All right, let's begin with, shall we, a word of prayer? Father, we're grateful to just be together and to love each other, to be able to encourage each other, to look at your word and learn some truths from it, see some things that... people in the Old Testament went through that are relevant to us as well today. And we know that your word is truth. We know that you know us, and you know what's in our hearts. And Lord, help us to examine ourselves when things are revealed to us that we need to talk to you specifically about, Lord, when that time comes. So just bless our time tonight, we pray now in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, we're still in the third address of Moses, and we're in Deuteronomy 30, verse 11 is where we're gonna start, and our theme has been trust and obey. We're still not in the promised land. We're on the right side of the Jordan there, just across from Jericho, okay? And don't have a lot of pictures tonight, but a couple. And Moses is talking to the people. And he's going to talk to the people, and then when he's done, he's going to go up on the mountain and die. And he knows that. Okay? So that's coming. But he's got some more to say to the people. So we're in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 11. And I've slowed way down from the Old Testament survey to, I'm moving a little slow, because there's some important things I think that are here that I want to cover. Chapter 30, verse 11, for this commandment I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it. Neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us so we may hear it and do it. But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you can do it. Does that sound a little familiar? Okay. Paul quotes this in Romans, so let's go over there to Romans 10, and then Paul speaks to these verses a little bit, and there's some application here for us, I think. Romans 10 in verse 5. And Paul says here, for Moses, writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandment shall live by them. So in order to obtain the righteousness that is based on the law, one must keep the law perfectly. And we know that that's not even remotely possible, okay? And I'll just read this to you, James 2.10 says, whoever keeps the whole law but fails at one point, okay, has become guilty of all of it, okay. And remember Ray Comfort, if you've watched any of the Ray Comfort videos, where he's, you know, he's a man on the street, or a man on the beach often, talking to people, trying to share the gospel with them. He starts with the law, and he says, well, have you ever lied, you know, or have you ever maybe disobeyed your parents, or have you ever looked at a woman with lust? Have you been angry at anyone? That's the equivalent of murder, or swearing. And pretty easy, you can find people will have to admit, yeah, I'm guilty of these laws. Well, you break one of them, you break them all. So we see this perfection's not possible. Continuing on here with Paul in verse six, he says, but the righteousness based on faith says, do not say in your heart who will ascend into heaven. That is to bring Christ down. Or who will descend into the abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. We don't have to go searching the world over to find Christ or the truth, okay? Although truth is getting harder to find, okay, for sure. He's not found in some guru on top of a mountain. I think what's interesting here, notice what these guys are looking at. He's got a cell phone there. Okay, where's he going to get his great truth? This guy's got his whole laptop up there. I guess he's got a good Wi-Fi signal, maybe he's... But you know, he's on the World Wide Web. He's getting worldly wisdom. That's a little bit of a joke I threw up here, okay. But that's where the world goes. And we all do this all the time. How many of you Googled something today? Be honest. And we Google many things, and we look for information. And that's not all bad. There's lots of information that's very helpful to have. How high is Mount Everest? That can't be too far off there, I mean, for truth. But there's a lot of truth. There is a tendency today, especially among our youth, when they have problems in their homes, to Google it. How do I handle my kid? What do I do with my husband? And they Google it. And my wife sees this more than I do, because she's on Facebook a little bit. I'm not. And a lot of the wisdom that comes back is worldly. And it's not what the Bible says. And it can be a disaster. And you don't have to Google it to do this. It can just be people talking. You know, the guys at work talking about what to do with their wife. Or the girls at the hairdressing salon talking about what to do with their man. A lot of garbage can come out of that. A lot of that's mostly, probably most of it's worldly wisdom, unless it's based in scripture. And the world, that's what the world does. It goes to the world wide web and gets, a lot of times, things that are not true. My son was down this week and had a lot of fun with him. He said, I've come to the point where anything I see on the net, I question. He said, anything, even pictures. I look at them and I say. Is that possibly true, or has that been AI'd somehow, or manipulated some way, you know what I mean? You can't, I mean, obviously there's something that just no one's gonna do anything with, but there's a lot of stuff that is being manipulated. We have to be very careful where we go for truth, okay? Verse eight, but what does it say, the word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart? That is the word of faith that we proclaim. Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And here we see this confession with the mouth and believing in the heart, okay? The belief comes out of our heart. There's a change in our heart, okay? You know, in child training, you want the heart to be changed. A little kid can sit there clenched fists, and you know, have you ever heard, I'm standing up on the outside, but I'm sitting down on the inside? Have you ever heard that type of thing? I'm doing what you're telling me to do on the outside, but on the inside, I'm not, okay? If the heart isn't changed, the day's gonna come when he's on his own, and he's gonna do what he wants to do. God knows what truly is in our hearts. He also knew it was in the heart of the Jews. Okay, and it can become real evident here. Verse 10, for with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For Scripture says everyone who believes in Him will not be put to shame. Remember when we went through Revelation, the seven churches, that to every church He said, I know, I know, I know, I know. He knows what's in our heart and that becomes real evident in these these verses Okay back to Deuteronomy 30 verse 15 Moses speaking to see I have set before you today life and good death and evil If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today by loving the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by keeping his commandments I and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away and you will not hear or obey, okay, but are drawn away to worship other gods and to serve them, okay, let me just read this to you out of James 1, 14. But each person is tempted to one he is lured, enticed by his own desire. This is within us, this is our sin nature. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. So we gotta watch out for our own natural desires. It can be very destructive to us. Now Moses here in verse 18, Moses the prophet, okay? But I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. It's kind of like trust and obey or go your own way, die in your sins. And that's what really happens with the Israelis. I mean, they possess the land, but as soon as Moses is gone, well, Joshua hangs them together. But when Joshua goes, things really fall apart. And it's not too long. Now let's turn over to Hebrews 10.28. It says, Hebrews 10, 28, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses and dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses, okay? And let me just remind you back in Deuteronomy 13, the calls for capital punishment for an Israelite who would entice you secretly by saying, hey, let's go serve other gods. That was a capital offense. And if that was to happen, two or three witnesses, they were to stone him to death. Okay, so that's what's looking back here. Anyone who sets aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. Okay, verse 29 now. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, has profaned the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? Okay, let's work through that verse, and this verse, you know, people wanna look at this and say, well, you can lose your salvation, but I don't think that's what's being taught here, okay? First we're gonna talk about trampled underfoot. In the Middle Eastern culture, the bottom of your shoe, okay, is not to be seen. It's considered, well, the ultimate insult, okay? I don't know if you remember this, but there was a, I think it was an Iraqi reporter who was in front of Bush, and Bush was speaking. I think it was actually in Iraq. And this guy whips off his shoes and threw them both at Bush. Bush just ducked him behind the podium, so his shoes went sailing by. That's a huge insult, okay? Matter of fact, I watched a little, It was like an Emily Post, a modern-day Emily Post on Middle East culture. And that was her. It was just a little three-minute video, but she said, don't. Remember how Lynton used to sit with his leg crossed like this the whole time? Ultimate insult, especially to you over here who are going to see it. If I did that, my hip would come out of joint, I'm convinced. But he did that every Sunday night when he taught us. His leg was crossed, and he didn't have a pillow. That was how he did it, how he supported his. I was impressed that he was able to do that. But that's a big insult, OK? So trampled underfoot. That's a really big insult, okay, in that culture, so get that there. All right, that's the point. Profane the blood of the covenant, okay, or to treat with disrespect is the idea of profaning there. The blood of Christ, the new covenant, okay, and in Israelite's case, they had a covenant at Sinai in Exodus 24. Then it says that he was sanctified. This is the part that really gets people. It's like he's sanctified. That means he's a believer, okay? He's set apart is what sanctified means, okay? And we know the Israelites were sanctified and set apart, chosen by God, okay? And yet look at the condition of them as they go into the land. He's already telling them, I know you're gonna run away from the Lord. I know what you're gonna do. You're not a holy people, okay? Okay, so how do we deal with this in this verse 29 there? How worse a punishment do you think will be deserved by one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God? Okay, a very bad thing. Has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified. What's that mean? MacDonald has this to say. Through his association with Christians, with Christian people, and I should back up a little. Remember the verse about the unbelieving husband living with the believing wife? He's sanctified, okay? He's blessed to be in her presence. People are blessed to be in the presence of the church. There could be someone in here who's not sanctified, who's not Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, but they are blessed to be in our presence. That sounds really holier-than-thou, but that's the fact Okay, and some people just like to be in the presence of church and go to their potlucks and stuff They're nice people good people to be around. Okay? But in this particular verse that MacDonald is quoting, it's 1 Corinthians 7, 14, if you want to go look at it later, but the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, okay? But it does not mean that he's saved. That's very clear in that verse, okay? I think that's what's being said here. Because when it goes on, it says, Likewise, the Israelites were associated with all the miracles of God. That's their association. They came out of Egypt. They saw all those plagues. They saw how God took care of them. They saw the Red Sea, on and on and on. Are you guys lost a little bit? I'm still dealing with verse 29, Hebrews 10, 29. Still dealing with that. They're associated with all this stuff that they saw, all these miracles that the Lord did for them. They are called, they're set apart. But the Lord up here in 18 says, you're sure going to perish. Moses says it based on what the Lord has him say. You're not going to live long in the land because you're going to go your own way. Okay. They were set apart, chosen, but their hearts turned away in unbelief and worshiped other gods. That's what's going to happen in the future here. And again, who knows the heart? I know, I know, I know. God knows the heart. He knows what's in there. And this heart has not been changed. Okay, just like the little kid whose heart hasn't been changed yet. And that's what we're after is hearts that are changed. Now let's turn over to Hebrews 3 15. Okay, we'll get back to outrage the spirit of grace in just a second finishing out verse 29. But Hebrews 3 15. As it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who were those who heard and yet rebuild? Was it not all of those who left Egypt, led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. And our theme through all of Deuteronomy has been trust and obey, and we see that over and over again, the Lord saying trust and obey, trust and obey. But they didn't really, okay? Largely an unbelief. So back in Hebrews 10, 29, where it says, okay, he was sanctified and then has outraged the spirit of grace, okay? Unmerited favor had been extended to the Israelites through all the plagues in the Red Sea and all those miracles, the water out of the rock, and on and on and on. And even the punishments when the ground opened up and took Korah and his people away, that's obviously something God has done. Moses said, if the ground happens to open up and swallow you, I guess it's a God thing, okay? They saw all that. They had unmerited favor extended to them. But they turned away to worship other gods, and that happens on later. The spirit of grace woos the unbeliever, okay? And that's what we're seeing here. He outraged the spirit of grace, this person who had been sanctified because he lived with a a believing wife, just like the Israelites. I'm trying to draw the comparison with the Israelites having seen all these miracles and being called, and yet later we're going to see how they respond, what was really in their heart. Okay. The Spirit of grace woos the unbeliever. It's the Holy Spirit who seals the believer. But in this case, and it's the same Spirit, I'm not saying there's two different Spirits, but in the one case, the one is wooing and has been wooed, and the other, it's been sealed. We get sealed by the Holy Spirit, okay? Let's turn over to Ephesians 1.13 and look at that sealing, okay? It's the same Holy Spirit, and do we trust and obey, or go our own way? Okay. Ephesians 1.13, in him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory. And so I think we can say that the Israelites weren't sealed by the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm sure there were some among them, but as a body, as a group, when we go back to Deuteronomy 13, and Moses says, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not live long in the land. The Lord has told him, They're not really mine. I've extended grace to them. I've extended grace to them. They're going to go their own way. Okay. We can do the same thing. Okay. But if we're sealed, we're His. And a bunch of verses on eternal security, that'd be a whole other thing to talk about, but I think we hold to that. Okay. All right. Back to Deuteronomy 30, verse 19. Says, I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curse. Therefore, choose life that you and your offspring may live. Loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. Okay, now we get to 31, kind of concluding events from here to the end of the book, okay? Joshua is going to succeed Moses. So 31.1, so Moses continued to speak these words to all Israel. And he said to them, I am 120 years old today. I am no longer able to go out and come in. The Lord has said to me, you shall not go over this Jordan. Now Moses isn't in a nursing home, okay? He's actually doing just fine. Just jump ahead to 34.7. And Moses says, or it says, this is probably written by someone else, maybe Joshua, we just don't know, but it says, Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated. So what's he mean when he says I'm no longer to go in and go out? Well, the rest of the verse tells us, the Lord said to me, you shall not go over this, Jordan. So Moses' time of leadership had come to an end, okay? And he's, the Lord's gonna take him up on the mountain, he's gonna die, he's not gonna go where he wants to go, okay? Really similar to what is said of Peter by the Lord, okay? That guy could live to be forever, but you're gonna get dressed, people are gonna dress you and guide you, and I could've pulled that verse up, but I didn't. Okay, somewhere at the end of John. Verse 3, Deuteronomy 31, 3, "'The Lord your God Himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations before you, so that you shall dispossess them. And Joshua will go over at your head, as the Lord has spoken.'" Okay? Verses 4 to 8 just go on about possessing the land. They're going to take the land, but they're not going to live long in it. God really wants them in the land, okay? And that's another point we've kind of made this, where He tells them over and over, go possess the land. And even though they're really not walking that well with the Lord, He wants them in there to take the land, okay? He's got reasons for that. I think we're going to see some of that a little later, at least in my mind, okay? 31.9, just reading the law. Then Moses wrote this law and he gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord and all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them at the end of every seven years at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths. So Moses writes this law. We don't really know what that is. We think it's certainly more than the Ten Commandments, but we don't know if it's the whole book of Deuteronomy that he's specifically talking about right here. And people talk about that, but no one's for sure. But verse 11 says they're going to read it publicly every seven years. So publicly to read the entire book of Deuteronomy, maybe. Probably more than just the Ten Commandments, but maybe that was all as well. Don't really know there. And all the men, women, and little ones and sojourners are to be in attendance, verse 12. But the public reading of God's Word. Here's a quote from Irish preacher C.H. Macintosh, lived in the mid-1800s, so 200 years ago roughly when he probably said this quote. He says, the word of God is not loved and studied either privately or publicly. Trashy literature is devoured in private, in music. Ritualistic services and imposing ceremonies are eagerly sought out in public. Thousands will flock to hear music and pay attention for admission. But how few care for a meeting to read the Holy Scriptures. These are facts, and facts are powerful arguments. We cannot get over them. There is a growing thirst for religious excitement and a growing distaste for the calm study of the Holy Scripture and the spiritual exercise of Christian assembly. It is perfectly useless to deny it. We cannot shut our eyes to it. The evidence of it meets us on every hand." That was 200 years ago, roughly. Okay. 1 Timothy 4.13 says, Paul talking to a young pastor, giving him instructions, devote yourselves to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, right? Incitement to do that, which is good, exhortation, and to teaching, okay? So just the public reading of scripture. It's not something that, when was the last time you heard, come to a meeting and hear someone read the book of John? We study it, and I'm glad that we study it, and that's been a positive thing in this church, that we are in the Word of God and study it, and that's Lenten's leading very much, and I'm sure we'll continue with Jonathan. All right, Deuteronomy 31, 14, Joshua commissioned to lead Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, the day is approached when you must die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, that I may commission him. And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting." Verse 16, And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this peace will arise, and whore after foreign gods. among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them." So our omniscient God, He knows, He knows, He knows, okay? Verse 17, then my anger will be kindled against them in that day And I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say, in that day have not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? But in that day is often a reference to the day of the Lord through the scripture, especially back in the prophets, majors, minors, both. Maybe this is the first it's used, I'm not sure, but that's kind of how I see it. And I think this verse here covers a lot of period of time, okay? The Jews went through a lot of different evils and troubles Okay, verse 19, Moses is commissioned to write a song. Okay, now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel, put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. So Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the people of Israel. Verse 26, take this book of the law and put it by the side of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you. Okay, it doesn't go in the ark, it's beside it. It's the Ten Commandments are inside. This is just probably the book of Deuteronomy. Okay, 3129, for I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly and turn aside from the way that I have commanded you. And in the days to come, evil will befall you because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands." Again, this is a clarion call to trust and obey the Lord. And the Lord clearly had told Moses what was going to come on the Israelites in years to come. Okay, read this to you, Isaiah 53, six. Oh, we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him, Jesus Christ, the iniquity of us all. Or I should say, on him, Christ, which would be the Messiah, is how the Jews would take that. Okay, we would look at it as Jesus, they would look at it as Christ, their Messiah. Anyway, just what love. to take all our sins and put it on Him. What love that He has expressed to us. And then His Holy Spirit extending grace to us, wooing us to come to Him, to all of God. All right, 3130, the Song of Moses is titled. And then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished in the ears of all the assembly of Israel. I'm not gonna go through all that. Google, I googled it, to see if the song of most, I think there's three songs that Moses did. And I tried to see if they still to this day sing it. And there were some, like, yeah, some places they kind of go through it, but nothing real positive. It's not like it's a national anthem or anything, okay. But there is some. given to all three of his songs. Some still certainly memory thinking of it. Okay. But it actually starts here in chapter 32. Okay. So give your heavens and I will speak and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teachings drop as rain, my speech distill as do like gentle rain upon the tender grass, upon the tender grass, like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord and ascribe greatness to our God. The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians 10, four. Looking at the rock. That comes up in the New Testament, so it's someplace we had to go, I think. 1 Corinthians 10.4. Let's start at 1 Corinthians 10.1. For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. Okay, that goes right back to Moses there. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food. Here's all this grace extended to them. And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Okay, very interesting. And then turn over to Romans 9.33, a little bit more on the rock here, just to express that. Romans 9.33, it says, as it is written, behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, a rock of a fence, and whoever believes in him, ah, this rock is a hymn, okay, will not be put to shame. The rock which offended, it offended their self-righteousness. Because remember, the Jews went at it all by works, and they were very righteous. Paul goes on in detail about how righteous he was. I was at the top of the game, I was a Pharisee, and I did this and this and this and this, and yet I counted all this rubbish now. But Paul was a very righteous man in the eyes of the Jews. And yet, when the Lord got a hold of him, he realized, that's all for naught. That was a waste. So they were offended. This rock offends them, their self-righteousness. So it's kind of works versus faith. Faith in the rock. OK. All right. Last time we met, back to Deuteronomy 29, I want you to go back to 29, I don't know, we're in 32, but go back to 29. Last time we met, I read this first, I said, more on that to come. Well, here it is, here's the more on that to come, okay? Deuteronomy 29, 24. All the nations will say, why is the Lord done thus to this land? What caused the heat of this great anger? Then the people will say, it is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt and went and served other gods and worshiped them. Gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. What is that? Gods he had not allotted to them. Think about that. Now, back to 32-7, okay? We're still in the Song of Moses, but there's this very interesting thing that comes up here, okay? And I'm gonna present this to you. If you don't buy it, that's okay. But I hope, if nothing else, it causes you to study the Word of God more, okay? It's not my thinking. It's a book I read. We'll get into that, okay. 32-7, remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind and He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. You understand what that's about? God gives the nations their inheritance. This goes back to Genesis 10, the division of the nations, okay? And if you read through there and count all the nations, you'll come up with 70 nations, okay? Just keep that in the back of your mind. And of those 70 nations, there's no Israel. Remember, Israel doesn't, there's no Israel. Israel doesn't come along until chapter 12, even not then, but Abraham is introduced in chapter 12, okay? So there's no Israel in those 70 nations. Okay, it says God divided mankind, okay? He divided mankind at Babel, okay? Even says he did that during the days of Peleg. 1025, if you can look that up, Genesis 1025, when God divided during the days of Peleg. He says, God fixed their borders. Okay, I'm still in verse 8 here, but I'm just referencing it. He fixed their borders, okay? Genesis 10 speaks of territories, lands, and coastlands. And the last verse, verse 32, ends with, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. Okay? So he lists 70 nations. And he says where their places are, okay? And we looked at this map. This is a map here of basically where everyone went, okay, when they were divided. And we got the Hamites, the Shemites, and the Jephthites, the different colors you can see. Okay, the different nations went out. And Genesis 10 is where you get this information. That's what's gleaned out of Genesis 10 for that, okay? We saw this way back when we were in this section. God spreads them out at Babel. We know that, right? They all got spread out. Now, sons of God, and most of you have sons of Israel, okay? Let me read something to you. This is a book called The Unseen Realm. It's Michael Heiser. It's changed my perspective on a lot of things, but let me just read this to you. Most English Bibles do not read according to the number of the sons of God in Deuteronomy 32, eight. Rather, they read according to the number of the sons of Israel. The difference derives from disagreements between manuscripts of the Old Testament. Sons of God is the correct reading, as is now known from the Dead Sea Scrolls, okay? Dead Sea Scrolls has sons of God. Frankly, you don't need to know all the technical reasons why the sons of God reading in Deuteronomy 32 8 9 is what the verse originally said now He's written a whole dissertation on this and he references all he's got references at the bottom of the book Like sometimes there's more at the bottom than at the top. He references everything and you can read papers on this Some of which he wrote but anyway He says, I'm not going to go into all the technical arguments for why it should be sons of God. He says, I'm going to argue the other direction. He says, You just need to think a bit about what's wrong with reading the sons of Israel. Deuteronomy 32, 8 and 9 harks back to the events of the Tower of Babel, an event that occurred before the call of Abraham, chapter 12, okay, the father of the nation of Israel. This means that the nations of the earth were divided at Babel before Israel even existed as a people. That would make no sense for God to divide up the nations of the earth according to the number of the sons of Israel. It didn't exist. If there was no Israel, this point is also brought home in another way, namely by the fact that Israel is not listed in the table of nations. Does that make sense? Go ahead. I may not have an answer. says, for the Lord's portion is His people. Jacob, this is a lot of inheritance, like the following right after, according to the notes of the sons of Israel. For the Lord's portion is His people. Jacob, this is a lot of inheritance. It seems like the context, maybe that's why the translations have continued with Israel, because the following verse points back there. Possibly, but when I go back, and like I say, you look at the Dead Sea Scrolls, it's not there. Anyway, let me go on with his argument. Is it Elohim or is it Yahweh? Let me look real quick. I don't have that information because I don't have that on either one of these to look at the older translation. My translation is newer than I think maybe even on this here, but I can look real quick. Let's see what that's all about. I might be able to do it here, but do it on me. 32, eight. But let's continue on, okay? This is Heizer's idea, not mine anyway. But I think I agree with him, okay. So, he holds it, it's sons of God, not sons of Israel. All right. Now let's turn over to Genesis 6-2. We'll just remind ourselves of this. So he's saying it's the sons of God, okay? We get to Genesis 6-2, and we see the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose, okay? God ends up destroying the whole world over this, okay? And we can also read in Peter and Jude about this as well, that that was a real issue. And then we go to Job 1.6, and you'll remember this. You can turn there if you'd like, but I'll read it to you. Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. Okay? So back in our verse, 32.8, when the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind and He fixed the borders of the peoples, according to the number of the sons of God, Heiser holds that there are 70 sons of God, because there are 70 nations listed in Genesis 10. Okay, so you think, oh, is that a stretch? Okay, now let's turn over some other verses, and then we'll try and look at that as well. But let's go to Psalm 82.1. And what this should do, just to stir you up, okay, just study the Bible a little more, okay? Psalm 82.1, this is Psalm Asaph. It says, God has taken his place in the divine counsel. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. Now, both of those are Elohim there. Okay? You might have rulers or even judges in some translations for the second gods there, but they're both Elohim. Let me read you this here. This is chapter one, opening pages of this book. We all have watershed moments in life, critical turning points, where from that moment on, nothing will ever be the same. One such moment in my life, the callous behind this book, came on a Sunday morning in church while I was in graduate school. I was chatting with a friend who, like me, was working on a PhD in Hebrew studies, killing a few minutes before the service started. I don't recall much of the conversation, though I'm sure it was something about Old Testament theology, but I'll never forget how it ended. My friend handed me his Hebrew Bible, open to Psalm 82. He said simply, here, read that, look at it closely. The verse hit me like a bolt of lightning. Then he has it here, he says, God, and he's got Elohim in brackets, stands in the divine assembly, he administers judgment in the midst of the gods, and he's got Elohim again in brackets, and he goes, I've indicated the Hebrew words that caught my eye and put my heart in my throat. The word Elohim occurs twice in this short verse. Other than the covenant name, Yahweh, it's the most common word in the Old Testament for God. And the first use of the word in this verse worked fine. But since I knew my Hebrew grammar, I saw immediately that the second instance needed be translated as plural. There it was, plain as day. The God of the Old Testament was part of an assembly, a pantheon of other gods. Needless to say, I didn't hear a word of the sermon. My mind was reeling. How was it possible that I'd never seen that before? I'd read through the Bible seven or eight times. I'd been in seminary. I'd studied Hebrew. I'd taught five years of Bible college. What did this do to my theology? I'd always thought and I had taught my students that any other gods, in quotes here, referenced in the Bible were just idols, an easy and comfortable As easy and comfortable as that explanation was, it didn't make sense here. The God of Israel isn't part of a group of idols, but I couldn't picture him running around with other real gods. This was the Bible, not Greek mythology, but there it was in black and white. The text had me by the throat, and I couldn't shake free. Okay. Now, let's sit on that for a bit yet. Okay, I still believe in only one God. Just hold on. Yeah, I know, don't start throwing things, you know. Okay, Daniel 9, 21. Daniel 9, 21. Daniel 9, 21. Okay, Daniel says, while I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the first, came to me in swift flight at the time of the evening sacrifice. Okay, so it's thought that Gabriel is the messenger speaking. Turn now to 10.13, okay. In 10.13, it's thought that Gabriel's speaking here. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for 21 days But Michael one of the chief princes came to help me for I was left there with the kings of Persia Okay, so there's something going on. There's a battle going on here of some kind go down to 1020 and Then he said, you know, I have come to you behold now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia and when I go out behold the prince of Greece will come and But I will tell you what is inscribed in the book of truth. There is none who contends by my side against these except Michael, your prince. And then go to 12.1. At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, tribulation, Such as never been and since there was a nation till that time But at that time your people shall be delivered and everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. Okay, so the point of all this is There's a prince of persia. There's a prince of greece There's michael, which is your prince and he's also called the great prince and charge your people There's gabriel who kind of seems to just be a messenger here. There's What we're given Okay Now let's go over to Luke 10. Luke 10, verse one. It says, now after this, the Lord appointed 70 others. He'd sent out the 12. They'd come back. Now he appoints 70 others. Some of you may have 72. And all the old manuscripts are divided half and half on 70 or 72. Just say that, okay? Now after this, the Lord appointed 70 others and sent them in pairs ahead of him to every city and place where he himself was going to come. Now drop down to 17, they come back. The 70 returned with joy saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name. And he said to them, I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Okay, what's that about? Okay, so Heizer's premise is, okay, in this book, is that God has with him these 70 other rulers that he lets rule over the territories of the earth, okay, and Probably his contention is here in 17 is this is the beginning of taking back those territories from those 70, okay? That he is absolutely king of king and lord of lords and he can shut them all down like that anytime he wants, but he has given them this rulership. He doesn't call them fallen angels necessarily. He makes his arguments. Those guys are princes. They're not necessarily rulers of land. They may be. He makes his arguments. I'm not trying to, I'm just saying. There's verses in our text as we go through the Bible that we read right past, and there's something going on there. I don't know that I totally agree with him. I got the book, and I bought two of them. I gave one to Linton. We both read through it. We both went, wow. I don't know if I believe all of it. But he sure makes some good points. He's very well researched. He's dead now, about two years ago. He makes some really good points. He addresses a lot of things that you've read and you kind of go, I don't know what that's about. I don't know how to handle that. We've read some of those verses tonight. All I'm doing is kind of stimulating it. It was in our verses tonight. And I thought, I'm going to deal with him because They're in our scripture, okay? They mean something. Heizer has his view. I like a lot of what he says. There you go. I'm heading for the door. Do not hear me saying that there's more than one God. I mean, they're called gods by him, Elohim, in scripture. But, and Heizer makes it very clear, we have one God. You know, and he rules over all with total authority, but he has allowed, and you'd have to say created, this for his purposes, if this is true, okay? Something to think about. There's a lot of verses that are interesting. Hope that'll stimulate some thought. All right, let's pray. Father, we're grateful for your word. We know your word is true. And we know that there's things in there we don't really understand, and it's like, eh, I'm not sure what to do with that. But it does, as Linton used to always say, it drives us back to Scripture to keep studying, and that's a good thing. And if this causes people to study more, I'm hoping that's the case. We want to know the truth. And we know that you've revealed everything we need, okay? And you've given us for our purposes. And as we see these things finishing up, it seems like we're towards the end of time. Maybe some more of these things will become more evident to us and we'll understand exactly what you're saying. But in the meantime, let us just totally trust you, trust your word, know that you are sovereign over all. and that you love us and you know everything about us. We're grateful for your word. Bless us this week, I pray now, in Jesus' name, amen.