Deuteronomy 1:9-15 Bible Study | Episode 835

December 20, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 1:9-15  Bible Study | Episode #835

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in deuteronomy, chapter one and verses nine through 15 this morning. We are. We're dealing with Moses. Remember he did run me. It's kind of like his. His swan song. It's his going away. It's his going away book writing speech. It's his going away revelation to his people, to the young. Well, really, because remember, everybody over the age of 20 who refused to go in the promised land, they were to wander in the wilderness for 40 years and then to pass away, and then the next generation is supposed to go. It's supposed to go in. And so a lot of times when we study scripture, a lot of times when we look at these things, you don't want to hear about, you know, people, people who don't like history, don't want to hear the history, or people who don't like us talking about leadership or things like that, struggle with that. But the truth is, is that these things are really important to God. God writes these things down. God places these things in memory. He says, I want you to remember these things. Why? Because there are stories of God moving among his people. And you remember, God's the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. So he's not changing. So his willingness and his desire to move among his people is not changing. And the way he loves his people, the way he loves to shower them with grace and to pull them out of struggles and shame by his mercy, these things are not different for God today than they were 2000 or 3500 years ago when these books were written. God's the same. God's not changing. And so, understanding that even though we seem, and people even tell you this, people will say to you, society is progressing. We are progressing. And the truth is, that's not really what's going on. What's going on is technology's progressing and that our ability to make things is progressing. But the heart of man is not progressing. We live in a century, a new century, and we're a quarter of a way or close to a quarter of a way into a new century. Last century saw the most human beings killed by other human beings in human history. By far, not even really close. And so we as humans have not progressed in 3500 years but our technology has. And so we feel like that we're better. We have progressed in that we have the grace of Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross over the last 2000 years. And so in many ways, the peace that comes with him, the prince of peace, has, has made it more peaceful than it would have been. It could have been a lot worse. We could continue to be very tribal. And people want to say we're tribal today. We're not tribal today. We're not the way we were four, five, 6700 even. Well, mostly 1502 thousand, 2500 years ago where these small tribal groups fought amongst each other all the time. We are nations and God does deal with the nations, but, but we're not progressing. And so when I say we're not progressing, the human heart is not progressing. The human heart is still replete with wickedness and God still is working his redemption in the human heart. Because every new human heart has to have redemptive work. It is born the same way the ones before it are born. They're born needing a redeemer. And so that understanding should carry us on and we should study history because by studying history we can learn kind of not to do the things that didn't work in the past and try to do the things that work better in the past. And in that way, history has progressed us some, uh, we seem to kid right on back into it. The, uh, the number one. The number one, uh, thing that caused. The number one idea that caused, uh, all the deaths in last century, uh, were offshoots of what we call Marxism, uh, socialism, communism, fascism. Uh, they are all offshoots of the ideas of Karl Marx. Karl Marx was a germane. And so his, his ideas, which, which fashion themselves into captain into socialism, communism and fascism, not capitalism. He is anti capitalist. Those ideas are what caused, you know, 2300 million people to die last century. They came from a godless heart and a godless thought process which ultimately destroyed humanity, destroyed a lot of humanity, killed a lot of people, destroyed large percentages of the world population through war, through our advances in technology and war. So even our advances in technology oftentimes are destructive and not productive. And so, as we think through this, Moses is telling them that, I'm going to take you through. And he starts the book out about God's plan to give them a promised land. He gives the boundaries of that promised land. He tells them about God's people coming out of Egypt. He doesn't go into great detail about that. There's a whole book called Exodus about that. But he goes into, we brought you out. God brought you out to meet with him. And then he interestingly pivots and says, and I spoke to you at that time, saying, I alone am not able to bear you. What he's saying is, I can't lead everybody. The Lord your God has multiplied you, and here you are today as the stars of heaven in multitude, meaning there's a lot of you. And there really was. I mean, there really was. There was. There was, uh. Well, with the children and in the women, there were probably three or 4 million. There were definitely over 600,000 fighting age men, men, 20 to 60. So that's a lot of, uh. If you. If you don't count any of the children and any of the women and any of the older Mendez, uh, you. You're. You're really dealing with a group of people that is. That is, you know, a large God. And. And when they were coming out of Egypt, God says, you know, you can't. You can't. You can't handle this. And Moses recognized this. He said, I'm not able to bear you. He says, may the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times more numerous than you are, and bless you as has promised. You see, he's not seen the multitudes as a problem. He's seen the multitudes as a possibility. And he's saying, I prayed that there'd be more of you, that it'd be greater and greater. Greater numbers of people that are God's people, greater number of people that are going to be light to the world, greater number of people that are going to make a difference in human history, because they're going to have redeemed hearts. And that's the whole point. They have redeemed hearts. And so there is progress. But that progress is only under the. Under the authority and under the power and under the plan of God. And so there is pro. Progress when there are. Where. Where there is a multitude of redemption. And so he says, choose wise, understanding, knowledgeable men from among your tribes. Notice wise. They. They're not. Only. They're. They're not only men who. Who are knowledgeable which means they know things. Men who, who understand humanity, who understand human interaction, who have a high knowledge base of relationships but choose them to be wise, meaning they see things from my perspective. So you've got knowledge, you've got understanding. Meaning they understand how humans fit into the game, they understand how human interaction is important and then they're wise. Meaning they, they see things from God's perspective. He says, and I will make them the heads over you. Now, notice he's putting in a leadership structure. He's put in a governmental structure, really is what he's doing. And the way he's doing it we've used for, well, 3500 years. This organizational structure is been figured out even by the heathens that this is a important way to break them down. And he breaks them down. He says, I want to put these leaders in front of you. And so I took the heads of your tribes, wise and knowledgeable men, and made them heads over you. Leaders of thousands, leaders of hundreds, leaders of fifties and leaders of tens and the officers of your tribes, as an officers for your tribes. Notice he, he's saying, I've made these people over you and we've broken them down. We've broken them down by the thousands, by the hundreds, by the fifties and by the tens. And so the leadership has a structure to it, meaning there's me and I'm in charge of everything. I'm the ultimate. When somebody's got to make a decision, I'm the one that God's chosen to make the decision. That's what Moses saying to them. But as far as the tribes are concerned, I'm going to put a head over your tribe and then, and then they're going to be heads over the different clans and then the different families and they're going to break down tribes, thousands, hundreds, fifties and even tens. And you know, that type of leadership structure works for God's people, always has. You know, historically as a church in America, we really haven't employed this as well. There are some churches that have gotten good at employing this, this type of leadership structure where you have a large group of people that are over one person is over the whole congregation, sure. But you have a large leadership base where there are leaders who really are over large swaths of the church and then they have leaders under them. What we've done traditionally, just because of really the nature of our society and the nature of our, our local congregations is we just had one person be in charge of everything. We've had a pastor and, you know, really that was kind of it. And a lot of ladies stepped in and kind of took over and handled, handled where the pastor really couldn't do it. And the churches, really, to tell you the truth, couldn't grow much past 100, 150 because the leadership structure was not there to handle that. That's, that, that wasn't wise. But, you know, it worked effectively in rural areas. And this country was rural for a long, long, long time. Heavily rural until really, really the first part of last century. Heavily rural all over the world. I mean, all over the country. And so, you know, if you had a church of 50 people, 75 people, and a pastor to lead them, well, that was a good group. And obviously, there are people who can lead, that many can lead a hundred or even, even 150. But once you get past that, you really can't, you can't do leadership much past that. In fact, the, the most effective leaders are usually the leaders of tens, meaning they're the leaders of the small groups, the small groups, people, small families. And, and then, and then they may be a leader over three or four families. And then, and then as the leadership, as the church grows, you need people who are over, you know, large parts of the church. Usually that would be some type of pastor. But, you know, many denominations and many, many churches don't work and operate that way. And so, you know, one person really struggles to lead past 150 to 200 people, and that really is true if you've got just one really r1 leader, and then, and then no real structure under that. And when I say a real structure, I'm not talking about a group of people who can quit and fight and argue. I'm talking about a real leadership structure where there's. They're working together as a, as a unit, as a team as well. They're working together as a, as God's people toward a yemenite, a common goal. Oftentimes when we elect people, they're not working toward a common goal. They're working toward their own goals. We're not talking about that. We're talking about a pure leadership structure where God puts people who can lead and want to lead and want to lead toward a common goal together in charge. And that's what Moses said. I can't lead all of you. And he needed to put those, those leadership structures in place. Those are important. If you're going to have a church in, in less rural areas now, in, in cities and in areas that have thousands and thousands of people that are living in them, you've got to have a church structure where you have a wise, knowledgeable and understanding men, meaning wise. First of all, they got to know God's word. They got to be very powerfully knowledgeable about God's word. Then they've got to be knowledgeable about how that works. They got to be wise, but they also got to have the information, and knowledge is the information. They have to have the wisdom of God and the knowledge of what's going on around them. They got to know stuff. And then they also have to have to have understanding, meaning they have to be able to deal with people and understand how people think and how people operate and guide people through the struggles of their lives. And if you have more and more of those type of leaders, more and more of those type of leaders in your church, you have the capability of ministering and caring for and taking care of and leading a larger and larger group of people. And so that, that is those things. Those things grow. Those things become more and more and more. They become greater as, as the congregation grows. And I, a congregation that really only has one, what I'd call titular head. They're, they're the head of everything and they make all the decisions. And everybody, if anything comes up, they say, well, we'll have to talk to the pastor. That's fine. That's not, that's, it's not unbiblical. I'm not saying it's unbiblical. It's just not, it's not going to be able to lead a whole lot of people, just not possible to, because, because just like Moses said, I alone am not able to bear you. And he, he was really being snowed under. And so he had to, he had to have some leaders, some wise, knowledgeable and understanding leaders. And if he, if you don't have those leaders, you're just, you're going to flounder. And so that happens in the military. You know, we've got squad leaders, platoon leaders. That'd be the squad leader, be the ten platoon leader, be the 50 company commanders, company leaders. That gets you on up into the hundreds, the thousands would be battalion commanders. And then we got regimental commanders. And, you know, as you keep going up, we've got those leadership positions. You've got generals and, and brigades and divisions and then army groups and, and, and why do you have all these? Why is it always divided up that way? Cause, you know, God said that's how it works. That's how it works best. And he's, he's the ultimate wise, understanding and knowledgeable person. He completely understands us. He knows everything. And he sees it from his heart and his perspective, which is the only source of wisdom that there ever has been. And so when we get to this end of this Bible study, you, you go, where? Where were we going, pastor? Well, we're telling the story that Moses is telling. We're telling the story of his journey with his people to this point. And he's trying to get the young people to understand. First he says, God's got a promise for you and he's got a promised land for you. And by the way, this is why we have the leadership that we do. Tomorrow we're going to talk about the judges that he placed over them. This is why we have the actual physical leaders that we do over the people. And then, you know, obviously, we've already put in a religious organization as far as the temple, and, and who works in the temple and does the sacrifices. We've got those. The Levites, but we also have your tribal leaders, the people who are over your. Your different tribes, your different people groups. And we're gonna, we're gonna put those in place, too. You know, oftentimes people read this and they get bored by it. And the reason they do is because, you know, that's just some histories stuff, episodes through God, history of God's plan. And he's teaching you stuff even if you don't want to listen as you go. Today I pray that the Lord will.

Bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.