Scripture: Deuteronomy 18:9-22
Video Link: https://youtu.be/auVnpWoDedM
Structure:
- Introduction
- Choose a future with hope
- Listen to God’s prophet
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
What would you give to know the future?
If you knew exactly when an earthquake or fire was going to destroy your property, you would get insurance cover for that period, but you wouldn’t bother getting cover for the rest of the time.
Likewise, if you knew someone was going to be involved in a car accident tomorrow, you would hide their keys and keep them home for a day.
What would you give to know the future?
Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy, focusing on chapter 18. In this passage Moses deals with the question of how God’s people are to manage themselves in the face of an unknown future. From Deuteronomy 18, verses 9-22 we read…
9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. 10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord; because of these same detestable practices the Lord your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God. 14 The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, the Lord your God has not permitted you to do so. 15 The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the Lord our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” 17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.” 21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
There are two halves to today’s message: The first half is about choosing a future with hope. And the second half is about listening to God’s prophet. Let’s start by choosing a future with hope.
Choose a future with hope:
Another question for you to consider: Is the future fixed?
There are some who believe the future is fixed and there’s nothing we can do to change it. These people think the future is up to fate.
Believing the future is set in stone comes with a number of problems. For one thing, it undermines hope and creates a sense of apathy or despair in the person who thinks this way.
If you really believe the future is pre-determined and there’s nothing you can do about it, then you will be inclined to care less. A fixed future is devoid of any ethical considerations. If I can’t change the future, then my actions in the present don’t matter. I may as well do whatever makes me feel good. You become reckless and lose your sense of responsibility. A rebel without a cause.
At the other extreme, there are those who don’t believe the future is fixed at all. They think we create our own future. These people have a strong belief in themselves and their own abilities. They tend to be quite driven or intense.
If you really believe the future depends entirely on you, then that’s a lot of pressure. That comes with heaps of worry and not much peace. Human beings need some freedom but total freedom is a terrifying thing. If you go sky diving you don’t want to be free of your parachute, that would be disastrous.
The person who believes the future is totally on them tends to take on too much responsibility. They don’t leave room for God to do something unexpected.
Just as there is no hope in thinking it is all up to fate, there is no real hope in thinking it is all up to you either. Because when you fail yourself, and everyone does fail eventually, you have no safety net.
We are asking the question: is the future fixed? Somewhere in the middle of the spectrum are those who answer both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Some things are fixed but not everything. We can have some influence over the future, but there are other things we have no control over and simply have to accept.
Hope is the capacity to imagine a better future, a good future, the best is yet to come. If you believe the choices you make matter in shaping the future, but that it doesn’t depend entirely on you, that ultimately God will work it all for good, then you have hope.
There are of course those who might say, I don’t know whether the future is fixed or not. That might be because they are too lazy to wrestle with the hard questions. Or it might be because the future has ambushed them and they are not sure of anything at the moment.
Deuteronomy believes that ultimately God is in control of the meta-narrative of human history, but the choices human beings make still influence the course the future takes. God uses our choices in shaping the future. To obey God, in faith, is to choose abundant life. To receive Christ, in faith, is to choose a heavenly future, beyond this life.
In verses 10-11 of Deuteronomy 18, Moses lists several things the Israelites are not to do. No divination, no magic, no witchcraft, no child sacrifice, no consulting the dead and so on. This list illustrates the sorts of things people sometimes do in order to try and know the future or even control the future.
There are still people today, in New Zealand, who do this kind of stuff. People who try to predict the future by reading tarot cards or tea leaves or the stars. Or, maybe they try to control the future by casting spells or sacrificing the wellbeing of their children in order to pursue a love affair or some other fantasy.
These people either believe the future is fixed and cannot change or they believe they create their own future. Either way, their hope is not in God. The Lord hates all this witchy poo stuff because it is based on a lie and it destroys people’s capacity for hope. It’s takes away people’s freedom. It is not good for the human soul.
There may be some here who have dabbled in this sort of thing, or maybe you’ve got in over your head. Perhaps you were at a fair ground one day and out of curiosity you got your palm read by Madam Zelda. Or maybe you were grieving for a loved one and went to a medium to try and contact them. Or perhaps you and your friends had too much to drink one night and tried a séance. Or maybe you’ve done worse.
Does this mean you are excluded from God’s people forever? Is there no hope for you? Well, not necessarily.
Your future is not yet set in concrete. You have some influence over your future. You can choose not to do that sort of thing anymore. You can choose life and trust your future to Jesus. God, who loves you very much, has the power to deliver you from your past.
The message of Deuteronomy is summed up in verse 13, which reads…
You must remain completely loyal to the Lord your God.
We must not divide our loyalty between God and anything else. We can’t say, in God we trust, and then rely on horoscopes or gazing into a crystal ball.
Verse 13 is another way of saying, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. This is how we choose life and a future with hope for ourselves.
Okay, that’s first part of our message, choose a future with hope. The second part is about listening to God’s prophet. God, in his grace, provides an alternative to airy fairy magic. God is willing to reveal the future through his chosen spokesperson.
Listen to God’s prophet:
In verse 15 of Deuteronomy 18, Moses says: The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him.
Israel did not need to go to a medium or a spiritist to find out the future. God sent his own messenger. In fact, God raised up a series of prophets throughout the Old Testament who spoke His messages to the people as they needed it. Men and women like Samuel, Deborah, Nathan, Isaiah, Huldah, Micah, Jeremiah, Amos, Ezekiel, Daniel and so on. These prophets had a special role in keeping the nation accountable to the Law and their covenant with Yahweh.
In a healthy democracy the government’s powers are not concentrated in one person or one institution. Rather, power is separated, so the people who make the law are not the same as the people who enforce the law or decide disputes.
Traditionally, a democracy has three official institutions:
There is the legislature, which is the people who make the laws (for example, our Members of Parliament).
Then there is the judiciary, which are the people who adjudicate disputes (the courts and the judges).
And thirdly, there is the executive, which are the people who enforce the law (that would be the police).
There is another (unofficial) institution known as the fourth estate. We call it the news media; that is, journalists or the press. It is the job of the news media to report the facts concerning parliamentary, police and court proceedings, in a balanced and unbiased way, keeping the governing authorities accountable.
In some ways our modern democracy, with its four estates, has its roots in the structure of government Moses prescribed for Israel. Yahweh (and Moses) recommended a separation of power in government.
Yahweh gave the Law through Moses. Judges were appointed in a democratic way to adjudicate disputes between people. And the Levites and priests had a role in enforcing the law.
The king (as we heard last week) was an optional extra. It wasn’t his job to make the law. His main job was to be a good example in keeping the law. He might also support the judges and the priests in making sure justice was done.
But it was the role of the prophets to be the fourth estate. The prophets were like credible investigative journalists who reported the facts in order to keep the king, the judges and the priests accountable to God’s law. Staying loyal to Yahweh was the key to life and a future with hope.
Now, in using this analogy, I do not mean to imply that journalists today are the contemporary prophets of our world. God can choose whoever he wants to be his spokesperson.
We might also think of God’s prophet as a doctor, diagnosing illness in the nation. If you have diabetes, you don’t want the doctor fudging your results and saying you will be fine. You need to understand clearly what the problem is and how best to manage your health going forward, so you have a future with hope.
Likewise, if God’s people are losing their saltiness and conforming to the pattern of this world, then they need God’s prophet to diagnose their spiritual illness and prescribe the right treatment to restore them.
Asking the prophet for advice was sort of like phoning a friend. If something was amiss and the king or the priests or the judges were unsure what to do next, they could inquire of God through his chosen prophet.
Of course, the prophet also passed on messages from God when no one had asked for his input. Like when the prophet Nathan confronted David after the king had murdered Uriah and committed adultery with Bathsheba.
God’s prophet was a friend to Israel, but he (or she) was not in the king’s pocket. The prophet was a step removed, operating outside official government channels, able to give an unpopular minority report.
In verse 18 of Deuteronomy 18, the Lord says concerning his prophet, I will put my words in his mouth. This naturally raises questions for us: how did God do that? How did the Lord communicate with the prophets?
Reading through the Old Testament we notice the Lord spoke to the prophets in a variety of ways. It appears that God spoke to Moses and Samuel in a clear, audible voice. Other prophets, like Daniel & Ezekiel, received dreams or visions. Some may have interacted with angels. Elijah heard God not in earthquake, wind or fire but in a still small voice, like a whisper.
I’m not a prophet. I can’t tell you what the future holds specifically. I don’t know when the war in Ukraine will end. Nevertheless, there are times when I sense the word of the Lord has come to me. Not in an audible voice as such. More like a thought planted in my mind.
I know the thought is not my own because it is a better quality thought than the usual rubbish that flows through my brain and it is not a thought I’ve had before. It hasn’t come from any book I’ve read or any TV show I’ve watched.
It is new to me and it feels whole. It fits for the circumstances I’m in. Like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, it creates connections and makes sense of other things. God’s word brings order to my thinking.
When the word of the Lord comes, I have to take myself off somewhere quiet and write, because writing helps me to listen to the virgin thought.
There are times when I’m preaching in church and a stillness comes over the congregation. A kind of holy hush. (I’m sure it happens for other preachers too.) The traffic noise dies down, the rustling of lolly wrappers ceases and people stop coughing or whispering among themselves. I love those moments. In that stillness it seems to me the word of God is at work among us, in our hearts.
I believe the word of the Lord can come to any Christian believer, just not always in the same way. God made us with the capacity to receive his word, to sense his presence touching our spirit.
We cannot control when or how the word of the Lord comes but when it does come we need to pause and listen. Receive it into ourselves.
I wonder how the word of the Lord comes to you.
As God’s spokesperson, the Lord’s chosen prophet held quite a bit of influence in Israel. So there would inevitably be a few pretenders for the role, despite the severe punishment for taking the Lord’s name in vain. How then could you tell who was a bona fide, God authorised prophet and who was a fake? Well, there were three main tests…
Firstly, a true prophet of God speaks in the name of Yahweh and not in the name of some other god. Secondly, the message they preach comes true. And thirdly, they don’t say anything that contradicts the Law of Moses.
The first test, speaking in the name of Yahweh, is the test of clarity. Reading tea leaves or interpreting the entrails of a bird are pretty ambiguous and unclear signs. In contrast to this, the Lord’s prophets are clear about who they represent and what their message is.
Although the poetry and signs of the prophets of old may seem strange to us, their metaphors were not difficult for the people of that time to decipher, even if the prophet’s message was difficult to accept.
John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, was very clear in his message of repentance, calling the religious leaders of his day a brood of vipers. Despite this clarity, many religious leaders hardened their hearts and chose not to believe John’s testimony concerning Jesus.
The second test, proclaiming a message that comes true, indicates the prophet’s words are verifiable. God’s messages are ‘evidenced based’, in other words. The truth of God’s word is worked out in human history.
We know Jeremiah was legit because his message came true in history. While other self-proclaimed prophets at the time were saying, “Don’t be afraid of Babylon, God will save Jerusalem”, Jeremiah was giving the very unpopular message of, “Don’t resist Babylon, you can’t win”. God upheld Jeremiah’s words because Jeremiah’s words were actually God’s words.
Centuries later, Jesus (like Jeremiah) wept over Jerusalem when he could see history about to repeat itself. In Luke 19, Jesus predicted the Romans laying siege to the holy city and destroying it. This happened, as Jesus said, in AD 70.
There is a small catch with the verifiable test though. Sometimes true prophets are killed before their predictions can be verified.
The third test of a true prophet, that their message does not contradict the Law of Moses, is the test of consistency. God’s word is consistent. God does not contradict himself.
Jesus criticised the religious leaders for making their man made rules more important than God’s Law. The Pharisees had become so bogged down in the details they couldn’t see the wood for the trees. They were more loyal to their own tradition than they were to God himself and so, like the true prophet he is, Jesus called them out on their blindness.
As you have probably deduced by now, Jesus is the ultimate prophet to succeed Moses. Jesus fulfils the Law and the prophets. Through faith in Jesus, we can know the truth from God and we can choose a future with hope.
Does that mean then, that we have no further need for prophets? Well, no. In his letters to various churches the apostle Paul writes about the gift of prophecy. For Paul it was one of the more important spiritual gifts.
Of course, if someone claims to bring a word of prophecy, we (the church) still need to test that word and discern together if it is legitimate. The threefold test is similar. A true prophet speaks clearly in the name of Jesus. Their message is verifiable and it is consistent with the teachings of Jesus.
The Spirit of Jesus is a Spirit of grace & truth, so we would expect the prophets of Jesus to embody the same Spirit of grace & truth.
Conclusion:
At the beginning of this message I asked the question: What would you give to know the future?
A better question to ask is: What would you give to know Jesus?
I say that’s a better question because Jesus is the future, the eternal future. Jesus is the goal of humanity. He is our hope. If you want to know the future, get to know Jesus. Most of us know Jesus to some degree but none of us knows him completely or fully yet. May we grow deeper in our knowledge of and trust in Christ.
Let us pray…
Father God, we thank you for not leaving us in the dark. We thank you for revealing your will to us through Jesus. We thank you too for offering us a future with hope. May you empower us by your Spirit to be completely loyal to Christ, for your glory and our own salvation. Amen.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- What would you give to know the future? What is it you would want to know and why?
- Where would you place yourself on the spectrum between a fixed future and a fluid future? What are the implications of thinking the future is fixed? What are the implications of thinking we create our own future?
- How do we choose life and foster a future with hope?
- Why does Moses outlaw discerning the future through magic, reading omens, consulting the dead, etc.?
- Has the word of the Lord ever come to you? What happened? What did the Lord say? How did you respond?
- How might we test / know whether a prophecy is true or not?
Tawa Baptist 