Skip HeitzigSkip Heitzig

Skip's Teachings > 05 Deuteronomy - 1996 > Deuteronomy 13-14

Message:

SHORT URL: http://SkipHeitzig.com/1112 Copy to Clipboard
SAVE: MP3
BUY: Buy CD

Deuteronomy 13-14

Taught on
Date Title   ListenNotes Share SaveBuy
3/9/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 13-14
Deuteronomy 13-14
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
05 Deuteronomy - 1996

The book of Deuteronomy is the giving of the Mosaic Law to a new generation of Israelites at the end of their wanderings. Skip Heitzig tells the story of God's continuing grace to His people.

FREE - Download Entire Series (MP3) (Help) | Buy audiobook

Transcript

Open as Word Doc Open as Word Doc    Copy Copy to Clipboard    Print icon    Hide expand

Every now and then I'll get a weird letter. And I even have a file called, curiously enough, "weird letters." [laughter] Some of them are entertaining, to say the least. They're just bizarre enough that they provide a good diversion. Most of the letters that I get are really letters of encouragement and testimony of how God has changed a life, but every now and then I'll get a weird letter. And usually the weirdness comes from the fact they're a self-proclaimed prophet of God: "God has spoken to me. I am a prophet of God. And if you want to be blessed, you have to listen to my words."

Now, I'll be honest with you, every time I get a letter like that, at first, my first brush with a person who says he or she is a prophet of God and is sent to tell me something, God for some reason would tell them and not me, I'm open to it, and I bring it before the Lord in prayer. I go, "Look, God, if you have something to share with me through this, please let me be open to it. I don't want to close my heart." Maybe he is a prophet. Maybe God has spoken through he or through she. But then I'll also ask the question: How do I know they're a prophet? How do I know God has sent them?

After all, the oldest trick in the book is to say, "God told me to tell you . . ." And if you say, "Well, how do I know you're right?" "Don't question God." So there's no accountability, it's just God speaks to them, and they don't need any human accountability. They're all alone with God and God sent them to tell somebody else a message. It's the oldest trick in the book. You can't call them to account, can't argue with them, because, after all, they've got an inside line with God. "Don't dispute that. You can dispute Scripture, but don't dispute me." They set themselves apart.

Jesus said those kind of people would come. He said there would be false prophets. It's not just a New Testament phenomenon, even back in the Old Testament there was the warning of false prophets. Here's the reason: it's an old principle you learned in science class: "Every action brings an equal and opposite reaction." And so when there's an action in the kingdom of God, there will be an equal action or reaction in the devil's kingdom. If God does a work, Satan will want to counteract that work. He'll want to counterfeit that work. He'll want to destroy whatever God seeks to build up.

And even though Jesus said "the gates of hell will not prevail" against his church, they'll sure try. They'll give it their best effort to prevail against the work of God. Now, I realize that there are some who discount the idea of the devil altogether, that there is no personal devil, he doesn't really exist, it's just our imagination. I like the poem that somebody wrote about that. They said, "The devil is voted not to be; so of course, the devil is gone--- but simple folks would like to know, 'Who carries his business on?' " Somebody's doing something. Somebody is doing the work of the devil in the name of God many times. And because of that the church needs to have discernment to "judge," as Jesus said, "a righteous judgment."

Now, think for a moment of the early church in Jerusalem. Think of the spiritual life and the work that God was doing in that church. Thousands of people were being saved. The Holy Spirit was being poured out in a very unusual way. It was the first time the church was getting its start. In fact, the Bible says, "The Lord was adding daily to the church those who were being saved," an incredible work, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And so the kingdom of darkness got involved and mounted its attacks against the church. And the attacks came through carnal believers, they came through unbelievers, they came through false believers.

We read about the carnal believers with Ananias and Sapphira lying to the Holy Spirit, pretending to present something before the Lord but really keeping their intentions a secret, deception. Secondly, it comes from unbelievers, persecution, a wave of persecution spread through the early church to shake them from their moorings and trust in the Lord, the difficulties of life to get them to not follow the Lord anymore. And then, thirdly, there were false believers that brought in false doctrine. And it started early on in the church.

In fact, there is so much written about false doctrine and false prophets in the New Testament, that there are whole books given over to this subject: the book of Jude, the book of Galatians, the book of 2 Peter---all speaking about how to discern the true from the false. We have seen a great work of the Lord here at this fellowship. I still marvel at what God is doing and has done. I didn't expect it. It's all a work of the Lord. But because it is a work of the Lord, there is then the work that the enemy seeks to bring against the church to cause undiscerning, young believers to be shaken, to let false believers come in, and just like what happened in the early church.

In fact, Mark Twain even noted that, "A lie can make its way halfway around the world while truth is still lacing up her boots." It seems that people will more readily gravitate toward that which is false than that which is true. We live in a day and age when deception is very common. Consider this: there are 10,000 full-time and 185,000 part-time astrologers in the United States of America. It's big business. People hire them out. Consider also that the educational systems and the business systems in our country are giving way to New Age philosophy.

I get literature all the time from some of you: "Look what they're trying to do at my work. Look at the kind of programs they're trying to bring in: the transcendental meditation, Hinduism, all sorts of cultic and New Age activity." The police departments are sometimes hiring mediums to solve difficult cases, because they lack the knowledge, and so they want the spirit world to give them the knowledge that they otherwise could not get. So in verse 1, "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass."

In other words, it's miraculous and it works, you can see the sign and the wonder. "Of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods'---which you have not known---'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all of your heart and with all your soul." Let's go back to the very first commandment that God gave in the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is, "I am the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before me." That is the number one commandment.

God is to be worshiped exclusively. There is to be no other gods. Even though Israel was going into a polytheistic culture, there would be many other gods and worship systems around them, God wanted exclusive worship. Chapters 13 and 14 talk about the kind of worship God wants. In chapter 13 they're not to worship any other gods. In fact, if some false prophet comes among them, and does something that would swoon them, "Wow!" they're not to listen to it, especially if they're being led to worship another God. And the great principle in chapter 13, the key principle is that worship of God is to be exclusive. It's not God plus other gods, it's God alone.

Then in chapter 14, God willing if we get through it tonight, we're going to talk briefly about clean and unclean foods and the tithes. And now worship is going into the realm of all of life. And the key principle there is that worship goes beyond Sunday morning. It touches every area of our existence. That's the basic life principle there. Now A. W. Tozer once said, "A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times." I don't know why I threw that in, I just liked it. God spoke through the prophets of old. They were used to hearing the voice of God through the prophets of Israel, but the problem was the false prophets.

Jesus said, "Beware of them. They will come to you." That's a promise. How will they come to you? Ah, that's right, "in sheep's clothing." They're going to come to the door, and they're not going to say, "I'm a wolf. I'm a false prophet and I'd like to deceive you if you've got ten or fifteen minutes." [laughter] They're going to knock on the door and go, "Baaaaaa! Feel my little fur. I'm a sheep just like you are." They'll talk the same talk. They might carry a Bible in their hands. They'll come with sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves. So, any good shepherd will protect the sheep from the wolves, from the false prophets.

Just like Jesus said he was the Good Shepherd, the Bible tells us who are pastors, shepherds of the flock of God, to feed the flock of God. And even Paul in Acts, chapter 20, warned the elders of the false prophets that would arise from their own flock. And that's why in the New Testament there are so many warnings against that which is false. So, verse 3, "You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul." One of the problems is a fundamental lack of discernment.

For some reason it is seen as unspiritual to question what a person says especially if a person is behind a pulpit, has a Bible, and uses the name of the Lord. If you question what he says, it's like, "You can't do that, you're unspiritual." After all, anytime anybody says anything from a pulpit or with a Bible and mentions the name of God or Jesus, you're supposed to believe it, right? Wrong. The Bereans were commended by Paul the apostle because they didn't even listen to what Paul said, but "they searched the Scripture." Can you imagine that? Here's Paul the apostle, he wrote the bulk of the New Testament.

And the Bereans said, "Well, you know, I know Paul said that in his last sermon, but you know what? I don't know if he's right. Let's check what he said with the rest of Scripture." Paul commended them for that. So just because stuff is in print in a Christian bookstore or on Christian radio or on Christian television, and the name of Jesus is being tossed around, doesn't mean that it's necessarily true. We're to test it. There's a story about a group of twenty people from Waldport, Oregon, they sold everything that they had or gave it away. Now, there's nothing wrong with doing that, but they were told to do that in a church service they attended.

And they were told to move to Colorado: "Sell everything you have, move to Colorado." Now, there's nothing wrong with moving to Colorado. But the reason they were told to sell everything or give it away and move to Colorado is because a UFO would be there to meet them and take them away to a better place. I guess UFOs like Colorado. There is a big difference between that which is supernatural and that which is divine. Things can be supernatural. It is possible to see miracles happen that aren't from God. It doesn't make them divine. Now people will claim they're divine.

I know that even the late-night psycho hotline, or the psychic hotlines, [laughter] one of them I heard recently. She said, "Oh, we're from God. God sent us. Our origins are divine." Now, I dispute that. I don't dispute that they're supernatural; I believe they're supernatural, but they're not divine. They're not from God. Test things. Question things. Read the Bible and then apply what you know of the Bible to what you hear. Pray for discernment. One time I was, well, I was angry because I heard on a Christian radio station that a transcendental meditation meeting would be held at a local bank.

I called the radio station and I said, "Do you have any idea what TM is?" "No, brother, but um, you know, they talk about God." I convinced them to pull it off the air. Then I decided to attend the transcendental meditation meeting that evening with my wife and a couple of friends. At that time it only cost about, oh, I think about $400 to be deceived through the transcendental meditation at that point. The price has gone up to about $1,000, I think, now. But, you know, what they were telling people is: "Some of you may be Catholic, some of you may be Protestant," you know sort of like a Billy Graham altar call.

"Some of you may have no faith at all. It doesn't really matter. You can all be involved in transcendental meditation. It's benign. It is nonspiritual. It will enhance your quality of life." And then she said, "Are there any questions?" [laughter] I raised my hand and said, "Yeah, I got a question." "Yes, sir, what is your question?" "Now let me get this straight, this is a completely nonspiritual exercise?" "That's right." "It has no spiritual or religious overtones at all?" "That's correct." "So I can be a Christian and still be involved in transcendental meditation and it won't go against what I believe?" "Oh, not at all. It will enhance what you believe."

"I have another question." "Please, what is your question?" "Why in TM is your introductory recital in Sanskrit? It's a language nobody knows. It's an ancient language from India. Why do you have them recite this introductory prayer in Sanskrit, not in English?" "Oh, it's just an old tradition that we follow." " Oh, but the recital itself has nothing to do with spiritual meditation?" "That's right, sir." And I said, "You're lying to these people." And I said, "I just happen to have a copy of that introductory prayer translated from Sanskrit into English. Would you mind if I would read it?" And before she said no I started reading it. [laughter]

Some of the translation: "I bow down to guru Dev. I bow down to lord Narayana," and all of these list of deities were mentioned and worship was ascribed to them. And I held it up and I say, "Now, tell me again, there's no spiritual overtones in what I just read? You're telling these people to pay 400 bucks and you're not telling them the whole truth." What was really wild is I expected her to get livid and she didn't. She just acted very calm. But somebody who was sitting in front of me, ready to pay 400 bucks, turned around to me and said, "Would you shut up!" [laughter] And it, like, dawned on me, he basically is saying, "Would you please let me get deceived.

"Please, allow me to spend my $450 and get deceived. Don't tell me the truth. It's going to make me feel good. Whatever it is to make me feel good, I don't care if they're lying to me. I don't care if it's the truth or not. Let me be deceived." It absolutely blew my mind. Now, believing is central to Christianity, right? "For God so loved the world that whosoever believes in him should not perish." And so often we talk of the need to have faith; and you do, Christianity is marked by faith in Jesus Christ. However, it's also marked by what it does not believe in, as well as what it does believe in.

You know Christianity is exclusive. It is not TM. It's not as inclusive as TM. I've even had one of my Jewish friends say, "You know, it's interesting, so many faiths are so inclusive of one another. They believe you can believe in anything, except Christianity. Why are you so narrow?" I said, "Well, I am narrow. In fact, I'm very closed-minded because my Lord made me that way. He said, 'I am the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.' I don't know any other way to interpret that except for face value." So God wanted exclusive worship. He didn't want paganism mixed with it.

And so he gave this test for false prophets. And let me just say that we ought to test things, as I mentioned. In 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, "Test all things. Hold fast to that which is good." Test it. You know, we teach our children to do that, don't we? We say, "Don't take candy from strangers," and "Don't swallow anything you find." And I've told you before how my son when he was young found a cockroach and I watched him do this: he took it and he put it in his mouth. He was about to swallow it. And we walked over to him and I think my wife yanked it out of his mouth, that dirty old cockroach. [laughter]

And then I ate it---no. I'm just kidding. [laughter] We teach our children that. We need to teach our spiritual children that. "Don't swallow everything you find. Test all things. Make sure that it's healthy for you." Remember The Wizard of Oz? Remember in The Wizard of Oz how they come to see the Wizard and they had all wisdom and all knowledge given to them about their future and get the blessing of the Great Wizard. And Dorothy comes in and the Scarecrow comes in and the Tin Man and the Lion, and that great voice speaks to them: "I am the Great Oz." And they start shaking, ooh, ooh, ooh.

And then Toto goes and takes his teeth and grabs the curtain and pulls it back so they can see a man pulling the levers, moving the voice. And the man looks out and he sees them looking in. "Uh-oh, I've been discovered." And so he says, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." [laughter] And, of course, the message was, "No. Pay attention to the man behind the curtain. You're being duped." So pay attention to what's behind the curtain. Look behind the veneer. Peel away the God talk and get down to the heart of the issue. Find out if it's a true prophet speaking according to what the Bible says or not.

Verse 4, "You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away evil from your midst." This sounds severe, doesn't it? And it is severe, I admit to you it is very severe.

But the reason it was to be carried out is because they were entering in a land filled with idolatry that could eventually pollute them. It was so severe that it was dealt with like a cancer. Whenever there's a cancer, you usually don't negotiate with it. You deal very radically with cancer, very aggressively with cancer, because cancer can steal your life completely away from you. And sometimes there's the complete excision, the removal of that cancer. Even though you have to take out a whole organ, or a piece of tissue that seems otherwise healthy, you remove it so that the rest of body is spared.

Now, Israel did not do this thing, this commandment. They did not completely follow it. In fact, what they did was very synchronistic. They combined the worship of God with the worship of false gods. And if you want to see where idolatry would eventually go, you have to kind of go ahead a little bit and find the era of the judges and the monarchy that was divided when there was the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. And one of the kings in the north was Ahab and his wife Jezebel who sold the nation of Israel in the north wholesale to the worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, the false gods and goddesses.

And God's reaction to that was to let them go into captivity in 722 BC. The Assyrians came and took them captive. In 586 BC and Babylonians and their first siege against Jerusalem took many captives, followed by two more sieges. Brought them out of the land as if to say, "You really want idols all that much? I'll take you to a land filled with them until you cry out to me and serve me exclusively." And because Israel failed to do what God said, they failed themselves. Now, today we don't kill false prophets. We don't take them behind the church and shoot them or hang them.

We're not called to do that in the New Testament. But we are called to speak for the truth, uphold the truth, and to some measure enact church discipline, to put out that which is false from our midst to preserve the body of Christ. In 1 John, chapter 4, we're told---it says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world." It's interesting that statement how it's written: "Test the spirits, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." There you see a link between the spirit world and the fleshly vessel, the false prophet being controlled by the demonic influence.

"Test the spirits because many false prophets have gone out into the world." There's a link between the false prophet and the demonic influence. Now, we're to test them. That doesn't mean that everything you hear you automatically approach and say, "Well, they're guilty. It's false. It's wrong." We should be open. We should use discernment, but that doesn't mean that, you know, every time anybody speaks we just say, "I think they're all a bunch of false prophets." There's people who just have, you know, everybody's wrong except them. "I'm the only one that's right, everybody else is of the devil." Be careful about that.

It's like the woman who sent her son to buy five pounds of apples and he came back with four and a half. And she was angry with the grocer. "I sent my son to get five pounds of apples, he's comes back with four and a half pounds," blaming the grocer. The grocer said, "Ma'am, I have my scales weighed regularly, and they are correct. I suggest you weigh the boy." [laughter] So be careful. Now, in the New Testament there was a problem: the early churches often never guarded their pulpits, and itinerant preachers would come in from town to town in the name of the Lord. And they'd come up to the pastor and go "God gave me a message, I'd like to speak it to your congregation."

"Okay, great, man. Praise God, whatever." So they would get up and sometimes they would spew that which was false and confuse the church. And Paul didn't tolerate them. And it became such a problem that later on a manual was written, a manual of discipline, a book. It was called The Teaching of the Twelve, shortened to The Teaching, in Greek Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. And part of it---and I've got a copy of it in English at home---was how do you spot a false prophet from a true prophet? And I've always found it interesting, I found the text interesting. I wish it would be resurrected today. We'd have some interesting results.

Here's part of it: "Let every apostle that cometh be received unto you as you would receive the Lord. And he shall stay with thee one day, and if need be the next day also; but if he stayed three days, he's a false prophet." [laughter] Why? Because he's mooching off you, that's why. He's not there to minister to you, but have you just minister to him. "And when the apostle goeth forth, let him take nothing save bread till he reaches his lodging, but if he asks for money, he's a false prophet." Love to see that resurrected.

"No prophet that ordereth a table in the spirit shall eat of it, else he is a false prophet. If he that cometh is a passer-by, succor him [or help him] as far as you can; but he shall not abide with you longer than two or three days unless there be a necessity. But if he be minded to settle among you and be a craftsman, let him work and eat. But if he has no trade, according to your understanding provide that he shall not live idle among you, being a Christian. But if he will not do this, he is a Christ-monger: of such men beware."

Do you remember the first letter that Jesus wrote to---in the seven letters in the book of Revelation---was to the church of Ephesus? And he commends them for a few things, and then he says, "Nevertheless I have something against you, you've left your first love." One of the things Jesus commends them for is their intolerance of false prophets. He commended them because he said, "You have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, but you have found them liars." Now, we live in a day and age where tolerance is the paramount virtue, just tolerate everything, anything, anyone whatever they say. Tolerate it. If you're intolerant, you're evil.

Jesus commended them for their intolerance. In fact, he said, "And you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate," said Jesus. He commended them for the fact that they could discern between that which is true and that which is false. Now, I do admit that people have said that I am intolerant. And depending on who says it, I take it as a compliment. They'll say, "You know, what difference does it make if you believe in Jesus or you believe in this god? It's all the same god, it's just named different things. But it all really pans out."

Years ago in Binghamton General Hospital in the East Coast there was a rash of infant deaths in the maternity ward. Nobody knew why at first, and then they investigated and found that instead of putting sugar into the water to nourish the baby, salt was added. It was a saline solution rather than a sugar solution. It looked identical. You couldn't tell with the naked eye, but the results after being fed into the veins and into the mouths of the babies killed them. At first it might not seem pernicious, it might not seem evil, but it will work its evil through the system. And so we read so many warnings of Jesus Christ and the prophets to beware of false prophets.

So here in Deuteronomy 13 there is the admission that these people who come and speak in the name of the Lord may even have miraculous power. But consider the source, not just the force. The force is one thing, but what about the source? A man came to me today brokenhearted because his wife is going to some treatment for allergies. And he's going to some guy who failed medical school and now calls on the powers and the forces of the universe to heal his wife. He wondered, "What are these forces?" It wasn't disclosed, just forces that exist. There's so many different names to them. Whenever there's a force, find out the source. Who's doing the healing? Who's doing the speaking?

Therein is the hook; the miraculous power is often the hook that gets people. "I saw something, it's gotta be from God." Even my father was, I think, duped by supposed signs and wonders there in California at the thing called the "Hill of Hope." It's at the vortex of three Southern California counties and there is a shrine built and a meeting place built where supposedly they have these miracles from heaven. And I remember having conversations with him so often before his death. "Oh, I saw these miraculous---I saw them. I experienced these miracles. And then they spoke." And I thought, "Ah, yes, what did they say? To whom did they lead you?"

And that's what God says here, find out who they lead you to worship. Verse 6, "If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him; but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.

"And you shall stone him with stones until he dies, because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. So all of Israel shall hear and fear, and not again do such wickedness as this among you." Again, very severe, capital punishment. Now there are several instances in the Old Testament where God commands capital punishment. If there's premeditated murder---capital punishment. And there's several, there's a list of things that God said if they do this, put them to death. Why? Here's the reason: "So all of Israel shall hear, fear, and not again do such wickedness."

In other words, God says that in certain cases a punishment can be a deterrent to the crime. Now I know that what God says is in direct opposition to the opinion of the social scientists of our day. And the social scientist are sort of the elite, the erudite of society. And they say, "Well, we have studied this and we have found that capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime." I don't know where they get their research from, because I have tried to do some independent study on this looking up several sources and I found the opposite. One case in point is Singapore. You know there's really no drug trafficking in Singapore?

And drug dealers know, if you're a drug dealer, steer wide from Singapore. Don't go there. If you're caught with drugs, if a police stops you on the streets of Singapore and you're caught dealing drugs, the police can pull out a gun and shoot you. No long, lengthy court, just pow! Needless to say, there's not a drug problem in Singapore. Now you might think, "Well, that's cruel and inhuman." Then don't complain about the crime in this country. I personally---and I did a whole---I did two studies on this back-to-back. I believe in capital punishment for biblical reasons. I believe it is a great deterrent to crime.

But I don't want to get on that soapbox; it's in the text, so I mentioned it. But let's consider this: you know, God over and over again, again in chapter 18 of Deuteronomy, he's going to list again false prophets and sort of rake them over the coals again. What would be the attraction? Why would somebody leave the covenant of Israel, the Lord God, and follow and worship and serve other gods? What would be the enticement? And that's a good question, and you've gotta understand the real problem. The enticement was usually sexuality. Baal and Ashtoreth were worshiped in a sexual way. There were shrines, there were groves carved to look like phallic symbols.

There were prostitutes, and the idea is that you join yourself to a prostitute, and while you join yourself to a prostitute, you pray during the act of sex. Because Baal was said to be the one that produces life, and so you say, "O Baal, even as fertility is going on right now, make my crops fertile, my land to be productive, my family to produce." They believed that Baal was in control of the rain, the sunshine, and all the natural forces. And one of the reasons that Baal was worshiped with the symbol of the calf or the bull is because it represented male virility. And so there was a calf worship in the north in Dan and down in Samaria by Jeroboam, and it became a part of Baal worship.

Really that was the tug, that was the hook, the attractiveness. Verse 12, "If you hear someone in one of your cities, which the Lord your God gives us to dwell in, saying, 'Corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of their city, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods" '---which you have not known---then you shall inquire, search out, and ask diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination was committed among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword---utterly destroying it, all that is in it and its livestock, with the edge of the sword.

"You shall gather all its plunder into the middle of the street, completely burn with fire the city and all of its plunder, for the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever; it shall not be built again. So none of the accursed things shall remain in your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy, and have compassion on you and multiply you, just as he swore to your fathers, because you have listened to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep all his commandments which I command you today, to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord your God." So that's God's first warning against the false prophets and what to do with them.

Again, Israel really never carried this out much. You know, every now and then you would find an isolated prophet who loved God enough to do it, but for the most part they didn't do it. Now, before we go on I want to go through four tests that you can apply in your own life, four tests that you can apply to what you hear or what you see in terms of somebody speaking in the name of the Lord. So let me go through these four tests now. Four tests: the theological test, the emphasis test, the moral test, and the accuracy test. Now there are probably more tests, but these are sort of general summations from the Old and the New Testament.

First of all, the theological test: If a prophet is truly sent from God, what he says will not contradict the bulk of the Old and the New Testament. We are under the new covenant, the New Testament, but there will not be any major deviations theologically from the Old and New Testament Scripture. In Galatians, chapter 1, Paul said, "If we, or an angel from heaven, preach to you any other gospel than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." So it's a theological test. Does it match the rest of the Scripture? Secondly, there's a test of emphasis: What is the emphasis of the message of that person or the ministry of that person?

Is it to exalt Jesus Christ? Is that the emphasis, Jesus, you need to look to Jesus and be saved? Or is it Jesus plus something else, Jesus and the continuing membership in this church, Jesus and subscribing to our magazine? Also, along the same lines: Is it done in the character of Jesus Christ? Is it done with the love of Jesus Christ? Revelation, chapter 19, "The testimony of Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy." So is that the central message of that person and that person's life? Third, the moral test: What does their life testify of? Is it different from their message? Remember what Jesus said, "You shall know the false prophets by their fruits."

Every now and then somebody will say, "Well, we shouldn't judge people." Okay, then put it this way: fruit inspect them. [laughter] Does that sound better? In fact, Jesus commands us to "judge a righteousness judgment." We can't consign a person to eternal darkness, that's really what that meant in Matthew 7. We can't stand in God's place, but we should inspect the fruit of that person's life. And then, finally, the accuracy test: Does it come to pass? Is what they predict---if they say, "Thus saith the Lord, this is going to happen," does it happen? Do their prophecies come to pass?

Case in point: the Jehovah's Witnesses on several occasions predicted the coming of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. They said it would happen in 1914. It didn't. They revised their dates to 1918. That didn't happen. He said, "Well, okay, 1925," and they were wrong. And then 1931, 1941, and each time it never happened. The test of accuracy---were they accurate? No. And there's a string of things that they predicted that never came to pass. The main thing about all of them is what they say about Jesus Christ. Really that's the central issue. What did they say about who Jesus is, his life, his person, his work?

There's a great story about a guy named Victor Ernest who was a spiritist, and he was raised in a nonbelieving occultic home. He would often go to séances or conduct séances. And he came across 1 John, chapter 4. He was reading the New Testament out of curiosity. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits, to see whether they are of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world." So he decided, "I'm gonna test." So he went to a séance and the medium in the trance said, "This spirit says, 'I'll give you three questions each. You can ask me any question you want. Everybody gets three questions.' "

And it never happened before, Victor said. So he thought about his questions, and the first question is: "Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?" And there was a smooth reply from the spirit through the medium in affirmation, " 'Yes.' " He said, "Interesting." When they went around again, he asked a second question: "Spirit, is Jesus Christ the Savior of the world?" At this point the medium got agitated, and the spirit through the medium rebuked Victor Ernest for his doubt. He came around again and he finally said, "Spirit, let me ask you one final question: Will the blood of Jesus Christ shed on Calvary's cross cleanse a man from all sin?"

Victor said the medium who was in the trance was hurled from his chair against the wall and it broke the séance. It so shook Victor Ernest he left occultism and became a pastor. He went into the ministry. He saw that there was a greater Spirit. And by testing the spirits against the Scripture it shook him into reality. He tested it. Now, let's go to Deuteronomy, chapter 14, and we get into another issue we have discussed before in Exodus and Leviticus. And we're just going to touch on that as Moses recaps some of this. "You are"---I love the beginning of verse 1. "You are the children of the Lord your God."

Can you think of a higher honor than being called God's kid? What an honor: "You are children of the living God." Now, that is the premise for what he's about to say. He's about to say, "Because you're children of the living God, you have to act differently. You don't scar your body like the unbelievers, and you watch what you eat. You don't following the practices of the heathen nations." Now, what Moses is going to do is talk about some of the dietary regulations: what you can and can't eat. We know that these regulations were more than just ritual, they were to protect them physically from disease. And history bears that out.

When the great plagues swept across Europe and many people were being killed by the plague, the Jewish population largely was spared because of their practices keeping things kosher and clean. They were exempt so much that the Gentile population of Europe blamed the plague on the Jews. "They've gotta be behind it. They perpetrated it to kill us off." Of course they had nothing to do with it, but they were keeping the kosher laws, the dietary regulations of the Old Testament, and so they were spared. Now, you also show know that today God doesn't have a special diet for you.

Again, most of this was done in a day and age when we didn't have the FDA and we didn't have ways to keep meat and certain mollusks during times of the year hygienically pure. And so Moses didn't understand this, Aaron didn't understand it, but God did. So they were prohibited from eating these things for their own benefit. Today you're not holier if you eat meat or don't eat meat. If you're a vegetarian, it doesn't mean you're closer to God. I remember when I lived in Huntington Beach, I had a guy come up to me, I was on my front lawn eating a hamburger. I think it was a Big Mac. And I was looking down, I had my Bible with me, and I saw this guy. I just saw sandals and a robe.

And I looked up and I thought, you know, I thought it was the rapture. [laughter] This guy looked---he had a beard and hair and I thought, you know, who is this guy? And then he spoke and I knew he wasn't Jesus. He said, "Are you a believer?" and he said it in a very stern voice. "Yeah, I am." Second question: "Are you eating meat?" I said, "Yeah." And then he started going on a tirade on how I was going to hell because I wasn't a vegetarian and eating what is pure and on and on and on. "The kingdom of God," Paul said, "is not meat or drink; but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." Paul said everything is to be received when you offer thanks and you offer it unto the Lord.

So, "You are children of the Lord your God; you shall not cut yourselves nor shave the front of your head for the dead. For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." Heathen nations in honor of their gods or in mourning for the dead would cut themselves. There would be a self-mutilation process. And we know the prophets of Baal did this, right? In 1 Kings, chapter 18, they're cutting themselves in their wrists and having blood gush out over the altar of Baal as Elijah is watching them, and mocking them, I might add.

The Ugaritic tablets an ancient document written on stone informs us that part of Baal worship is sometimes the prophets would cut off a finger or two and throw them on the altar of Baal or Ashtoreth to appease the gods. Now God said, "You're my kids. I don't want you to act that stupid. I want you to be different from the pagans. You're not to cut yourself. You're not to be like them." And to me that brings up another interesting thing. The idea of inflicting pain to be more spiritual is something that hasn't even left the church. The idea of self-flagellation was part of the Catholic Church, and in many parts like New Mexico still is.

Martin Luther and others before the Reformation talked about climbing up stairs of stone on their knees till their knees were bloody, because God would be pleased with them, and by the act of suffering and bloodletting would forgive their sins. And today there's a group---groups in the Philippines, groups in Mexico, group in New Mexico, the Penitentes, who go through the acts of suffering, acts of crucifixion, the acts of self-flagellation, and all of that is supposedly to promote worship of God and to please God. Well, let's cover some of these in the next five minutes, the rest of this chapter, what you can and can't eat, at least what were the Jewish distinctives.

And before we do, I think that there's an overriding principle here. Sometimes we read things like what we're about to read and we ask, "What does this have to do with me?" And today, again, as a group of Gentile believers you're not called upon to keep kosher law. But there is an overriding principle, and that is, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit." Your body belongs to God. You shouldn't trash your body. You only get one. And so it is a temple of the Holy Spirit. "You are bought with a price," said Paul, "therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." So beginning in verse 3 there's a regulation on what they can and can't eat, and the quadrupeds are covered in this section.

"You shall not eat any detestable thing, these are the animals which you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat, the mountain goat, the antelope, and the mountain sheep. And you may eat every animal with cloven hooves, having the hoof split into two parts, and that chews the cud, among the animals. Nevertheless, of those that chew the cud or have cloven hooves, you shall not eat, such as these: the camel"---now I personally am not enticed to eat a camel. [laughter] This is not a problem for me. I don't take issue with God over this commandment.

I remember one time I was down in the Sinai Desert and I walked up to a camel thinking they're just fun little creatures. And I got in five feet of this thing and it just spit on me this huge camel loogie. [laughter] And after that I thought, "I don't like camels, period." I wouldn't walk a mile for a camel. [laughter] So don't eat a camel, "the hare," that is, the rabbit. Now a rabbit doesn't technically chew the cud, though because of its movements of its mouth it is classified in the cud-chewing animals. But technically to chew the cud is to put food in your mouth, chew it, bring it down, bring it back up from the stomach, chew it again so it's a complete mastication process, all the nutrients are extracted.

You bring it back down, the animal brings it back up several times, and that's the chewing of the cud. So don't eat the rabbit. "The rock hyrax; for they chew the cud but do not have cloven hooves; they are unclean to you. Also the swine is unclean for you, because it has cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud; you're not to eat their flesh or touch their dead carcasses." Two requirements to eat it: they had to chew the cud and have cloven hooves. If they had cloven hooves but didn't chew the cud, or if they chewed the cud but didn't have cloven hooves, you know, that's the general description of that which is unclean.

So the pig has a cloven hoof, divided hoof, doesn't chew the cud, so, you know, no ham sandwiches. Now, ocean life is covered. Verses 9 and 10 permission is granted to eat that which has fins and scales. "You may eat all of these that are in the waters: you may eat all that have fins and scales. And whatever does not have fins and scales is unclean to you." Things like mackerel, eels. You go, "Eww," but mollusks, you know, shellfish, shrimp, lobster, scallops, oooh, man, boil them, with butter on them---can't eat them. But keep in mind this law was given before a lot of what we know about these creatures existed.

Shellfish is great, but there are certain times of the year still today when eating those things is lethal, it's dangerous. They have to be harvested at just the right time of the year because of the poison that is excreted into their system. So now birds are covered. The prohibition covers carnivorous birds and those with unclean habits. "All clean birds you may eat. These you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard," again, we have no problem probably with that commandment, "the red kite," this is not a kite that you would fly, of course, this is a bird, "the falcon, the kite after their kinds; every raven after its kind; the ostrich"---now the ostrich is delicious. You say, "How do you know?" I've eaten one.

When I was in Kenya they served, well, they served a lot of different meats that night. They served ostrich and they served wildebeest and zebra and all sorts of different kinds of meat. And the ostrich is a very lean meat, and they're starting to grow them now for taking the place of other lean meats. But don't eat the ostrich, "The short-eared owl, the seagull, the hawk after their kinds." Verse 16, "The little owl, the screech owl, the white owl, the jackdaw, the carrion vulture, the fisher owl, the stork, the heron after its kind," and you don't eat, "the hoopoe," don't eat that hoopoe that you have at home. [laughter] And you're not to eat, "the bat."

Awww! I was looking forward to a bat sandwich. [laughter] I know, that was a fowl [foul] joke. [laughter] You say, "Wait a minute." You might read that and say, "Wait a minute. I know a little bit about these things. I know that a bat is not a bird, it's a mammal." But literally in the Hebrew the word "birds" is translated flying things so it covers all of those. "Don't eat these flying things." So, just when you thought, "Oh, I found a little loophole. I found out something wrong in the Bible." No, you didn't. "Also every creeping thing that flies is unclean." So these creeping things, these creeps that fly "shall not be eaten. You may eat all clean birds."

Verse 21, "You shall not eat anything that dies of itself; you may give it to the alien who is within your gates, that he may eat it." Now you say, "Well, that's not nice." It is good. God didn't want the food to be wasted. It was strict. They weren't to live that way, but they were even to treat the alien pagan worshiper with deference and with love. Don't let it go to waste. They might like it. [laughter] "That he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk."

Now, I gotta say this quickly. As a result of verse 21, "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk," to this today Jewish kosher kitchens have two sets of dishes: one for dairy products and one for meat. And they don't mix the milk and the meat products together because you won't "boil a young goat in its mother's milk." They have taken that to the extreme to imply, you know, that you can't mix dairy and meat together. So if you ever go to Israel, for breakfast you'll generally have grains and vegetables, sometimes cheeses, but no meat. For lunch if you have meat, there will be no dairy products with it. It's unkosher to mix the dairy and the meat together.

You say, "What does that have to do with it?" Well, the rabbinical interpretation, though most rabbis have said, "We really don't know exactly what this means. We'll never really know until we get to heaven," is that it could churn in the stomach. It goes into your stomach, the milk and meat together, and as it's digested in your stomach and churning it's boiling in your own stomach, and so God wanted---and that's a stretch. I think the prohibition was from taking a pregnant goat who still had its mother and killing it and boiling so that you might have that flesh of that fetal goat.

It was a prohibition that was a very simple prohibition, but they have concocted an entire doctrine of that which is kosher and unkosher out of that particular Scripture. Why am I bringing it up? Because people tend to do the exact same thing. The Pharisees did that. They were so pedantic over things, they were so nitpicky about so many little things that Jesus said as a joke, "You strain at a gnat and you swallow a camel." You want to strain at a gnat but everything has to be drained completely of blood so that you don't eat or drink blood, so you strain out a gnat from your food, but at the same time you swallow a whole camel, which is unkosher.

It's a metaphor. It's a way of saying, "You're missing the whole point of spirituality." And sometimes we can be so fixated on that which is nonessential that we forget the essentials. That's why Jesus said, "Why? You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. You should be concerned about justice and greater issues of the law, not just these things." Now, the tithing principles are covered in the next several verses. And you know what? We'll wait till next time before we cover the tithing verses and on to the next chapter. We'll wait for next week. Let me just close by saying that in all of these laws there's an underlying principle, and that is, God is more concerned with your heart.

Because even the law of circumcision, which delineates a Jew from a heathen, even in that covenant of circumcision commanded on the eighth day, God said, "You shall circumcise the foreskin of your hearts." Let it be something from the heart, not just the outward appearance. You can go through all of the motions, all of the outward worship, and yet your heart can be so far from God. Case in point: Cain and Abel. Cain offered his sacrifice before the Lord, and yet his heart wasn't right, and God said so. God never separates the worship from the worshiper, from the person offering the worship. You might say, "Well, I read my Bible every day. I go to church. I do this, I do that."

But what is the condition of your heart before the Lord? Do you approach God on the basis of dos and don'ts, or is there a real love. Is your heart sold out to Jesus Christ? As Tim Downs put it: "Cars and watches and Christians can all look chromed and shiny; but watches don't tick, cars don't go, and Christians don't make a difference without insides." So what does your inside look like tonight? What is your heart like? That is the key issue that God is getting at: "You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart." And if God has your heart, he'll have the rest of you, whether it's dietary regulations for the Jews or tithing regulations for his people or whatever. God wants your heart.

Additional Messages in this Series

Show expand

 
Date Title   Watch Listen Notes Share Save Buy
12/22/1996
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 1:1-33
Deuteronomy 1:1-33
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
12/29/1996
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 1:34-3:29
Deuteronomy 1:34-3:29
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
1/5/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 4:1-49
Deuteronomy 4:1-49
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
1/12/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 5:1-15
Deuteronomy 5:1-15
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
2/2/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 5:16-6:9
Deuteronomy 5:16-6:9
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
2/9/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 6:8-8:11
Deuteronomy 6:8-8:11
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
2/16/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 9-10
Deuteronomy 9-10
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
3/2/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 11-12:13
Deuteronomy 11-12:13
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
3/16/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 14:22-16:8
Deuteronomy 14:22-16:8
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
4/6/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 16:9-17:20
Deuteronomy 16:9-17:20
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
4/14/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 18-20
Deuteronomy 18-20
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
4/20/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 20-21
Deuteronomy 20-21
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
5/4/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 22-23
Deuteronomy 22-23
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
5/25/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 24-25
Deuteronomy 24-25
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
6/8/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 26-27:3
Deuteronomy 26-27:3
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
6/11/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 27:4-28:20
Deuteronomy 27:4-28:20
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
6/18/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 28:15-68
Deuteronomy 28:15-68
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
6/26/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 29-30:8
Deuteronomy 29-30:8
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
7/2/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 30:10-31:8
Deuteronomy 30:10-31:8
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
7/9/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 31:9-32:22
Deuteronomy 31:9-32:22
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Transcript Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
7/16/1997
completed
resume  
Deuteronomy 32:23-34:12
Deuteronomy 32:23-34:12
Skip Heitzig
  Listen - Mini Player
Listen and Take Notes
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Audio (MP3)
Buy CD
There are 21 additional messages in this series.
© Copyright 2024 Connection Communications | 1-800-922-1888