Deuteronomy 16:18-22 Bible Study | Episode 906

March 31, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 16:18-22  Bible Study | Episode #906

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 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.

Getting on here just a hair bit late because actually I started the Bible study on my own personal webpage, on my own personal Facebook page and said, you know what?

Most people are not looking for that Bible study there. And so I moved over and said, I'll start over and do it again where I'm supposed to, which is on Lake Community Church's Facebook page and Bible study.

This is our Facebook page. And so if you enjoy the Bible study, make sure you like and share the Bible study or just like and share the page. It definitely helps us get these things out.

We are in one of those passages which, you know, when you're going through life, when you're going through your life, sometimes God just brings passages up in front of you.

He the word of God is intensely relevant. And when I say intensely, I mean it is relevant. It is relevant to its core and it speaks to the hearts of believers because we're born again and we have the Holy Spirit communing with our spirit, Spirit inside of us.

And so the Word of God is very powerful and able to speak to us,

speak to us individually uniquely and, and powerfully in our hearts. And so when. When you're maybe listening to a sermon during worship service, maybe maybe hear a verse of scripture during your ride to work on a Christian radio station, it might be.

Might be that you.

Excuse me. It might be that you.

You hear a podcast and you're listening to somebody teach through something and you get a word and God just kind of brings that word right in front of you, right for the time and the season that you're in.

It's one of those things that happens oftentimes for believers, especially believers who are putting themselves in a position to actually hear from God. And what do I mean by that?

Well, you're doing the things that scripture are necessary. First of all, you're involved in corporate worship. Oftentimes believers think that corporate worship is not something that's necessary for the Christian life.

And I would agree with you, other than the Bible says it's not. And so then I don't agree with you.

And I say that jokingly, but I'm not joking. The Bible says, do not fail to assemble yourself. So corporate worship is very, very important.

The Bible says that we're to eat from his table regularly. Now, that doesn't have to be done in corporate worship. So that's eating from God's table, feasting on the bread of life, taking in the drink of the wine of the Holy Spirit,

the goodness of God,

those things, drinking the water, the refreshing water of the Holy Spirit that cleanses us. Those things don't have to just be done in worship. They're not just done in worship.

And that's what makes us think that we don't have to have worship. Those things can be done on a regular basis, all day long, studying through Scripture, praising God with music.

They can be done individually, they can be done in a small group of people. But, but that does not exclude us from the mandate that God gives us to gather, gather together corporately in those settings.

God is going to reveal himself through his Word. And even in your own private time with God,

maybe you're going through a Bible study, maybe you're listening to some worship music.

That private time makes the Word come alive to you. And so what I find unique is that oftentimes God will bring a passage in front of you that just speaks to where you're at.

And for me personally, as we're going through Deuteronomy, chapter 16, I've been a. I've been appointed district judge for now about six weeks.

So I've had a chance to, you know, six or seven. Over the last six or seven weeks, I've had a chance to kind of get my feet wet as far as doing the job.

I'll say this, even this week, I was sitting there on the bench thinking, I got to get better at this. And so.

And you go, what do you have to get better at? Well, you know, there's things that need to be said properly and done properly, and I just.

Not very fluid with it. I'm, I'm very halty and, and, and not always confident in what I'm doing. And so I just got to get better at it. And, and that's, that would be the same for any job, any situation.

When you go into it for the first time you just have to learn how to get better at doing the, the regular things that are necessary to do the job well.

But there are some abiding under, under principle. There's some abiding principles that run throughout my job and that are abiding principles that come from God's word. And God's word is right here.

It speaks to what I'm doing. It does. And so I think it just so neat that God would just a few months in bring me. By the way, I went to new judges training and it was really good.

And a lot of these principles, believe it or not, were spoken out in public. They were, they, they went to God's Word and, and, and spoke about these principles.

And I thought that was just so refreshing and powerful. It was powerful for me as a pastor for 30 years to have, have some people get up there and as they're explaining how to do this job, they use God's word as, as a tool of instruction.

And you know what just so happens that the, that the job I'm doing God speaks about, in, in,

in some specificity.

Easy for me to say, but it, it does. And this is one of those passages. He says, you shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates. And in all actuality in, in the state of Alabama, if you're a judge, you get elected, but if the judge retires before the next election,

then the governor has to appoint you. So in this situation, I actually was appointed in a state where normally you would take the position by, you would normally take the position by election.

I'll have to be elected in a couple of years, but I was appointed. So he says, you shall appoint your judge. You know, for me this is speaking for you shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates.

Meaning that this shouldn't be just one position, it should be multiple positions. All the places where the people are. And, and really that's what judges are for. They're for the people.

They, they're, they're put in that position so that they can then that, so you know that they can, they can help, help society really. It's, it's, it's a position that, that makes sure that the, the, the,

the principles of society are carried out in legal terms. And so they're very important just on the personal communal level. The community, the, the municipalities, the counties,

the, the circuits that are all over the state. They're really important and they're reported all over, all over the country that there appointed people who, who, who stand up and say this is the Law, this is how the law operates.

And so he says, which the Lord your God gives you according to your tribes. And they shall judge the people with just judgments. And notice the people that are appointed need to come from the people.

The people that are appointed judges, they need to be from the tribes that they're from, and they need to be from the places that they're from. And, and we do that in, in the United States.

That's, that's, that's really a Western culture ide idea.

And so he says, now this is where it gets into. To the instruction for him, you, meaning the judge shall not pervert justice. Meaning you don't twist it, you don't make it different than what it is.

You do. Justice exactly right. And you go, what is justice? Well, the word for justice means righteousness or rightness. I mean, that's what the word in the Old Testament means.

I mean, it's one of those words that in the Old Testament that it doesn't, it doesn't broaden out a whole lot because it's an understanding or idea that's pretty core to the human existence.

And what I mean by that. Well, even as children, even though we're born in sin and born in death, we have an innate sense of what's right. You know what's right.

And you go, how do you know that? Well, even, even a little baby will. Will. When they are about to touch something that they know or maybe think that they shouldn't touch, they look back to make sure that it's okay to touch it.

Why do they do that? Why does that take place? Well, because even in that little infant, there is a, there is a understanding that they, they have, they have no real way of even expressing or, or, or showing who.

How do they think that they've, there's a real understanding of rightness, of doing what's right. And even though they may not know what's right all the time, they do know that there are things that are good and right and there's things that are not right or unjust or messed up.

It's just not right.

And he says, you shall not pervert that. You shouldn't twist that, nor show partiality, nor take a bribe for a bribe. Blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.

What he's saying is, don't do anything that's, that's partial toward one side or the other. Be. Just be. Be right. Now you go, well,

you're not really getting anything out of this. Well, let me, let me Say this. I am getting a whole lot out of this because doing what's right is very, very important.

In fact, that is the. That. That's the thing.

That's the thing that. That judges, you know, are taught. In fact, the judge that is my biggest mentor, the one who mentored me the most, the one whose position I actually took.

If, if. If you said, can you. Can you boil down his. His. His.

His instructions, his advice about his position, if you could boil it down to a few words, what would you say? Well, I don't have to boil it down. He said this all the time.

And I think it is so powerful and so biblical.

It is so powerful, Biblical. He said, chad,

do what is right.

Now, there's a lot of exploring that has to be done when we're talking about that little baby. That little baby's going to do a whole lot of growing up and figuring out what's right.

There's a lot to explore into figuring out what's right. But the issue is not. The issue is not whether or not you're always getting it right, whether you're always doing it perfectly right.

That's not the issue. The issue is, is, are you. Are you. Is. Is your. Is your whole being and how you see things, is it about doing what's right?

When you're. When you're doing this position, Should. Should you be. Should your effort be to do what is right? And the answer is,

yeah. And how do I know that? Because God says so. He says it right here. He says, you should not show partiality. You shouldn't pervert justice. You shouldn't take a bribe.

You shouldn't allow money to blind your eyes to what is good and right. He says, do what's right. Now, does that mean that the baby's going to always do what's right?

No, no, no. Does that mean even a judge that's trying to do right is going to do righteousness all the time? No, they're not. They're not, because we're all flawed human beings.

But that doesn't negate the necessity that we should try to do what's right. We should try to do what's right in our lives.

We should try to do what's right in justice and in the law. Now you go, in the New Testament, how are we taught to do what's right? Well, it's not by following the law.

It's by being led by the Spirit. And the Spirit is always going to bring you in alignment with what is true and what is right.

And he's always going to lead you to do it powerfully and do it well. Rather than just trying to live by code, he's going to teach you how to live life by the rightness of God's life himself.

And so as a judge, I try to know what the law is because obviously to do righteousness, because the Bible strictly tells us that we're to be subject to the authorities over us.

So there are authorities over my position, and that is the laws of the state of Alabama and the laws of the United States and our Constitution. I'm under those things.

So even though I may not totally always know exactly what's right in those things, I need to make sure that I'm trying to be subject to those things, and then I'm trying to be subject to those things, applying them rightly to the situation.

And so you've got facts that you have to mull over and dig through, and then you've got the law to apply to those facts and try to figure how to do it right, do what's right for people.

And that's what he's saying to these judges. You shall follow what is altogether just. That's what he says in verse 20. Notice he said, don't take a bribe. Don't pervert justice.

You shall follow what is altogether just,

what's right. Justice is what's right. That you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God has given you. Notice there's a promise there that you're going to live and that you're going to inherit.

I like those two things. I'm for having both of those promises and, and, and only way. Apparently the only way I can ensure it is that I would do what verse first part of verse 20 says.

And definitely all of us. Verses 19 says, you shall plant yourselves,

you shall not plant yourself any tree as a wooden image near the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God. Now he moves from judges doing right to not making any idols.

And, you know, I think those things actually really work together.

Nothing's more important than your relationship with God and your relationship with other people and the rightness of doing your job as a judge.

Those things are important and they're really, really important. And so nothing else should get in the way of that. There can't be anything,

any. Any idol, any. Anything in this world, anything made of this world that needs to get in the way for that you shall not set up a sacred pillar which the Lord your God hates.

And you go, why are. What is that there where we're dealing with law and justice. Well, because when we begin to worship the world, when we begin to seek truth out of the world, rather than truth from the author of truth, the one who is right, just his statutes are true.

His law is his character and his nature. When we walk in relationship with him, we can have those things, but when we don't, we begin to set up our own ideals of justice and our own ideas of what is right.

And when we do that, we misstep. And oftentimes we create for ourselves our own idols and our own things that we desire and we want to see done.

And that ultimately leads to emptiness and death.

And so, as we study through this, this is one of those great passages for me.

And as we study through this, I know that oftentimes you'll run across passages that are really important for you. And I pray that you will.

That God will speak to your heart every day as he as. As you seek after him, and that'll encourage you and that he will cause you to do the difficult stuff.

Because in the difficult stuff, we become more and more like.

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.