Deuteronomy chapter 18. This
is where we quit at a few, well, it's been several weeks ago now. We looked at the first portion
of chapter 18 in Deuteronomy, and let's look tonight at verses
9 through verse 14. Deuteronomy chapter 18, and begin
reading here in verse 9. And when thou art come unto the
land, which the Lord your God giveth thee, you shall not learn
to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall
not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter
to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or
a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, Newcomancer. The only time before as I know
that we have ever read that word is in the Bible. A strange word,
isn't it? For all that do these things
are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations
the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shalt
be perfect with the Lord thy God. For these nations which
thou shalt possess hearken unto the observer of times, and to
diviners. But as for thee, the Lord thy
God hath not suffered thee so to do." Now the nation of Israel
were a special people, weren't they? A special people. The Lord called them a special
people to Himself. He had chosen them. He had redeemed
them. He had called them out of Egyptian
bondage, that awful bondage, and he was here bringing them
unto this land, a land like they had never known before in all
their lifetime, a land that he said flows with milk and honey. The only land that they or any
of their forefathers ever had a deed to, as far as we know,
was the little field that Abraham bought with a little cave at
the end of it. Remember that? He bought it to
bury Sarah in. And that's the only land any
of these people ever had a deed to. But now the Lord is bringing
them here to this land, and it's a land, He said, that vineyards
already planted, wells already dug, houses already built, mountains
fertile soil, a land like they had never known, And he tells
them here in verse 9 that he had given them this land. It was a gift. It was a gift
to them. When thou comest to the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee. So what a blessed people
the children of Israel were. Blessed of their covenant God.
And we are told in this passage here in our text that as they
lived in this new land, There was but one absolute authority
that they were to hearken to. In their utmost private lives
at home, in their private worship, in their most public business,
in secular affairs, in public worship, they had one authority
that they were to hearken to. And that was the authority of
the Word of their covenant God. That which was already written,
that which Moses was writing and what his holy prophets would
speak unto them, God's Word, that was their only authority,
what was written. And he tells us here in verses
10 and verse 11, he lists some sins that the children of Israel
weren't to tolerate when they got into the new country, the
new nation. And it had to do with idolatry.
It had to do with silly magical things. It had to do with fortune-telling,
worshiping the stars, and all of this stuff. But let me just
quickly go through this list. You'll find it here in verse
10 and verse 11. To give you some definitions
to these words, some of them overlap the definition, but he
tells us there in verse 10, Thou shalt not be found among
you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through
the fire." Now, there's two ways that this happened. We've studied
it, I think it's in the tenth or twelfth chapter of Deuteronomy.
One way they made the children to pass through the fire was
literally. They had a God by the name of
Molech, and they literally sacrificed their children to this God, literally
burned them in the fire. When we were down in Mexico,
they had some huge fire pits there. On the walls of the sides
of those buildings, the smoke had so ingrained into that rock,
it was still there. After hundreds of years, you
could still see it. And the rumor was that they often burned human
sacrifices there in those places. That happened with this strange
God. Another way they made the children
pass through the fire, they'd build pits and had a little walkway
between these pits of fire and a priest would lead these children
through between these pits of fire and that was a dedication
to the false god. So he warns them against this
and tells them not to hearken to such silly things as this
offering the children to these gods in the fire. And this word
here, divination, in verse 10, that uses divinations, Webster
in some of the other dictionaries tells us this, that it's a foretelling
future events. Our discovering things secret
or obscure by the aid of superior beings or by other than human
means. They think they have this special
power of telling future events. That's a portion of the meaning
of that. And he tells us also here, the observer of times. Now, you and I know something
about this. If you get your newspaper and
it has a horoscope in it, and it tells you on there your sign,
whatever sign you were born in it, then it gives you out from
that the little definition of what your days should be like.
It's always good, isn't it? Can you imagine the number of
people that have read the horoscope? And you're going to have a blessed
day. And they die? It's always something good, isn't
it? But that's what this observer of times means, predicting events
by observing the planets. Getting the planets lined up.
Then the words here, we have enchanter. And the definition
of that, one who has spirits or demons at his command. One
who practices enchantment or pretends to perform surprising
things by the agency of demons. And then, of course, there you
have in the next one, the witch. That's usually a woman that practices
magic and can cast spells. Then charmer. That's the act
or thing or word or phrase that is supposed to have magic power
to do good or evil. Then, consulter with familiar
spirits. We see this often in our day,
don't we? You can find it sometime on these programs, these silly
programs where someone is pretending to be talking to a departed spirit
and they conjured them up and they're asking them, how are
they and what do you want to say to your loved one here? Well,
that's what these consulters with familiar spirits are. The
definition says, one who seeks to talk to the spirits of the
dead or to other spiritual beings such as angels. Then, of course,
we have here a wizard. That's one who pretends to have
special knowledge and magical power. Then this word decromancer,
one that interrogates the dead to get information. And here's the common trend you
see in all of these things, that it's idolatry, that it's silly
superstition. It's devil worship, it's planet
worship, and it's geared to excite the flesh and to appeal to the
flesh. And verse 14 of our text tells
us that these nations hearkened unto these types of people. They listened to them. They paid
them for their advice. And they hearkened. They hearkened
to them. And here in verse 12, Moses says
two things about these sins that Israel needed to remember. Look
here in verse 12, what he calls them. Look what he calls these
sins. For all that do these things
are an abomination to the Lord. They are an abomination. That
is strong, isn't it? That word means disgusting. They are disgusting to the Lord.
They are an abhorrence to the Lord. They are vile and they
are filthy. They are an abomination to the
Lord. Now, that's one of the strongest words that we find
in the Bible, abomination. And look what else he says about
it in the last portion of verse 12. It was because of these abominations
that the Lord thy God drove them out from before thee. They lost this country. These
seven nations lost the land of Canaan because of these abominations
that they committed. God's judgment came upon them,
and the reason He told them this, He wanted them to remember that,
didn't He? These are no little petty things
that can be swept under the rug and not given heed to. These
are abominations, and for this cause the judgment of God came
upon them. Now, let's spend some time on
a couple of things here. In verse 9, look at this in verse
9. And here's what he tells them.
Here's the instructions he gives them. When they are coming to
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn
to do after the abomination of those nations. You shall not
learn to do these abominations. Now, there's nothing wrong for
them learning. about these abominations, that
they might hate them the more and warn others about it. But
His meaning here is it, you shall not learn to practice these things. Don't learn them that you may
do it. Now, what would be involved in learning to practice these
things? If somebody was going to a prophet, a false prophet,
or somebody else was going to get among the children of Israel
and teach them to practice these things, What would be involved
in doing that? Well, the first thing that would
be involved is this, a diminishing of this absolute authority and
plain teaching that we just read here in Deuteronomy chapter 18
of the exceeding sinfulness of that practice. If you're going
to teach how to commit and how to practice these abominations,
the first thing you would begin to do was diminish the validity,
diminish the authority of this Word of God that forbids the
practice of these things to begin with. Call into question the
infallible rule of Holy Scripture. Say this as the devil did, Yea,
hath God said? Are you sure that He even said
these are abominations? Are you sure that that's even
what He meant? And even if you are, is this
relevant for our day? After all, once they got over
in the land of Canaan for a few hundred years, they began to
look back upon this as being old, didn't they? The old Scriptures. Can you imagine being in the
land of Canaan for quite some time, and some false prophet
rose up to try to teach these things. And some people were
getting excited about it, because these things excite the flesh.
That's why people are drawn to them. That's why they make movies.
Remember the little person that was caught up to heaven a while
back, a year or two ago, and said he sat there on Jesus' knee
or something, And it came back to this earth. And they made
a big movie. And that was one of the best movies ever made,
they said. People crowded into Europe because they believed
that, you see. These things excite the flesh.
So can you see some false prophet beginning to teach some of these
things? Telling the future. And some old saint of Israel
rising up and says, well, here in Deuteronomy chapter 18, We're
told not to give heed, not to hearken to you fellows, that
this was abomination in the eyes of God. What would that fellow
say then? Well, the false prophet would
say something like this. That old stuff? That's old. I'm telling you about something
that's new. I'm telling you about something
exciting. And this old man wants to talk about something that
somebody said a thousand years ago. That would be a way to diminish
the Word of God. But if they're going to teach
these things, one of the first things they've got to do is begin
to diminish this infallible Word that teaches contrary to these
things. You know, one of the reasons
I think we have so many, so many different versions of the Bible
today. What's the consequences of having all these versions?
There's a lot of people who throw up their hands and say, who can
know the truth? Do we even have a Bible anymore? We do, don't
we? God has preserved His Word. This
is the very way Satan overcame our parents in the beginning,
wasn't it? He overcame them by casting doubt
upon the validity of God's Word. The truthfulness of it. The trustworthiness
of it. Yea, hath God said. But you know,
when the Lord Jesus came, that's the very way He overthrew the
devil, by trusting in the validity of God's Word, the truthfulness
of it. Three times Satan came in him, and three times he says
it's written. It's written. It is written.
And three times he defeated him. Can you imagine the way the Lord
Jesus could have defeated the devil? He could have pointed
that holy finger at him. Could he not? He cast out devils
with his finger, the Bible says. He could have pointed his finger
at him and said, shut up. And man, Satan would have zipped
that lip and he would not have said anything else. He would
have trembled. But he didn't do that, did he? He could have
called for the elect angels to come down and chased him away. But he didn't do that. How did
he do it? By taking this old, old Word that was written two
or three thousand years before this, and says, It is written. And you know, all three of those
places He referred to is in the book of Deuteronomy. It's there
in the book of Deuteronomy. So if you were going to teach
the children of Israel to commit all of these sins and to become
involved in them, the first thing you would need to do is begin
to diminish the authority, the Word of God, that says you shall
not do these things. And then, boy, when you can do
that, the door is wide open, isn't it? The door is wide open. So that's the first thing, if
they were going to teach, they were going to learn to do after
the abomination of the heathen. And secondly, not only by diminishing
the credibility, the validity of God's Word, But secondly, by diminishing
the exceeding sinfulness of this practice. And how would they
do that? How would they diminish the exceeding
sinfulness of this sin? Well, for one thing, you could
quit calling it an abomination, couldn't you? Don't call it an
abomination if you call it that. Tack up your little posters down
at the supermarket and say we want to teach you how to commit
abomination? Nobody's going to come and learn that, so you're
going to have to change some names, aren't you? You've got
to put a new face on these things and take off this edge. Don't even call it sin. Call
it something else. Don't call it demon worship.
Call it an alternative mode of worship. You know people have
got things like that now. Alternative mode of worship. We used to have a, when we used
to get Muncie paper, there was a universal Unitarian church
in Muncie. And I often noticed their ads. And their ads said, Are you tired
of these old donors? Have you grown weary with people
telling you what to believe and how to live your life? Well,
come and worship with us. We'll demand nothing of you.
And they didn't. They didn't. Begin to diminish the exceeding
sinfulness of sin. Put a new face on it where it's
not quite so bad. Make it in an alternative mode
of worship. The Scripture calls homosexuality
sodomy. Did you know the Scripture called
it that? And we know why they called it that. That's what they
practiced down in Sodom. The judgment of God came upon
them because of it. So they began to use the word
and applied it to homosexuality as sodomy. Why do we call it
today? The gay community. Boy, that's
a big stretch, ain't it? The gay community. The Scripture
calls it unseemly and shameful, and they call it an alternative
lifestyle. The Scripture issues a solemn
warning and a woe against those who kill the unborn, woe be to
him that taketh the reward to slay the innocent person. And
what do we call those places today where they do that? Planned
parenthood. Ain't that amazing? I'm just
saying you've got to change the names if you're going to let
this evil come in. You can't call it abominations.
You can't call it exceeding sinful. You've got to put other names
onto it. But listen to this and see if this isn't true. The Word
of God speaks of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And you know repentance and faith
has been replaced with another phrase, and here it is, deciding
for Christ. Hasn't that been replaced? How
many do we hear today on radio and in the papers and the bullpits
saying, decide for Christ? The Bible says, he that humbled
himself shall be exalted, and that has been replaced with,
get out of your seat and come forward. Brokenness and waiting upon the
Lord to reveal Himself, to make His grace known and His will
known has been replaced with this, the exertion of a
man's free will. and presumptuously claiming the
promises that belong only to the broken and to the needy."
See how we change things? Diminish the authority of the
Holy Scriptures, whatever means you can do it by. Diminish the
exceeding sinfulness of the evil sin by whatever means you can
do it by. And then the purpose. has been
accomplished. And we've experienced that, haven't
we? We've experienced that. We see it all around us in our
generation. We try to go back to scriptural
phrases and scriptural terminologies. And man, I'm telling you, we're
salted on every hand, aren't we? We're salted on every hand. The last two things, look in
verse 13. Thou shalt be perfect. The word
there means blameless with the Lord thy God. Thou shalt be perfect. When the scripture uses this
word blameless, it uses it in two senses. One, when we stand
in Christ, we are blameless. Listen to Colossians 1. You that
were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind, Yet now
hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through death to
present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight."
In Jesus Christ, though we were dead in trespasses and sins,
in Christ, through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, through
His reconciling work, we are blameless before God. Isn't that an amazing truth?
And I'm telling you, the only way you'd grasp that is to believe
the Word of God and grasp it. The second way that we're said
to be blameless is what we find here in our text, by just doing
or not doing what He tells us. When He says here, Be thou blameless
with the Lord thy God, He simply means you be blameless in what
I've just commanded you not to do. Don't be involved in these
abominations. Just don't do it. And I tell
you, if somebody fell into this, they'd be blamed, wouldn't they? They would be blamed. Just don't
do it. Just don't do it. And here in
verse 14, I love this. For these nations which thou
shalt possess hearken unto the observers of times and to the
vendors, but as for thee, The Lord thy God hath not suffered
thee to do. He has not suffered thee to do
it. Boy, he put a distinction between
his people and them, didn't he? He suffered these other nations
to go on and commit these abominable acts, but he didn't suffer his
people to do it. They abstained from it. And as
they abstained from these awful, awful abominations, They could
live with this assurance. They weren't doing it out of
self-righteousness. They weren't doing it out of
a legal spirit. They weren't doing it to be saved.
They were doing it because God had begun a gracious work in
their hearts. It was a glory. When they took
a stand against these things and pleaded for the truth, and
they were called self-righteous, they were called judgmental,
divisive, and out of step with modern society, They could have
this assurance. They were doing it for this reason.
God was working in their hearts to do it. It was of the Lord. They weren't just crying out
against these sins. Anybody can cry out against sin,
can't they? Potiphar's wife cried out against
Joseph. Anybody can do that. Look at
the people crying out against sin today. It was more than this. They hated these sins. In their
hearts they hated them. God had put His grace in their
hearts and they hated these sins. And when they pleaded for the
truth, it wasn't just to be different. They were pleading for the truth
because they loved the truth. They loved the truth. God has
not suffered. And that word, suffered, there
they tell us means appointed. God has not appointed you. of
these things. He has appointed you to salvation.