Deuteronomy 1:16-18 Bible Study | Episode 836

December 23, 2024

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

Deuteronomy 1:16-18  Bible Study | Episode #836

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 verse 16. Remember, Moses is telling his people, the new generation, not the people that entered into the adults that entered into the wilderness, but the children of those adults, the next generation, the generation that is going to take the promised land. He is telling them the story and first told them about God's promises, the land that God had promised to give the children of Israel. And then he went into why they have the leadership structure that they do. And that's what we talked about yesterday, the leadership structure, how he had divided the tribes into groups of thousands and hundreds and fifties and tens. And we talked about the necessity of leadership and the necessity of a broad base of leadership in order for a church to truly thrive there. It is necessary that there be a large group of people who are leading, who are taking on roles, who are meeting needs. And that's true for. That was true for the children of Israel. It's true for God's people today. It's necessary that they have leaders that handle these things and leaders that take on those positions. And so that is the first thing that he did, because Moses could not handle it. Now, Moses was not only handling the problems of leadership, but Moses, at that time was handling all the cases, all the struggles, all the issues people were having between each other. And obviously, that would take all day and all night for the millions of people that were there. And so that is a major, major problem. And so Moses was told by Goddesse that he needed to appoint judges. And for me, as far as. As far as the lifes I live, this is one of those passages that is meaningful to me, especially considering I go into courtrooms most every week and some weeks, most every day. And, well, I would say most weeks, most every day. And these ideas that are before us, luckily for me, are found in the lives and in the work of the judges that I'm in front of, I am blessed to be in an area where there are such really good judges, really, really godly biblical judges. And when I say that, I mean they meet the standard that is here in verse 16 through 18. I have been able to serve and to be in front of judges my whole career. Here in the fifth circuit of Alabama and Tallapoosa county, I've been able to be in front of a lot of. Really, really. And when I say good, I'm talking about outstanding judges, and they meet this standard. And so this is one of those things that I really love to a Bible study on because it's somewhat encouraging to me as I read this and look at this, it says, then I commanded your judges at that time, saying, meaning he placed judges in front of. Over them, just like he placed leadership over them. Here are the cases between your brethren. Now, these leaders were likely being judges in the same role. There may have been situations where they just had a person that they appointed to be over, maybe a clan or a tribe, and they would handle all the cases while other leaders were handling leadership responsibilities. I would. These are the beginnings and the understandings that are eventually going to lead to the leadership structure that kind of held Israel together throughout. Well, throughout many, many generations, all the way today with the judges, with the prophets and with the kings and. And the royal lines. So these judges are. They're. They're handling issues, interpersonal issues between people. Land complaints. Of course, there weren't any land complaints back then that. But there will be. In the. In the promised land, there. There's property issues between each other. There's legal issues as far as criminal activity. And they would have had to handle that, and they would have had to handle wrongdoing. And we've got a lot of law that Moses gave his people. He gave them a lot of. A lot of rules and regulations that need to be enforced. And he says, here are the cases between your brethren, meaning don't not hear them. Hear them. Hear the cases between your brethren and judge rightly between a man and his brother or a stranger who is with him, meaning be righteous, be right about it. Follow. Follow the law, and appropriately apply it to a situation and get people back in line with what God has said is right for a society, for a peaceful society. And so he says, hear cases between your brethren, then judge rightly between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. What he's saying is, you know, when you hear their issues, you know, make. Make right judgments. Now, notice, how. How does he, how does he make. Make sure that they understand that. He says, you shall not show partiality in judgment. What he's saying is, just because you like somebody or just because you know somebody, or just because somebody is, is near to you, do not, do not be partial to them. Be. Be a righteous judge. And that's really what he's saying. Don't. Don't show partiality. You shall hear and hear the smell. Hear the small as the smell. You shall hear the small as well as the great, meaning somebody's got a complaint, whether they're, whether they're somebody of a lot of influence or somebody of a lot of importance, or maybe there somebody who, you know, he says, you're supposed to hear everybody. Hear everybody's issues, small or great. You shall not be afraid. Any man's presence, meaning you should. You. You need to rule. Whether or not how that impacts you, it doesn't matter. You need to do what is right in your rulings. Even when you have somebody of great influence and somebody of small influence, as the person of great influence is doing wrongly, you need to rule. You need to rule righteously between the two. And notice I love the way he says that you shall not be afraid in any man's presence, meaning, and I know you who are listening, don't. These words don't ring out to you like they do to me. But when he says, you shall not. Shall is one of those legal terms that's very important. It means it ain't gonna happen. Okay. Or it is gonna happen. You shall or you shall not means that this, this is. This is how it's going to be. Shall means you will do it. Shall not means it will not be done. And he says, you shall not be afraid in any man's presence, meaning don't be worried about who's in front of you. Be worried about me. Be worried about how I view you. For the judgment is God's. He's saying, you're not making judgment based off of what you want and you desire. These judgments are not made off of your will or your way. These judgments are made off of my will and my way. And for the Israelites, it was. I mean, it was directly his will or his way. And what I mean by that, well, they're going to be ruling based off of the law that was given to Moses and all the rules and regulations that were in exodus, Leviticus and numbers, mainly Leviticus and numbers. And that are going to be continued spelled out here in deuteronomy. I mean, he's going to give them that information. He's going to give them that knowledge, and he's going to tell them what, what his will is and how he wants things carried out. And when they go and look and decide cases, they need to decide cases exactly how he has given them the law. Now, in our local courts, they're going to go by the, first of all, the primary law of the land is the United States constitution. But they're also going to go by the code of Alabama and the rulings, the standards that have been set by prior rulings in our supreme court, in our appellate courts, they're going to go by the code of Alabama primarily, and then work their way down and figure out how that has been applied in cases. But in order to be a righteous judge, you need to follow the code and follow the law, which would be the rulings of the courts and application of that law. Uh, you need to apply that to, to the people and to each situation and not worry about who's in front of you. And that would be doing the same way. See, you're not doing your own will and you're not doing your own way. You're doing, uh, here in this setting where God, uh, puts these judges in place. They're doing directly God's will spelled out in his word, and they're doing his way of doing things. Well, in Alabama, we would be following the constitution of the United States and Alabama law, and we'd be doing the will in the way of the code of Alabama. Now you go, well, we should do it God's way. Well, interestingly, for me, law school was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun on a lot of levels because I was one of the oldest in my class, and I got to be around a lot of young people who were very, very smart. And they, in ways that I had not been stimulated intellectually, they pushed me to grow and to become, because I'd spent 15 or 20 years having to do it on my own. And in that competitive setting, they pushed me. And it was good for that. It was also really, really good for me in that I got to study the law. And I realized that most of our law, most of our law, in fact, in almost every class, I could take you in the scriptures where the law that we were studying came from. And so our legal system and our laws and especially our constitutional system and the way our country was founded was based off of the judeo christian ethic. What does that mean? Well, it was based off of biblical standards and biblical teachings. So you can be assured today when you go to the courts of Alabama, you're not only living by the laws in the code of Alabama, those laws in code draw their, draw their nexus or their beginning from these laws that we see right here. The laws that were given in the old testament and then were made complete in Jesus Christ in the New Testament. We're in a place where we're still under not only the laws of Alabama, but those laws are uniquely tied to God's word, which is really, really neat. Now, as we get older and older as a nation, oftentimes we move farther and farther away from our beginnings. But I can assure you today that most of the rulings that are made in court today would have their nexus and beginning really in God's word. And so that's great for where we live. It's not so much for parts of the country that may be hearing this in other places, but I praise God that I get to do that because God's judgment is only the one true, righteous, real judgment. His ways are the only right ways. And so when we, when we do law, what we're doing is we're doing, doing what is right and what is good and what is fair between people and so impartial between people, and that's what he tells them to do. The case that is too hard for you bring to me and I will hear it. What he's saying is there's going to be situations where you just don't know what the answer answers are. And a good judge knows that. A good judge knows that they, they are not the final arbiter of truth. And there is a truth. There's not. I know in today's society, especially those who would want to remove God from that society would, would teach you and tell you that everybody has their own truth. Well, that's not, that's, that's subjective view of the world. That is your own personal view of the world. That is not a truth. That you, you are not the beginner, the beginner of anything. And you're not the, you're not the starter of the world. And your truth is just your understandings from the limited scope and background of your life and the breadth of your intelligence. And so that's not real truth. There is real truth. There's real scientific truth. There's real philosophical truth, there's real biblical truth. And why do I go into that kind of stuff? Well, because all those things had really had their beginning with God too. And knowing that there is a eternal truth that exists in our universe helps us have a foundation for a right society, how to do things rightly. And if we don't understand that, if we don't live by that, really seeking the truth. Because Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life, meaning, meaning that there is only one truth and it resides and is found in me, I am the full revelation of God. And so when Jesus says that he is that, and there is, there is that one truth that only comes from him. And so when we do, whether we do the criminal or legal, the civil justice system here in Alabama, or whether we're doing church or whether we're doing relationships with either each other, there is just one truth and one standard and one way, and there is your perspective on it. But that perspective does not limit nor does it change the nature and the fundamental standard which is God's truth. He says, and I command you at all time in all things, which you should do. What he's saying is you should hear these things and you bring God's truth to the table. And really that's the way it ought to be done. And luckily, in my legal career, I've been able to see it done well in front of me. And it's always exciting to see people do what is right and do what is true and follow the law and do do it the right way. And in the end, when you do that, you remove yourself from the situation and you allow truth to have its way in the society and the world you live in. And when that's done right, the people prosper because of it. Because anytime we're living by God's standard and God's truth, when we're living by a knowable, identifiable, findable standardization, because God has not hidden it from us, he's given it to us, and we've inculcated it in our own laws, in our own society. When we live by those things, we're blessed. And when we don't, well, we're cursed. Because we've strayed away not only from good standards and good ways of living, but we've strayed away from God's will in his way. And I pray as a nation, but more importantly as a community and a state, we do not stray away from those things. 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.