel. It’s
hindering our ability to make clear the grace of God.”
Daniel turns to him and says, “What? How does
Euro-socialism impact the gospel?”
He said, “This way. In Europe everyone considers
himself or herself entitled to this benefit, this benefit, this benefit and
this benefit. So we’re trying to explain the gospel. We talk about the
fact that we’re all sinners. We talk about the fact that all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. We talk about the fact that we need
salvation.”
Then they go, “Oh, I don’t have to do anything.
You know, I am entitled to salvation. You know that’s my right before
God.”
I sit there then in the middle of an evangelistic
situation or conversation. Now I have to back up and point out that
– no, you are not entitled to salvation. It’s not an automatic benny because you breathe. You have to respond
to this. See what’s happening? Now our theology is getting screwed
up because of these ideas and how they all intertwine.
Question
That’s a particular thing homosexuals are using very
much – great leverage now - God made me this way. What he was
talking about a mentality that was easily identifiable for economic
policy.
Question
Adam and Eve found the bushes.
Question
You are right. It’s going back to the basic agenda
that we are trying to flee our ultimate responsibility before God because it’s
terrifying if you think about it - if you’re not a Christian, you’re not aware
of God’s grace.
You think, “Man, you know, I’m a sinner.”
Carole and I just got through viewing how many cases
– 5 cases of Muslims becoming Christians. What was amazing to us -
these are Muslims who became Christians some of whom before 9/11 so we’re not
talking about all the political stuff. What we noticed was a common
thread. Every one of these five cases of Muslims finding Christ is they
sought God. They weren’t just religious Muslims. They were people
who are passionate to know God because they knew that they didn’t know
Him. They were seeking Him. It reminds of the Jeremiah
passage.
“You will find Me when you
search for Me with all your heart.”
These 5 people, as many Muslim converts will tell you,
had a vision in which a man and wife some cases identifying himself as Jesus
spoke to them and told them to go to the believers and find out how to know
Him. Just encouraging that the Lord rewards people who
seek Him.
Question
She asked an interesting question about the founding
of our country. When religious freedom was spoken of was it really
religious freedom within a Protestant context? You had Maryland. Maryland
is Catholic. So Catholicism would have been part of the thing.
By the way if you haven’t – you don’t know this
and you’re interested - here’s something – a little piece of news.
Hillsdale College campus is an independent campus. They refuse to accept
any money from the federal government. They’ve been very articulate in their
view of the Constitution. Some of you get their little subscription to Infamous. On February 22 coming up, you
can go on the Web and enroll for nothing in Constitution 101 which is their
required course for every student has to take this course. They are going
to put it on for free on the Net. The professors that teach the course at
Hillsdale will be the ones that are teaching this on the Internet. It is
a thorough going through of the Constitution and the Declaration. So that
would be great background. Hillsdale is selling a book. It
cost about $30. I bought one because I think it’s worth it. It’s a
reader. What this book is – it’s all source material. It’s
not somebody’s interpretation. It’s the federal papers. It’s the
discussions. There are even letters that Jefferson wrote while he was
writing the Constitution. You can actually see his letters. So
going through this provides you a wealth of primary source material for
nothing. You’d never get this at a university for less that a couple of
thousand dollars. It’s very useful.
But to get back to her question on religious freedom -
the problem that the Founding Fathers had and which led to the First Amendment
– and by the way it’s interesting that religious freedom is the first of
the ten Bill of Rights. That’s because it was considered primary.
It’s very interesting that those bills, those amendments are in sort of an
order.
Here’s the situation which is
not taught in schools either today. Every one of the states was a republic-basically
a functioning republic. The reason we can say that is each state - most
of the states (I won’t say every state.) had an established church –
Maryland, Catholicism; Virginia, Anglicanism; Massachusetts,
congregationalism. You had established churches established by the civil
powers of those states. So when the federal union happened, they wanted to be
sure that the Feds weren’t going to change their established churches. So
the churches were through all the states structures. This business about
the separation of church and state is a bunch of bologna. They were
protecting their own established churches from federal interference. That whole
first amendment thing is much more involved than we think it is.
Question
Jim asked a good question people get confused
about. Periodically through the Scripture there is a statement - don’t
add or subtract from Scripture. In Deuteronomy 4, as well as at the end,
that restriction against tampering with the text is no different than today
when you make a contract whether it’s with a bank, whether it’s with the
state. You are not to tamper with the words of that contract. It’s
contract integrity. So Deuteronomy 4 is addressed not to Job. It’s
not addressed to the canon of Scripture. It’s addressed to that
book. It’s very similar to restrictions we have legally. You can’t
go in and make a will. It’s on file. You can’t go in there and
change it. If you do you get hauled into court for messing with it.
It’s to protect the integrity of the text. You can’t add or subtract.
Question
The revelation the book of Revelation’s admonition
against tampering with the text is the same as Deuteronomy 4 – don’t
tamper with this text. Remember when Revelation was written the canon was
in existence. That’s the point.
In application it applies to the canon because anybody
that adds a book a non-canonical book to the Scriptures will doctrinally
conflict with the canonical books. So when you try to add –
this is why the book of Mormon for example – when Carole and I were out
in Oregon in the Air Force there was a very articulate Mormon just besieged us
with all kinds of stuff. It forced me to have to read through the book of
Mormon. You don’t have to read but 3 chapters and you know you’re in
another world than the book of the Bible. The words are used like the
person who wrote them didn’t know what the words meant. There is not a continuity.
Question
Mike asked a good question about the extent of the
freedom in the first amendment – just what it included – did it
include for instance Indian religions. I
think the data is that no, it didn’t because Congress
published a Bible to help convert the Indians. Clearly there was a
government favoring of the Christian position. The
reason why – it goes back to Deuteronomy as the reason. It
wasn’t that our country was trying to jam the gospel down anybody’s throat
because there were unbelievers in colonial times, articulate unbelievers.
There was no compulsion on them to forsake their unbelief. The point
was that in designing the republic they realized there had to be
self-government or you couldn’t have a free society. They were perceptive
enough to see that it was Christianity that provided the moral impetus for
self-government; but they were unwilling to elevate any particular version or
denomination of Christianity for the reason that they had all left Europe
because of what reason? Because in Europe you had religious wars; and they didn’t want a religious war in America.
So therefore they said, “Feds, stay out of it.
We in our local states have done our thing. Just mind your business; and
we’ll mind ours.”
That was the way they set it up. There was
to be no interference in the states.
Question
She’s bringing up the case of Muslim killing.
What do you call it? Honor killing. That’s murder. They don’t
consider it murder or they wouldn’t have done it. This is the problem we
face as a nation right now. You can’t have a polytheistic society without
fragmentation. It just won’t work. It can’t work because you’ve got
different ultimate standards. Sooner or later there’s got to be one
ultimate standard that prevails. The issue then becomes is it going to be
a transcendental standard or is it going to be a human engineering standard?
The Founding Fathers were wise enough and influenced by Christianity enough to
realize the broad Judeo-Christian tradition provided that transcendental
standard. But, they were not going to anchor it to the congregational
church, the Roman Catholic Church or any other churches. They were
basically taking a generic view of Christianity and Judaism. The Jews were free
in our country. They could have synagogues. Washington wrote
letters to encourage the rabbis. You didn’t have to believe in Jesus
Christ to be acceptable in colonial America.
Question
At the pastors’ conference, Dr. Eidsmoe
is going to brief us on what’s going on.
The point here gets back to the first section in our
review tonight – one level or two levels of reality. If you’re going
to have one level of reality you’re going to destroy divine revelation.
Andy Wood’s paper – and I’ll have to get it to you. I can email it
to you. Andy Woods is a PhD, graduate of Dallas Seminary. He’s also
a J. D. He’s a lawyer. He’s the one I told you about before.
His father spent 30 years in the California Court of Appeals or whatever.
Andy wrote a tremendous paper in which he traced this
whole thing in the law schools. What he found was that when you go
back before 1860 (keep in mind the date) and you look at Story and some of the
other men that taught at Yale Law School and so on.
They explicitly say for their law students, “Thou
shall not make law. Your job as a judge is to apply the law – not
make the law. Your job is to exegete the constitutional text for the
intent of the Constitutional writers.”
That held up to about 1860. After 1860 you take
the same schools (Yale, Harvard) and you read what’s coming out of those
schools. Everything is evolving. Society is. What happened in
1859? Exactly. Ever since everything is evolving.
So not just Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but there have been
others who argue that we can’t be enslaved to the white slave owning Christians
that wrote the Constitution because that was a static moment in an ongoing
evolution of society.
Andy Woods points out the way of phrasing this and
quotes the legal authority - the ongoing meetings of the U. S. Supreme Court
are a constitutional convention.
Question
If you trace the thinking in the journals as Andy
Woods has done, it’s clearly dogma.
Question
He’s asking a question. It will have to be the
last one because of our time. As the society becomes more hostile to the
Christian faith is there a point where we draw a line in the sand? Yes,
there is. In fact that’s the theme of the pastors’ conference I’m taking
Mike to next month. That’s what Dr. Eidsmoe,
the head of the Terror Law School in Texas, a specialist in our security and
law - that’s what we’re all dealing with. I’ve been assigned the
development the function of government from the Old Testament. Then
there’s another paper to be given on Romans 13 and civil disobedience.
These are questions we have to think about doing that now so that we will be
better prepared if and when the situation arises.
The Catholic Church is already at that point.
We’re silly if we think that we’re not because it’s not an issue – like I
said it’s not an issue of.
Think of a bunch of spheres occupying a volume, a
solid volume. Think of balls in that volume. Think of those as
spheres of authority. If you are going to take the sphere of state
authority like this and then a sphere of federal authority and you expand the
federal authority’s a balloon; it’s going to bump into
the other balloons. So you are going to have this. This was bound
to happen whether it’s abortion or something else. It’s just bound to
happen because you have a bloated bureaucracy that wants more and more and more
power. As man concentrates power they become less intelligent.
I frankly don’t even think the present administration
– I think they were caught off guard. I honestly think in their
arrogance they never even dreamed someone would fuss about it. I think
this has been a shock. It’s certainly a shock to many Catholics who will
not go along with their own church. They are just culture Catholics who
show up on Easter and Christmas and kiss it off the rest of the
year. For the dedicated Catholics, this is a problem.
What I don’t hear even the Catholics saying is - I did
hear one Catholic spokesman make this point but I haven’t heard any body else
make the point. That is - just a minute here. Who started the
hospitals? Who started the universities? Was it the state or
was it the church? Historically first it was the church. So if the
state wants to – and this is the way they did it in Massachusetts.
“If the state wants to take over we’ll just shut
down. Then we can shut all the Catholic hospitals down. We’ll shut
down the orphanages. We’ll shut down the services that we’ve
provided.”
That’s what I would do if I were the Catholics.
“You want your cake then you’re going to eat
it.”
My mother used to say, “You made your bed, now sleep
in it.”
Question
It will be on West Houston Bible Church website.
That’s why we’re having this discussion because we see
the handwriting on the wall.
One parting comment here I will make which I’m going
to make when I’m on a panel there; we have
people particularly in the Midwest who are the guns crowd who say, “We’re
getting ready for an insurrection.”
Now wait a minute. Hold it. Let’s go to
the middle of Daniel. You don’t have to have an armed insurrection here.
What you have to have is individual believers who have
the courage to stand wherever they are in their society when these issues come
up.
Earlier in the Deuteronomy series I gave the
illustration of Sharon (whatever her name was) – you’ve heard this before
– the lady that ran the accounting for Enron. She went to a
Presbyterian church. She realized that things were
smelling and she went to her Bible study that she had in some Houston
suburb. She didn’t tell the people for security reasons and privacy.
“I can’t tell you why, but I want you to pray for me.
I’m under pressure.”
Nobody knew what Sharon lady was doing; but she had
gone to Ken Lay, the president of the institution and said, “We’ve got cooked
books and this is wrong.”
He said, “If you want your job, you’re going to stay
here.”
Remember the movie Courageous
and the story of the Hispanic man having to be – remember that
movie? That’s integrity. That’s where we stop.
Sharia went to her classroom at Talson State - one
girl out of 29 girls in the class. It took Sharia,
one out of 29, to stand up and look what happened. It got the person
fired.
It doesn’t take that many people. It just takes
some people that have courage to stand and deal with the fear. It’s scary
to stand up when you think your job is dependent upon it. It’s not an easy
thing to do. This gets back to personal faith rest and being able to
handle it so you don’t go for your guns. You go for your integrity.
That’s all it takes.
Well folks, our time is up. I hope that this
will be useful for you.