Laborers' Podcast- An Overview of Deuteronomy

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We hope you can join us as we dive into another book from God's Word!

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Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. Tonight we are going to do an overview of Deuteronomy.
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Hope you'll stick with us. Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast, which is a part of the
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Truth in Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things in the
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Christ. Subscribe and follow the Truth in Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and iTunes.
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Now let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. How's it going everybody?
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Fantastic. Welcome to the Laborer's Conference. I am jumping ahead of myself.
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Welcome to the Laborer's Podcast. We're always thankful for your support. We really appreciate you for your prayers, for your subscriptions, follows, helping us with the algorithms and all that fun stuff.
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We really appreciate it. Comment line is open. If you have any comments, questions, critiques, or just want to say hello, we would love to hear from you.
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And speaking of the Laborer's Conference, let me play this 30 -second video to refresh your memory that one is coming up next
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April 2024 in Knoxville, Tennessee. I just noticed
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I got a little my pictures off -center there. That's what happens when you're using your phone and you're using your fingers.
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Leave us a comment. We'd love to hear from you. I'm glad you guys are doing well. We've read it through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and now we're in Deuteronomy.
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And I know Tyler is excited about that. Right, brother? Yes, I am. I love the book of Deuteronomy. Fantastic.
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Does anybody want to give us a quick overview, an introduction, small little introduction of what we're what we're getting into now of Deuteronomy?
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Tyler, you want to start us off with that one? I'd be glad to. So, Deuteronomy is the fifth book of what we call the
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Torah, the Pentateuch, whatever fancy term you want to use. It's the first five books of the Bible. It's the last book that we have attributed to Moses.
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So this is the end of Moses' time with the Israelites, and what we've seen so far is
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God has created the world. He has selected for himself out of that world a people, being
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Israel. They have been enslaved by Egypt, and he has delivered them out of Egypt with strong hand.
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And because of their own sins, they have, instead of going into the land God had promised for them, they have wandered in the desert.
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And Moses has been with them all the way, that he has seen them at their highest and seen them at their worst.
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And now the generation that rebelled and would not go in the promised land because of their sin has died.
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So Moses is what's left of that generation, and now there is a new generation of Israelites, of young strapping bucks ready to enter the promised land.
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And so in a sense, you could say that Deuteronomy is Moses' commencement address to the next graduates of the school of Israel, that this is
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Moses' send -off, as he is reiterating the big things that they need to learn, they need to know.
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This is what God has brought us out of. This is who God has continued to be to us, despite our failings, despite our infidelities.
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God has been faithful. This is how we've seen him faithful in the past. This is the
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God that will continue to be faithful with us as we transition into this land, as you go to take this land that God is giving you, not this land that you've earned, but has been given to you.
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So remember these things. Remember this law that he gave us. Remember what he has commanded us to do, because God is faithful.
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The first question actually came from Tyler, and I'm sure he's thought through this one a lot, has a great answer.
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How does Deuteronomy serve as a conclusion element in the Pentateuch? How does
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Deuteronomy tie together the other four? One of the first thoughts that comes to my mind is promise fulfilled, talking about conclusion.
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Who wants to tackle that one? How does Deuteronomy serve as a conclusive element in the
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Pentateuch? Well, anytime...
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you want that, John? No, sir. I was looking at you. Well, anytime you've got...
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I mean, just the way that question's phrased is very Tyler -esque. It's perfect. It just brings us to understand what we're talking about and thinking about.
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So the conclusive element is, in the term itself, the conclusion.
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It's a bringing together. It's a tying up of the loose ends. It's a full -on remembrance, like we were making fun of Valedictorian speeches, right?
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Basically, this is the message, like Tyler said, to the graduating, or as we'll say in the country, the graduating class, right?
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Graduating. Them that learned how to, you know, how to cipher and read and write, but it's conclusive in that it brings it...
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it does. It brings it all together and in the form of a looking back and a looking forward.
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Agreed. What about tying the... tying the other four... helping it tie the other four together?
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You know, does it tie everything in a nice little bow? Well, we do have the completion of the books of the law, which are then placed in the
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Ark of the Covenant, and there are some sectors of Judaism in history that have stopped counting divine revelation at Moses.
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We read about the Sadducees in the Gospels, and they stopped reading after Deuteronomy.
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They only had the book of Moses, but the idea in Deuteronomy is he dies.
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He doesn't make it to the end of the book, and some of the last things we see here is his death, his burial, and placing the book of the law,
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Genesis, through this thing we call Deuteronomy, binding it together and putting it in the
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Ark of the Covenant. This is finished. I think, too, one thing that's neat about the book of Deuteronomy is it summarizes all the rest of the laws, and there's actually a few new ones, but there's the summaration of the whole law in there, and it really speaks of the justice of Israel, how justice even tithing laws and giving a tenth, and then every three years an additional tenth to the poor, and so it ties in civil laws, function laws, it's preparing them going into the
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Promised Land to where they're headed. So one reason I think that it's a good summation book, it's a summarizing of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.
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It's a summarization of that, but it's also preparation for going into pagan land, and the civil law, and the practice of that, but then it's not only a segue from that, it's really the beautiful segue into the foreshadowing of the
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New Testament, and I'm sure we'll get into that later, but going on to the New Testament in Deuteronomy 36, that Moses is saying, you know, hey, if you choose
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God, then you'll be blessed, and if you reject God and rebel, there's going to be famine, and those kind of things, and Moses gives them that choose life, you know, he pleads with them, but then what's funny, after he pleads with them, he goes, but I already know you,
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I already know your heart, and I already know you're going to rebel, and the good news is, you know, the foreshadowing of the gospel is, he says, but one day,
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God will circumcise your heart, that there's a heart problem, which one day, God will circumcise your heart, and because of what
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God does in the circumcision of a heart, you will love God and live, and so Deuteronomy is a beautiful book that ties the history of that ancient
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Israel, where they were at the foot of the mountain for a year while this is all being developed, too, that's one thing that this just didn't, even though Moses come off the mountain with those tablets, this is a process, this is a journey that they're going through in the history, too, in a year, summarization, and then there's a succession of Joshua, you know, and Yeshua, you know, and the foreshadowing that goes along with all of that, so Deuteronomy really is a cool, pivotal book,
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I think that's one of the reasons that it's such a good transitional book, a final book to the law, because it's going from now a written law,
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Deuteronomy helps it become a practiced law, it gives really clear instruction that now when you go into this promised land, this is how you're to live, and this is, and God's saying, this is how my people will be set apart from the rest of culture, so that's my opinion of why it's such a good ending summation book there.
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I think it also ties in a little bit like my favorite, and this might be a little cheesy, but like my favorite verse out of the entire, maybe a couple verses out of the entire book, is in 7, so you get to 7, and 7, the
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Lord devoted, the Lord was devoted to you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the
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Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your fathers, he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you by the place of slavery and the power of Pharaoh the king, know that Yahweh your
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God is God, be faithful God, the faithful God who keeps his gracious covenant, loyalty for a thousand generations to those who love and keep his commandments, and it goes on to talk about those who don't, but the point
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I'm getting at is it's like, and maybe it's because we're on this side of it that we know
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Joshua's coming, and we see almost like the people getting ready for a different leadership, like God's preparing them not to essentially worship
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Moses, but rather to understand that God is God, and Moses is being used by God, but God's going to raise somebody else up, and just remember where you came from, you know, this is, you didn't get here because of your own merit, you got here because I loved you, and that's it.
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Amen. This conversation makes me think of some of the questions that we get from opposition, where if God is so good, why would he do this, and they always point back to the
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Old Testament, why would he do this, why would he do that, and they point out all the taking of lives of nations, and they point those things out, but going over what you guys were just talking about,
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I mean, I'm looking at all the good that God does, keeping his promises, keeping his promises to an unfaithful people, and then he continues to do that, continues to do that, and then he saves, you know,
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Christ comes and he saves his enemies. Wow. I mean, when you get down to it, and you think about it, and you understand the text, you understand who
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God is, he's justified in what he did because of who he is, because how holy he is, but then just above and beyond that, we read and we meditate on all his goodness, and how good he was, and merciful he was to his people then and to his people now.
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Oh, so wonderful, so wonderful, and I want to say something, too. I know you guys probably would care that I did not do this, but I wanted to praise the
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Lord for you guys. I mean, we've gone down to two, now we've gone down to one viewer.
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We were up to eight viewers a few minutes ago, and I thank everybody for watching and listening later, whenever you get to watch or view it, but we were up to eight viewers at one time, and if we would have did last week's podcast live, it maybe would have brought more viewers because there's tension, we have passion and zeal about the position that we hold on certain doctrinal stances, but here we're going over books of the
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Bible, and I want to praise the Lord for the heart of you guys and your friendship and your brotherhood that you guys come back because of your commitment to God's Word, and you want to see people here and know
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God's Word, to love Him, to love the Lord, and I just I praise the Lord for you guys and what you mean to me and this ministry, and we love you,
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Rob, your love for the Lord. God be the glory. Amen. Let's hop on down to question number two.
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This is one that I added recently. Moses is giving the law a second time, which is...
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I don't know if I'm understanding the word Deuteronomy correctly. Deuteronomy means second law, so does that mean...
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I know it doesn't mean it's a second law, a different law, he's... It's a repeated law.
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It's a repeated law, right, okay. So he's given the law a second time, he's repeating it to a new generation due to the first rejecting
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God and them not being able to enter the promised land. And Moses smashing those stones. Mm -hmm, right.
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Do you see parallels with Jesus condemning the Jews and the leaders of his day, and then speaking to those who are entering the kingdom?
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Do you see parallels between what's going on here and what happened there? Well, I mean,
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I think on the surface you'd have to say, of course, because God doesn't change, right, and whatever...
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whatever attributes God has in Deuteronomy, he also has in Matthew. So I think that one of the...
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Well, I've heard it put this way. All sin is bad, but whenever there's a sin that hardens your heart, it's grievously bad.
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Whenever there's a sin that calluses your heart. When you're talking about people who live in a land of idolatry and wickedness, and they cry out for salvation, and salvation's granted.
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And then the moment that they're free, one of the first things they ask for in their freedom is for more slavery, and to go back to the land that they came from.
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Yeah. And then the moment that the man that God has given them to lead them out leaves for just a minute, it's like, hey, he's gone.
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We don't even know what happened to him. Let's take all the riches that God gave us when we left, and we got to bear in mind where they got all their gold from, and let's worship it.
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It's just stupid. Yeah. And I can see the frustration in Jesus when he says, how long will
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I have to suffer this unjust and unfaithful generation, right? And you see
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God's like, I'm going to raise a whole new people up for you to lead,
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Moses. Honestly, I don't know what
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God thinks, but I can imagine that the frustration we see Jesus explaining in the
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New Testament has to be something of the frustration he had here. Did I answer the question,
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Brother Robert? Sure, sure. Yeah, and you know, kind of what you're talking about,
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Jesus expresses to those people, you know, oh, how I wish I could have, you know, brought you in like a hen brings her chicks on her wings, you know, and then
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I think about Moses when he comes down on the mountain and they're, you know, worshiping an idol when he's just been talking to the living
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God. Yeah. You've done messed up, A .A. Ron. Oh my goodness.
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Strike one, Tyler. Oh, that was awesome. We talked about Deuteronomy being conclusive, you know, a concluding book, and then you also have a conclusion of the
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Old Covenant. You have a conclusion of the temple, the sacrifices, you have that conclusion, and then you have a new generation entering into this kingdom, kind of like you have this new generation entering into the promised land.
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Those are just some of the things that I saw as parallels. Anybody else on parallels?
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Well, if we go, if we look at the garden, we had a rule in the garden, do not eat, and when they do eat, and God speaks to Adam, his exact words are, because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and that's not a just some kind of message.
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Hang on a second. But it's that he heeded the wrong voice, and in Hebrew, the idea of listening is a nuance than in English, and that listening implies obedience.
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We go to Exodus, and when Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, let my people go, Pharaoh's response in chapter 5 is, who is
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Yahweh that I should listen to his voice? We get to Deuteronomy, and the recurring phrase among many is, listen
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Israel. Yeah. So in the garden, they eat and do not listen, but what
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I love about Deuteronomy 8 3, is that it says, he humbled you by letting you go hungry.
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Ouch. He humbled us by letting you go hungry, and then he gave you manna to eat, which you and your fathers had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
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Amen. So they don't eat, so they may listen. And you see where Jesus quotes that later on, and after,
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I mean, his wilderness temptation, right? That's what, that's the scripture that he quotes whenever he's told to turn the stones into bread.
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And you know Tyler, this obedience thing takes the correct perspective as well, because the opposition would say, he wants us to,
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I'm thinking about the debate back when Ray Comfort and and Kurt Cameron debated some atheist, and she called
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God a, I can't even say the word, mellow, maniacal, mega maniacal maniac.
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That's a mouthful. And you want us to obey him, so who, you know, who is, like Pharaoh said, who is he?
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But the perspective from the Christian perspective of the believer is, or especially the perspective from God, I believe is,
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I want you to obey me because it's for your good. I mean, you go back to the garden, and here's this command, don't eat of this fruit.
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Sure, if you disobey, you're disobeying the eternally Holy God, but if you obey, it's for your good.
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And the same thing is true when we get to Deuteronomy. This disobeying is not to be, you know, maniac or megalomaniac.
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It's for their good, if you obey God. Yeah, you're, one of these days we're going to do one of these, and we're going to discuss the differences of opinion on how you see this from a
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Calvinistic standpoint versus where I see some of this from from mine. That's not today, okay? No, we can't do that last week.
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We can't do that. Two hours last week. We can't do that. My nerves can't handle it.
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One of the things that, if we're going to mirror obedience from the garden and obedience in the wilderness, right?
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So let's take it from garden to wilderness to the
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New Testament, to today, whatever. So Tyler, well -versed as you are, what are the two commandments that we're to keep?
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Love God, love neighbor. All right, so this does what to all the law and the prophets?
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Summarizes. It keeps. It summarizes, yes, it keeps. It's disobedience and these two areas sums up all ten commandments and what it appears to be the genuine, the generic application of God's teachings throughout all of Scripture.
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Love God more than you love anything else, period. You can't love
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God enough. That's just all there is to it, and you can't be good enough to your neighbor.
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There's no law against how much you love somebody. There's only so many things.
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There's laws that don't exist for, right? Against such, there is no law.
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Where's that at? Is that in Romans? For it is all possible to live peacefully with all men. For against such, there is no law.
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Something to that effect. Rob, you're talking about how this law is for their good.
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It begs the question.
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Is God egocentric to command worship of himself, or is that the best thing for his people is to worship him?
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Amen. That's right. It's the best thing. It's the best thing. It's not like we have a God who is jealous.
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He said, I want you to worship me because I don't want you worshiping some figment of your imagination.
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No, it's the best thing for you to put God in the center of everything you think, love, and do because, for starters, he has nothing but love for you in return.
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There'll be people that you love in your life, and they genuinely love you as much as they can, and they will fail you from time to time.
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God never will. And if you don't put this at the center, if you don't worship me with all you say, think, and do, where that devolves into is exploitation, is not loving neighbor, is we start doing the things that other nations are doing.
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There's always where it goes. It's when they worship Baal, they exploit the poor and vulnerable. They do
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X, Y, and Z. It seems to come as a package deal. If they don't love God, they don't love neighbor. That's what
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I heard one commentator say. If we ever think that the law was harsh or stringent, then we should compare it to the culture of the time, their systems of law.
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When you go to the Moabites or whoever, they had their laws as well, and this one commentator said it doesn't take long if you begin to compare ancient culture law to the law of God.
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No wonder the law of God is holy. It illustrates the goodness of God, the mercy of God, the righteousness of God, most importantly, the justice of God, the justice of all people, the poor, the broken, the widows, the destitute, the orphans.
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Those civil laws are very explicitly explained in Deuteronomy.
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In other cultures, those that are destitute was normally genocide or enslaved, not taken care of, not loved, not shepherded, not they were either killed or enslaved.
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So the law of God is good. It illustrates the love of God for people in general, not just the people of Israel, but it's how the people of Israel were to treat all people.
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Remember that you were a slave one time, too, so you don't treat your people this way. That's right. There's a humbling, a continual humbling that I find comes with the law.
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Not that I say that we don't try to keep the
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Old Testament law as a form of righteousness, but rather that Old Testament law continually breaks us down because we won't keep it.
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We're not able to keep it. I think it was Spurgeon. I might be wrong.
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I'm not as read up on Spurgeon as you fellas are. The law of God can take us to the cross, and after that, it can do nothing else, or it can do no more, something to that effect.
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Was it him or somebody else? I don't know, but that's a good statement. So I read it somewhere.
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I didn't write it. So in any case, the point is that law continually pushes me towards a
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Savior who kept it, towards a Savior who loves me because it is forever highlighting my wickedness.
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It is forever showing me that I really don't love God as much as I should. Amen. You know, and I know that we're not supposed to ever say stuff like that as Christians, but I mean,
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I'm a born -again Christian who at times would rather sleep in than get up and pray and hold to a certain time of day that I need to get up and be disciplined for certain things, you know, whatever.
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So I'm curious, though, just going back to what you said earlier, how would that differ from, what do you talk about the difference between the
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Calvinist view and what you're— Oh, okay, okay. I see what you're saying. Because now you've just piqued my interest.
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I'm just curious now because I don't see, I don't hear any difference between us. Well, so whenever we talk about surrender, right,
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Brother Robert said something last week when we were talking in private. Are you okay with me mentioning this, Brother Robert? When I said something about willful—
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Sure. Sure, we'll go with it. You said, I don't think we can willfully surrender, right?
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Or something to that effect. But let me speak for you here. Go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. Am I right? I'm not misquoting you, am
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I? Yeah. Okay. I want to make sure that I'm fair. And somehow or another, how this looks,
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I can't tell you, right? But I can't see the
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Christian being freed of the obligation of obedience and surrender to God. And I'm afraid that the way, at least the way
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I understand Calvinism, that somehow or another, that is taken off the table in some form where there is no actual choice.
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You can't help but love God. Now, an argument can be made that anybody in their right mind wouldn't help but love
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God. I'll give you that. But Jesus says what, Robert, going into Jerusalem?
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How I long to gather you under my wings. But you wouldn't have me.
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You wouldn't let me. I see a savior who is desiring to see the world saved.
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But because of willful disobedience, they're not being saved. And then you see in the same exact book,
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Gentiles say, I know your God. All you have to say, heal my servant. He's healed because I understand authority.
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And I mean, to me, I've heard it said that who's stronger,
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God's will or my will. And I would say that God is unparalleled. He's unmatched in strength in any place whatsoever.
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But I can't see negating personal responsibility to surrender and to be obedient to God, at least as much so as God's given you to do.
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Well, before we go on to the next question, I'll just simply say it like this. God's sovereignty and man's responsibility run parallel to each other.
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So they're not at odds, not at all. Not at all. I agree. I think the question that I would ask,
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John. Yes, sir. It's like answering a question with a question. Like Yoda?
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There is absolutely no doubt man is responsible.
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That's right. And there is no doubt it is required repentance and required faith and required call upon the name of the
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Lord and believe in your heart. Romans 10, you know, confess with your mouth and believe in your heart.
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I think the question is, why does any man do that? And I think that's what happens between a
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Romans 3 person that no man seeks God, no man is good, no man seeks
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God. All like sheep go astray. All agree. All are short of the glory of God. What happens to us that are those people that changes us into a
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Romans 10 person that we're calling on the name of the Lord and we're believing our heart, we're confessing what happened to that guy.
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And I think that's where the sovereignty of God is inserted. So we would never negate the,
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I don't mind saying the will of man. I have a hard time saying free will, depending on the definition of it.
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I think it's one of those terms that it's a loaded term. Because to me, free will would be absence of the influence of God.
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That by my own free will, by my own ideology, by my own power, I've decided that I'm going to choose
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God. Not even John Wesley would say that. Where John Wesley would all quote
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John 6, 44, no man comes unless what? The father of God. Right. So there is this work that God does to take us from a non -seeking to a calling upon.
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And that's where the sovereignty of God comes. And it's not militant. It's not manipulative.
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It is going back to even the book of Deuteronomy, what we're talking about. It is love. It's the circumcision of the heart that God has to do.
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Because if God doesn't do that circumcision, then no man ever would. That's Romans 3.
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I'm not arguing any of that. Like I said,
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I don't know how you rectify it together. Maybe you don't either.
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I don't know. But to me, it seems very apparent that it's the desire of the
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Lord to save the whole world. But he also knows that's not going to happen. And then
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I know that he also gives eternal life by way of invitation.
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Like you said, nobody comes to the Father unless he's invited. Because to me,
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I suppose that's where it hammers out, John. Yeah. And I like to quote another
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Deuteronomy passage, the mysteries belong to God. Amen. Hear, hear. That there's things in this that we will not understand.
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All I'm saying is at the end of the day, I think for most new reformed guys, I guess
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I can't speak for all reformed guys. For most new reformed guys, it really boils down to the question.
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Even here in the book of Deuteronomy, it boils down to the question, who's in charge, us or God? God's in charge.
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That's right. And then outside of that, there's things that we flat out don't know.
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And then who does salvation belong to? Who's going to take the credit for salvation? Am I going to say, well, I saved myself?
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No, no, no, no. And I wasn't insinuating that. I know you're not saying that. Or by the grace of God, I've been saved.
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And that's where we unite wholeheartedly. So I know there's more far outs in the spectrum, but I don't think any
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Calvinistic point of view would say that it's, at least in our groups, because what you're talking about is fatalism.
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Fatalism is the removal of the will and responsibility of man. Nobody believes that.
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We're just answering the question of if a man does call on God to be saved, why?
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And the reason he does is because God's done a work. That's right. And that's it. And so I can't answer the question.
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Really, it's not answered the question in Scripture for those that aren't saved, why they're not.
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Well, the Bible says they're without excuse because they have general revelation. They're without excuse. But why they don't come?
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The Bible doesn't specifically answer that. The closest we get is Romans 9, is the potter and the clay.
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The closest we get is that. But I don't personally, I'm not a double predestinationist is what people call it.
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I'm not one that believes in God destined to hell because the Bible doesn't say that. But it does answer the question of why men are saved.
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If any man is saved, how did he come to salvation? It does answer that. It's something like Passover when there were some that were just passed over.
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And we don't really have a thought out explanation for that. It just, it is. Well, they were passed over because they were being obedient to do what
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Moses told them to do. That's right. The blood of the lamb. At the same exact time, this law that we see in Deuteronomy, anybody could keep the law with the
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Jews and become an Israelite. Right. This was not an exclusive group in the way that you weren't ever allowed in.
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You could become a Jew as long as you adhered to their teaching.
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Right. I love Isaiah 56 because it's all about that. It's about the eunuchs being grafted into the house of God for honoring his
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Sabbaths and keeping in accordance with the law that they will be brought in and given a new name.
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And I always like to think that when Philip is speaking with the
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Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 7, well, we're not told that. We are told he's reading Isaiah 53, but I honestly just like to picture that he also went down a couple paragraphs and went to Isaiah 56.
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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. About the eunuchs being brought into the house of the Lord. So we need some water.
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We need some water. Put him under. Not sprinkled.
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Not sprinkled. I mean, hold them till they gurgle.
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Just throw it out there, though, guys. I think this would be what we mentioned the other week. I think it'd be great to have a conversation sometime in the future of key words and topics that are bad misunderstandings from an
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Armenian perspective and from a Calvinist perspective. People hear the word Calvinist and they make immediate assumptions about a number of things, and I think it would be really cool at some point in time.
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I think it would really bridge a lot of unity to just unpack semantics in the languages of Zion, if you will, because in one camp, a word means one thing and another camp, a word means another thing, and then the enemy uses that for us to throw rocks at each other.
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The fact of the matter is, after we get down to the nitty gritty of it, it's like, you know what? We believe a lot of exactly the same things.
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And a lot of those misconceptions come from the pulpits. It does. Because they don't know the definitions themselves.
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Many of the folks are standing in pulpits. I think sometimes there's a lot of posturing behind pulpits to rally the troops, so to speak.
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I don't agree with it, but you can see that on...
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We'll just pull up YouTube right now and pull up some preaching. You think that's why so many contemporary churches have ditched the pulpit altogether and don't have anything up there?
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It really gets in the way of running. If you're going to start running across the stage, that's an obstacle, right?
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Yeah. We've got people that aren't exegeting Scripture, so therefore they're just giving talks and speeches, and so therefore they don't need a pulpit.
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I require notes in front of me, especially if I'm exegeting Scripture, because I am not fluent in Greek. I'm not fluent in Hebrew.
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I need to be able to read prepared notes and texts, especially for getting into those things.
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You don't see that in a lot of modern -day things. That's where a lot of bad misunderstanding is, because people are preaching agendas rather than the whole counsel of the
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Word of God. I'll give you that. I'll give you that one. If we were really preaching the whole counsel of the
40:00
Word of God, a lot of the semantics that divide us would actually begin to unify us. Nobody on either side of the aisle would ever hate the ideology of the sovereignty of God.
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If there's a real understanding of grace, no one would be confused or bow up when you preach
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Ephesians 1, that you're predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ.
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No one would bow up and attach that to an ideological position.
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It would be the Scripture is creating a joy and a security among the believer.
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Anyways, but even in Deuteronomy, we could do that. You could find those semantics and those ideologies that where people will pick and choose a topic or a word and then put their own meaning to it, and then throw rocks at everybody else that doesn't line up.
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If we just let the Word of God stand for the Word of God, then the rest of us— Where's that thing at?
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That's right. That's the truth, though. That's right. Tyler, you're talking about the pulpit. I want to hang on to that and bring it back in just a second, because I've been mulling over a question that's not on the list, listening to you guys talk.
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But before we jump out of the conversation that we were in, John, you were quoting a passage that I quoted.
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And when you were quoting what I quoted and listening to you quote it, and you were asking about Calvinism, Jesus wished that he could draw them under his wings like a hen does her chicks, but they wouldn't.
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And I'm thinking to myself, it's interesting how we view passages differently. And when you were quoting that verse,
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I was thinking to myself, man, that's such a powerful Calvinistic passage, because that answers the question right there.
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They can't. That's why we need a sovereign God. No one can. No one will.
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That's why we need a sovereign God. Well, I mean, at the same time, there were some that were, right?
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He prays in the garden, not one of them you give me I've lost. That's right. Son of perdition. So there were some that were with him.
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He looked at Israel and cried. I can't imagine.
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I can't imagine what Jesus must have felt because I'm not holy, right?
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I'm not God, right? You're talking about an infinite, omnipotent, triune being standing there looking at his baby and they're like, you know,
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I'd rather have Caesar. Yeah, it can't. It can't be something he wanted to hear.
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Just like Moses and everybody wandering around, eating manna, choking on quail, drinking water from a rock for 40 years.
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And they're like, I had I had greens and garlic and such in Egypt, you know, where they was beating me like a redheaded stepchild and working me seven days a night.
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You know, if you'd rather have you'd rather have
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Egypt than me. And it's and I still maintain that it's like the relationship
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God wants to have with his peoples is that or let me go back up and make a more definitive statement.
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The relationship God requires if he's going to have on with his people is that they love him, that they want to be with him, not that they have to be with him, but that they want to be with him.
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And and he's not he's not going to to sully himself or to or to wallow in self -pity and just accept anything less.
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Right. So. Well, just keep in mind, too, the people of Israel at that time, they were playing a very specific role in the plan of God.
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Sure. Keep that in mind. The hardness of their heart. It's very clear that God harmed their heart.
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Peter preaches on this and acts to men of Israel. So he's speaking to Israel, the men of Israel. Hear these words.
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Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders, signs that God did through him in your midst.
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As you yourself know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You speaking of men of Israel, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
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God raised him up. So this is part of the foreknowledge and the plan of God to the nation of Israel, not only to bring about the seed of Christ and bring it to preserve the seed of Christ and bring
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Christ to the world, but also be the very ones that crucified him. So it was still through the lineage of Israel that salvation came unto man.
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And so so again, I think I think the passage you're quoting speaks more of the humanity of Christ and the broken heart of Christ, of those that reject more than it does the the the will of Israel, because the will of Israel, God had a plan for them to deliver
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Christ to the cross. And so but again, we could jump into eschatology here, too, you know, which which which leads down another trail.
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But I don't think you know, I think there's a beautiful picture of of what
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God does, even in the redemption of, quote, unquote, Israel. You know,
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I mean, Romans 11 talks about that, that there's there is this heart of God toward not all of Israel is
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Israel. Israel is still Israel. There's still this heart of God that he's not going to let him go.
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And there was always a remnant, always a total lie to that. There's always a remnant that God had.
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Amen. That was his people that never turned against him, even when the whole nation rebelled following Jezebel and the prophets of Baal and all those kind of things.
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So you need to tell me 400, 400 years, the prophets didn't have an open vision. God could still talk to people who were seeking after him.
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Amen. During a time of Catholic reign and rule over the world, but they could still be a man that God would speak to through his word.
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God would reveal himself through Holy Scripture and change the hearts and lives of people in spite of whatever kind of state run universalistic apostate thing was run in Rome.
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There was always a remnant. There's never not been a remnant. Come on, my brother.
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Amen. Tyler, I want to go back to what you were talking about. What do we do with the pulpit today? And because it links back to something
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I was mulling over when I asked you guys a more practical question that's kind of outside of Deuteronomy, but it includes
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Deuteronomy as well. It's more overall question. So I see something missing.
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I see something happening here in the Old Testament. It's carried out through all Scripture. It's carried out through generations.
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And it was only in recent history that we've stopped doing this. So going back to Numbers, you see how they formatted the camp.
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You guys were talking about God being in the center of all things.
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So in the camp, the tabernacle was in the center. God was in the center. And then you have the temple and you read about them going up to the temple.
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And it's not talking about a cardinal direction. They had to go in elevation up to the temple.
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You see in the Pentateuch and in the laws where God tells them, yes, it's a copy of the heavenly tabernacle, heavenly temple, but he was so detailed and everything about the temple spoke.
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It was a visual that said something. And then you go through generations up until recently.
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I mean, when men built churches, cathedrals, where they placed the pulpit, visuals spoke.
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And in today's church economy, we remove the pulpit, we do things differently.
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We've taken away those visuals that help us, help remind us of God, remind us of the things of God.
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So is that a good thing or a bad thing that we don't use those visuals anymore, putting
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God at the center, not just metaphorically, but literally?
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So this is something I think about a lot because I have given this a lot of thought and it's something
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I'm honestly still thinking through because I love classic art. My siblings get a little tired of it sometimes, but I love
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Renaissance art, that classic stuff. I love looking at pictures of the cathedral in Canterbury.
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I've been very interested in how we return to that idea of aesthetics, of crafting things that are rooted in our theology.
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Not in the sense that our theology becomes the things, but in the sense that part of the outworking of our understanding of who
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God is, because God is beautiful. Beauty is an attribute of God first and foremost, which means that we can create beautiful things because of who we know
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God to be. I think that was part, part of the idea behind the cathedrals in the medieval period.
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I think they got away from that and it became this isolationist, this is a holy place. This is, while there is this idea of threshold when we gather in the church, it is in a sense a building.
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That we don't, this isn't, we just entered into heaven and once you step outside of the church you're back on earth.
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I think that's where it became. So that aesthetic thing has, it has caveats,
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I think. But where we've gotten in more recent age, I'm coming from more of the new spring side of the aisle.
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Claude is more like the IFB, that legalism in the form. Um, that's generally your background, right,
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Claude? No. No, I'm way off base. Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. I'm sorry.
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Claude can play the drums. There's no way he's from IFB. Yeah. That's the devil's tools.
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I thought you were coming from one of those rigid, legalistic churches when you grew up. No, it was
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SBC. It was, yeah. But I'm, my background is like the new springs and where it's all kind of loosey -goosey.
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And so you don't really have that rigid form. You don't have the church as anything but a building.
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It looks like a community center or a repurposed middle school. And while there's definitely a place for repurposing buildings, what
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I saw is we tended to lose the sight of what the church is sometimes.
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We lost the sense of the things God has given us and them having meaning and purpose.
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And it became very utilitarian. These are just things for us that they're just here. They don't really have an intrinsic purpose or meaning.
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They're just, it's just stuff. So that's honestly something
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I think I'm thinking through a bit is how do we, how do we balance that, Rob? How do we come back to that idea that we see in Deuteronomy, where everything is methodical and with a purpose?
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But how do we do that without getting into idolatry and making the church, the building, something it shouldn't be?
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Yes, right. And that comes, that comes too from, that understanding and that discernment will come from the pulpit itself too.
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And teaching right and sound doctrine and teaching our congregations how to literally, and I know this is a dirty word in some circles, think.
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And I'm serious, I mean, churches don't, pastors don't teach their people how to think.
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And so they're just taught to put it in neutral, go with the flow, flow in the spirit.
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You can't flow in the spirit without the word of God, because that's how God speaks to us.
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Right? So we got to be able to think and to discern and to draw distinctions or write distinctions and write lines between art, beauty, right?
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And architecture, architecture itself. That's it. Did I understand you correct?
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And speaking about the beauty of the, because truly, I mean, you go into some of these five, 6 ,000 year old,
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I've done, there's probably 19 ,000 year old churches. But you know, I'm being hyperbolic here, but you go into these super old cathedrals and man, it's amazing.
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I mean, they didn't have technology, but the way that they were constructed, they were constructed in such a way so that when the church sang that the sound,
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I'm going to say, you all ran me in here, did something, right?
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I mean, there was acoustic. What is the first thing you do when you walk into one of those cathedrals? There was, you do like the butler from, some of y 'all know what
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I'm talking about here. The butler from, not Billy Madison. Oh, gosh. Oh, Happy Gilmore, no.
54:57
He played, Adam Sandler played Longfellow Deeds. Anyway, he goes into the big apartment. He goes, woohoo, woohoo, woohoo, woohoo, he listened.
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Is that what you were saying? When you go into one of those big cathedrals. They understood, and this is not a sinful thing.
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Right. They understood the psychology of man and ushering in a mindset for worship.
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So the first thing you do when you walk in, pay attention to this. When you go visit one, any of the cathedrals,
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St. Patrick's Cathedrals, any of those kinds of places, the first thing you do is you look up. Everything is leading you to look upward.
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And even the echoes of the voices and everything is built with the dome shape to be upward.
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So it's supposed to be lifting you up to praise. That's right. And so it's a pretty neat thing.
55:52
Well, I think that you can take it from the exact same. Anything that you do, right, you show, essentially, you show what you worship and how you present yourself and how you, what you put your effort into.
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Right. So I'm not knocking cathedrals or I'm not giving praise to repurposed buildings.
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I'm of the mindset that a living room is as much of a sanctuary as you need.
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Right. But how you're prepared when you walk into it.
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Uh, what's Hebrew say? Hebrew says, uh. You have not come to a mountain that may be touched.
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Forsake. No, he says, uh, he says, don't forsake the gathering together. Yourself is even the much more so as you do see the day approach, which is the manner of son, even the more so as you see the day approaching.
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Oftentimes we viewed that scripture correctly by saying we shouldn't not come to church.
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We should gather together. I think that you need to be prepared before you gather together. Correct. So consider those cathedrals.
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The men that built those cathedrals, they didn't have the privilege to preach the gospel.
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They didn't have the privilege to lead and worship. They didn't have the privilege of being able to have a podcast where they could share what
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God's done in their life. What they could do is they could take some plaster, some mortar. They could take some stones and they could do their dead level best to make the most bang up building you've ever seen in your entire life.
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And it lasts way longer than they ever lived. And they could take everything that they have to do and they could do it to the glory of God and see
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God glorified in it. And the average Christian in those days was in that church for nine sermons a week.
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So the point is, it's simple. There's nothing wrong with a cathedral being ornate.
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There's nothing wrong with one being plain. Right. If your heart is set on the things of God before you walk into the back door of your church, the front door of your church or however the door is located in relation to the highway.
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Right. If you've spent some time in prayer and study before you walk in prepared to worship
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God and do nothing but worship God, you'll find you'll find him. J .C.
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Ryle said this, it does you no good to bring your bodies to church.
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You've left your hearts at home. That's good. Yeah. Just to wrap things up and bring it back to Deuteronomy real quick.
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I think the point, the same point today stands that was the point in Deuteronomy, which is
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God gave his people this information about how they should live so that they could point to the other nations of who
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God is. Amen. He's different.
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He's other. He's holy. He's better. And it's better over here. And so I think the point still stands today that we're supposed to be pointing to God in all that we do.
59:05
Same point still stands. There's a lot of questions that we didn't get to. There's a lot of questions that we didn't even have on a paper that we could have answered.
59:13
But I thank you guys for all of your input. It's a monster of a book to tackle in one hour.
59:20
It is. But I'm thankful for the conversation and praise the Lord for you guys. One thing that was brought up as we closed earlier was the promise that one was to come and he would be greater than Moses.
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And so, Pastor Jonathan, would you share with us that one that's greater that came and how we can be born again?
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Sure. I'd like for you, if you've watched this tonight, and of course, we chased a couple of rabbits.
59:58
But at the end of the day, our heart really is always to exalt Christ. I want to read specifically from the word of God that I have in front of me.
01:00:09
Deuteronomy chapter 30. I'm just going to start in verse five.
01:00:15
It says in the Lord, your God will bring you into the land that your father's possessed that you may possess it.
01:00:23
And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your father's.
01:00:29
And the Lord, your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the
01:00:37
Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and that you may live. Now, why is this important earlier in the earlier in this?
01:00:47
And we didn't get into this real specific. But I want to take us back. Deuteronomy chapter six, verse forty five.
01:00:58
This is. I'm sorry. Make sure I got my notes right. I'm sorry.
01:01:09
It's Deuteronomy chapter six, not forty five, verse four through through six.
01:01:15
And it says here is where the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord, your
01:01:20
God, with all your heart, with all your soul. All your mind and these words I command you today shall be on your heart.
01:01:27
You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up, you shall bind them aside on your hand.
01:01:38
They shall be on the front. What's between your eyes? You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.
01:01:45
So here is the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord, your God. So this is the commands of God.
01:01:50
This is exactly what God commanded. This is what God completely expects of all people is the demand and the command of God is to love the
01:02:02
Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Well, there's a problem because in humanity, mankind has clearly broken that law.
01:02:13
We have all broken that law because there are days, there's moments, there's seconds.
01:02:19
But I'm not loving the Lord, my God, perfectly with all my heart, soul, and mind.
01:02:24
That I love money or I love myself or I love things in the world or I have affection or lust of the eyes or lust of the heart, murder in my heart.
01:02:35
There's multitudes of things that do the very opposite of loving God and loving something else.
01:02:43
And the Bible tells us that when we love something else, James chapter four says, I know that the love of the world, the love of the things of the world, this is enmity with God.
01:02:52
This makes us enemies with God. James even writes, he says, now you adulterous people.
01:02:57
Now I'm an adulterer on the one that I'm supposed to be loving. I've committed infidelity spiritually with something else because the command of God is to love him and no other.
01:03:08
He is the Lord. He is one. And I'm to love him and him alone. So when
01:03:13
I fail in that, that's what we call sin. And when I sin against the one that I'm commanded to love, who loves me first.
01:03:21
And yet I have committed infidelity. I've committed spiritual adultery. Then the consequences of adultery in scripture is death.
01:03:31
It is stoning. It is death. The law says those that are adulterers should be stoned.
01:03:37
And those that practice these things, they'll have no life. And so the reality is spiritually,
01:03:44
I have committed spiritual adultery. I have sinned against the one who loves me, who commanded that I love him.
01:03:50
I have loved something else. Therefore, the consequences of that is death.
01:03:56
And that's what Paul's talking about. The wages of sin is death. And so the reality is we're spiritually dead before a holy
01:04:03
God. We're spiritually dead against the one who has loved us, who give us his law. But by the law, now
01:04:09
I have learned that I have sinned. And what hope do I have? One of my favorite chapters in the
01:04:15
Bible is Romans. The favorite book in the Bible really is the book of Romans. In Romans chapter 7, Paul talks about this law within us that I want to love
01:04:23
God, but the thing or want to do good before God. I want to do things right. I want to love God, but then I can't seem to love
01:04:28
God. And the things I don't want to do, it seemed to, I continue doing the things I want to accomplish. I can't seem to quite accomplish.
01:04:35
Who will save me from this wretched man that I am? And that's a serious thing, because here the writer
01:04:41
Paul in Romans 7 is remembering the law of God and how unrighteous he has been and failing in the command to love
01:04:50
God with all his heart, soul, and might. What hope does a man have?
01:04:57
This wretched man that I am, what hope do I have? Well, we read it a few minutes ago.
01:05:03
God told us in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6, I've commanded you to love me, but your heart was hardened.
01:05:10
You loved other things. So God says, I'm going to do something about it.
01:05:16
In Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 6, we've already read it, but I want to bring it back full circle now. He says this, and the
01:05:21
Lord your God will circumcise your heart. Amen, amen. Lord your
01:05:26
God will do a work on this hardened heart that's become calloused with the love of the world. He's going to do a work to circumcise that heart and to take away that heart of stone, as Ezekiel wrote, this dead heart that has been an adulterer.
01:05:43
He's going to do this work to make us aware of our sin. He's going to make us aware of the hopelessness, and we will find ourselves in the place that the apostle
01:05:53
Paul was in Romans 7. Who would save me, this wretched man that I am, this lawbreaker, this
01:05:59
God hater, the one that is enmity with God, the one that the wages of sin is death. That's right, the wages of sin is death.
01:06:09
But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus, for he will circumcise that heart, awaken us to our sin, and we'll recognize the wretchedness.
01:06:21
Who would save this wretched man? Thanks be to God, Jesus Christ. This is the work of God that's going to take wicked, sinful men like me, like my brothers here, like you that is watching, that has a heart of stone, that loves the world, that's broken this law of God, that commands every man to love him as he loves us.
01:06:43
He commands every man to that. We've broken that law. We're under the condemnation of God. But then he says,
01:06:48
I don't want to leave my people in condemnation. I'm going to circumcise their heart. I'm going to awaken them to their sin, and I'm going to provide my son who will pay for their sin, that the wages of sin is death.
01:07:00
But Christ will pay that wage. He will pay that penalty. He will be the perpetuation.
01:07:06
Fancy way of saying he will satisfy this law that requires you to die because of your sin.
01:07:13
Jesus says, I'll pay you that. And so therefore, Jesus went to a cross, died that our sin could be forgiven.
01:07:22
It satisfied the law. It satisfied the expectation of God. So therefore,
01:07:28
God, who is just, the just God did not ignore our sin. The penalty of sin is paid for the just God.
01:07:36
Now then becomes through Christ, our justifier that for all that believe on Christ in the sufficiency of the cross, all that believe on him shall be saved because this just God did not ignore our sin.
01:07:50
And through Christ that you and I become justified speaking clearly by Christ, for those that believe on him, you are not guilty of the law anymore.
01:08:01
You are forgiven and you are redeemed. And now you are reconciled.
01:08:06
Amen. Hallelujah. My meeting with you tonight was believe on Jesus because you are a lawbreaker just like we are.
01:08:14
And apart from Christ, you are under the condemnation of God. But in Christ, there is redemption and forgiveness and hope.
01:08:25
And there's a promise that for all that are in Christ, Romans chapter eight verse one says, therefore, there is no condemnation for those justified and not guilty.
01:08:35
And he'll save these wretched men that we are. He will save us from our sin, save us from this condemnation.
01:08:43
He will save us from this wrath. So we would plead with you tonight, believe on Christ and be set free from the condemnation of the law and walk into the grace of God.
01:08:53
Amen. Big John, will you close us in prayer? With pleasure.
01:09:01
Father, we come to you in Jesus name. Only allowed to come to you because the gospel that our brother spoke of.
01:09:08
Lord, I want to thank you. God, I want to thank you for saving my soul. Lord, I want to thank you for paying for the debt of sin that I earn.
01:09:18
Lord, it's my prayer that all those who listen to the gospel presentation tonight would put their faith and their hope in you and you alone.
01:09:25
That you'd give an ability to love you. That you'd let us love you more than we do right now.
01:09:31
God, that we might be more like you tomorrow than we were today. I pray that you bless these men on this podcast and the men inside this network.
01:09:38
Lord, that you move them, that you move on them, that you minister through them. Give them an opportunity to share the gospel to everybody that they have come in contact with.
01:09:47
Empower them by your Holy Spirit to do it in such a way that conviction is brought. That somebody might be saved,
01:09:53
God. I pray that everything that is done with every word, with every letter, with every pen stroke, key stroke, that everything that's done is done to give you glory and honor because you're worth it.
01:10:05
You're worth it. I love you so much, Lord. I'm so thankful for you. It's in Jesus name I pray.
01:10:11
Amen. Amen. Thank you everybody for watching. The Laborer's Podcast. We hope to see you next time.