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Jesus – the prophet like Moses

17 The LORD said to me: ‘What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him.
(Deuteronomy 18:17-18)

Jewish expectations about the Messiah – God’s end-time redeemer

A Messiah like David (Isaiah 9:2-7) – the most popular expectation

A figure like Elijah (from Ecclesiasticus)

God’s Servant (Isaiah 42:1-7)

Melchizedek (Qumran community)

A prophet like Moses
(The Eschatological Prophet)

Deuteronomy 18:15-18
15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. 16 For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire any more, or we will die.’
17 The LORD said to me: ‘What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.

Jews were expecting God to send
“a Prophet”
John 1:20 He (John the Baptist) did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, ‘I am not the Messiah.’
21 They asked him, ‘Then who are you? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’
‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ …..
24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, ‘Why then do you baptise if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?’
26 ‘I baptise with water,’ John replied, ‘but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’

In what ways did Jesus fit the pattern of an Old Testament prophet?
• Prophetic words – messages demonstrating divine knowledge
• Warnings of impending judgment
• Calls for justice and righteousness
• Calls to repentance
• Parables and especially allegories were in “the prophetic tradition”
e.g. Parables of the Tenants in the Vineyard (Matthew 21:33ff) like Isaiah 5 parable of the vineyard.
Jeremiah, the potter and the clay
Nathan’s parable to David of the little lamb.
• Miracles revealing God’s love and power c.f. Elijah and Elisha
• Rejected as all the prophets were

How Jesus described himself

Mark 6:4, Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.’

Luke 13:33 “In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!”

What other people said about Jesus

John 4:19 ‘Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet.

Luke 7:14 He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, get up!’ 15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 They were all filled with awe and praised God. ‘A great prophet has appeared among us,’ they said. ‘God has come to help his people.’

Luke 7:19 39 When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.’

Matthew 16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’
14 They replied, ‘Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’

Matthew 21:10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, ‘Who is this?’
11 The crowds answered, ‘This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.’

Matthew 21:46 They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.

Luke 22:63 The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. 64 They blindfolded him and demanded, ‘Prophesy! Who hit you?

The disciples on the road to Emmaeus

Luke 24:19 ‘About Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied. ‘He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people.

The preaching of the Early Church

Acts 3:21 Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. 22 For Moses said, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.”

So the Jews were expecting the Messiah to be a great warrior king like David. But the Messiah God sent turned out to be more like “a Prophet like Moses”.

10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. (John 1:10-11)

SEE N.T.Wright
Jesus and the Victory of God (1996)

The promise also carries a warning
18 …. I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name.
(Deuteronomy 18:17-19)

Life is full of choices.

Let me begin with the tragic story of a man named Fred who inherited £10 million. The will provided that he had to accept it either in Chile or Brazil. He chose Brazil. Unhappily it turned out that in Chile he would have received his inheritance in land on which uranium, gold, and silver had just been discovered. However once in Brazil he had to choose between receiving his inheritance in coffee or nuts. He chose the nuts. Which was too bad! Whilst the price of coffee rose to £1 a pound wholesale unroasted, the bottom fell out of the nut market, and poor Fred lost everything he had to his name.
He went out and sold his solid gold watch for the money he needed to fly home. It turned out he only had enough for a ticket to either New York or Boston. He chose Boston. The plane for New York would have been a brand-new super 747 jet with red carpets and full of important people. But the plane for Boston turned out to be a 1928 Ford tri motor full of crying children and tethered goats. Over the Andes, one of the engines fell off. Our man Fred made his way up to the captain and said, “I’m a jinx on this plane, a Jonah! Let me out if you want to save your lives. Give me a parachute.” The pilot agreed, “On this plane, anybody who bails out must wear a second chute as reserve” So Fred jumped out of the plane, and as he fell dizzily through the air he tried to make up his mind which ripcord to pull. Finally he chose the one on the left. It was rusty and the wire pulled loose. So he then pulled the other handle. This chute opened, but its lines snapped. In desperation, Fred cried out, “St. Francis save me!” A great hand from heaven reached down and seized the poor man by the wrist and let him dangle in midair. Then a gentle but inquisitive voice asked, “was that St. Francis Xavier or St. Francis of Assisi?”

We all face choices in life. And the truth is that the way our life turns out is often determined by the choices we make. The job we do is affected by the things we chose to study years ago and how hard we worked when we were too young to know how important that study would turn out to be. The family life we have today is often a product of all kinds of choices we made years ago, the hobbies and interests we had and shared, the places we chose to live and the kinds of people we chose to mix with.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words. It is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.”
This is true in life in general. And it is especially true in our Christian lives. The kind of life we live is determined by the choices we make in spiritual things. When we choose to put our faith in Christ that determines our eternal destiny. But the quality of our experience of Christ as Christians is down to choices we make.

Our prayer lives are influenced by choices we make. The simplest choice – to pray or not to pray.
If we are ever going to learn to pray better, we need to spend more time praying. Prayer is the most concrete expression of our relationship with God. And all relationships require time! We are all busy people, and sometimes our activities and our noise squeeze God out. If we want to experience God’s presence and God’s peace, if we really want to grow closer to God in prayer, we must make time and find space and search out silence. Everything in life – our worship, our Christian service, our witness, our love for other people – all spring from our relationship with God. If we do not spend “quality time” in prayer, everything else we do will be futile.
A.W.Tozer has written this: “The Christian is strong or weak depending upon how closely he has cultivated the knowledge of God. Paul devoted his whole life to the art of knowing Christ.”
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, … Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:10, 12-14)
Tozer continues, “ Progress in the Christian life is exactly equal to the growing knowledge we gain of the Triune God in personal experience. And such experience requires a whole life devoted to it and plenty of time spent at the holy task of cultivating God. God can be known satisfactorily only as we devote time to Him.
“We may as well accept it: there is no short cut to sanctity. Even the crises that come in the spiritual life are usually the result of long periods of thought and prayerful meditation.
“A thousand distractions would woo us away from thoughts of God, but if we are wise we will sternly put them from us and make room for the King and take time to entertain Him. Some things may be neglected with but little loss to the spiritual life, but to neglect communion with God is to hurt ourselves where we cannot afford it.
God will respond to our efforts to know Him. The Bible tells us how; it is altogether a matter of how much determination we bring to the holy task. (A.W.Tozer in The Root of the Righteous)

Our Christian Character is shaped by choices we make. Whether we become more like Christ in love and in holiness, or whether we stay as ever we were, miserable sinners. A holy life is just a succession of holy moments. At any time we can choose whether to become more like Christ in love and purity.

We can choose to love—rather than hate
We can choose to smile—rather than frown
We can choose to build—rather than destroy
We can choose to persevere—rather than quit
We can choose to praise—rather than gossip
We can choose to heal—rather than wound
We can choose to give—rather than grasp
We can choose to act—rather than delay
We can choose to forgive—rather than curse
We can choose to pray—rather than despair.

In our Christian witness we face choices about whether to speak out for Christ or whether to stay silent. Do others find Christ through us? The Apostles said, “We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard”. “We must obey God, not men”. Are we prepared to step out in faith and suffer for Christ?

In all these ways we can choose whether God blesses us, or whether we miss out on the blessings. We NEVER DESERVE God’s blessings. We are not talking about earning or deserving salvation. Earning or deserving God’s love. Earning or deserving whether God will use us for his glory or not. But we are talking about choice. Whether we put ourselves in the way of blessing. Whether we walk with the Lord or apart from him. Whether we will trust and obey?

God gave the Israelites that choice. To obey his command and receive his blessing. Or to turn away from him, miss out on the blessings and face the consequences.

Deut 30:15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

We can choose to receive God’s blessings – or we can miss out on them.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

This is not rocket science. Moses makes it very clear to the Israelites, this is not a difficult choice to understand. It is simply a question of obedience and faith. The youngest Christian, the newest Christian, the least able Christian, anybody is capable of making those simple choices. None of us have any excuses!
Deuteronomy 30:11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it.

Simple choices. Blessing or destruction? Life or death? What would the Israelites choose? And what will we choose?

19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

“Now choose life!” says Moses. That was God’s invitation to each individual Israelite and also to the whole nation of Israel. And that is similarly God’s gracious invitation to each and every one of us. We can choose to trust and obey and the result will be blessing to ourselves and to those around us. Or we can choose to let those blessings slip out of our fingers.

Now choose life! That offer is for each of us as individuals. And it is also God’s offer to us together as his people. To North Springfield Baptist Church. Now choose life. Because the choices you and I make affect each other as well as ourselves. If we choose NOT to choose life that will drag down our brothers and sisters around us. If we choose to neglect prayer, that will discourage our fellow Christians from praying. If we aren’t bothered about holy living then our poor witness will make it harder for our fellow Christians to stand up for Christ. And if we aren’t prepared to step out in faith and proclaim Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord to a needy world then we make it harder for our brothers and sisters to share the gospel to their friends and neighbours. Now choose life – together.

Too often we make excuses for ourselves. “I can’t do this.” In reality we mean “I won’t do this.” “I choose not to do this.” We say “I can’t stop doing such and such” when the brutal truth is that we actually choose to carry on doing something which is bad for us. “I can’t pray as much as I want to.” We say. “I can’t tell other people about Jesus.” “I can’t love my neighbour. But “cannot” is the wrong word. If we are honest what we are actually saying is “I will not.” I choose not to do that. We all have as much of God as we want. Not necessarily as much as we would like, but as much as we actually want. We make our own choices – to receive blessing or not. What we get depends on how badly we want it.

The words of Moses are just as much for us today. Now choose life!

Our lives are shaped by history. No matter how post-modern our society may become, no matter how addicted we are to the latest technology and music and fashions we are all influenced by the past. Only when I stopped to think about it did I begin to realise the enormous debt we all owe to those who have gone before us.

I went to a school which was founded in 1515 and so last year celebrated its 5th centenary celebrations. I studied at a university which was established in 1209, so has already passed its eight hundredth anniversary. The college I belong to was founded in 1350 and I had the privilege of two years living and studying in rooms built more than six hundred years before, surrounded by antique furniture and working in a library where students had learned for more than 20 generations! In theological research I routinely worked from books which are more than a hundred years old and from photographs of documents which were more than nineteen hundred years old. We owe a enormous debt to those who have gone before us.

Many parts of the Bible remind us that each of our lives have a unique place in God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation to bring the whole of creation together united under one head, even Christ. This salvation history has unfolded from Abraham to Joseph to the Exodus to the life death and resurrection of Christ through the church in every place and every age right up until today. We in our generation are only playing our tiny part in that wonderful history of salvation stretched throughout space and time. Richard Foster has suggested that we need a Copernican revolution in our lives. The astronomer Copernicus realised that the earth goes round the sun, not the sun going round the earth as the centre of everything. So we need to realise that we are not the centre of everything, but God is. So we should not ask what part God plays in our lives. Instead we should be asking what part we have to play in God’s life? Not how does God fit into our story, but how do we fit into God’s story? What is our part in God’s wonderful cosmic masterplan of salvation?

Here is a truth which our breakneck world seems to be forgetting. Our lives are just a small part of the gigantic tapestry of human history. A miniscule part. We may think we are so important, but in reality our generation is only the latest of countless thousands of generations. And as Merlin said at the founding of King Arthur’s Round Table in the film Excalibur, “It is the doom of men that they forget!”

We saw earlier this year (perhaps you can’t remember) how the Book of Deuteronomy encourages the children of Israel to remember God’s blessings to them and never to forget what He has done for them. Five times in Deuteronomy chapter 8, for example, God warns his people that they might forget him and He commands them to remember and not to forget!
2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way ….. 6 Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and revering him …. .11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees. … 14 your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God,

We saw how Deuteronomy 16 encouraged the people of Israel never to forget God’s wonderful acts of salvation. The Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread – the most important of the Jewish festivals because it reminded Israel of their redemption and the creation of their nation. so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.

But how do we make sure we don’t forget God and his blessings and his marvellous acts of salvation? Well one way the Israelites used was stones. Great big stones. Memorial stones.

Deuteronomy 27 2 When you have crossed the Jordan into the land the LORD your God is giving you, set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. 3 Write on them all the words of this law…. 4 And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ebal, as I command you today, and coat them with plaster. … 8 And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up.”

Other ways of making a record of event were being invented. Storytelling and passing on traditions from generation to generation. Early writing. But from the earliest days human beings have remembered the past using large stones, memorial stones.

Israelites did something similar when they entered the promised land led by Joshua. By a mighty miracle God stopped the flow of the river Jordan so the Israelites could cross on dry land. So we read in Joshua 4,
4 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan from right where the priests stood and to carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” …… (These stones will) 6serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel for ever.”

Memorial stones. You may remember too the memorial stone Samuel set up after a great victory against the Philistines.
12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far has the LORD helped us.”

Set up large stones. Memorial stones. So the question I want to ask is, what do we do to make sure we do not forget all the marvellous things God has done for us in the past ????

In our generation we face a great DANGER – we are so caught up in the inspiration of the moment that we forget that we stand in centuries, even millennia of tradition!!!!! We are so busy living in the moment and looking to the future that we ignore the past.

So what do we have in the way of memorial stones to help us remember the past.

PHYSICAL STONES

We may have stones and plaques celebrating important people and key events. We should also remember all the lives changed, as much by the faithful proclamation of the gospel week by week as by great mission events. We should remember all the people who have been baptized here. We should express our gratitude to God for those who have gone before us and brought us to faith and provided the wonderful buildings we have for worship and outreach.

I was at a church a while ago which celebrated not only a church anniversary but also a pastor’s anniversary – giving thanks for the Ministers who through the centuries have preached the gospel. Some churches have a plaque of past ministers. Others plaques of church members who have died in war. Stones of rememberance.

WORDS

Giving thanks for the past. North Springfield Baptist Church was founded and these buildings established within the living memory of a number of our members. Maybe we want to write down some of the stories of God’s provision and blessing now before nobody is left here remembers. It would be good to collect together old photographs and scan them before they get lost. Looking ahead a bit, wouldn’t it be lovely to create a book to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the church.

Over the years we each have so much to thank God for. It is good to remember the people who have help us on the way. The books we have read. The songs we have sung. The sermons which have inspired and strengthened is. The special occasions and holidays together. One popular thing schools and universities have nowadays is “year books” of photographs so that you can remember the people who you shared important years with.

It is right that we recognise youngsters in the church as they move up classes in Sunday Club and give them books to mark that progression. We have certificates for dedication and baptism and present Bibles or Christian books.

LITURGY

Baptists prefer spontaneity. Making everything up on the spot. But there is a place for using established forms of words on special occasions: weddings, funerals, baptisms, inductions, for example.

The point about using the same pattern of worship and even the same words each time we baptize somebody is not that we are using the only words which are appropriate, or even the very best words, but rather that we are using the same words as were used 30, 40, 50 years ago. That means that every person baptized as a believer remembers their own baptism. The promises we made many years ago are echoed and reinforced as we watch a person make the same promises today.

Equally in a marriage service. It is lovely if the couple make up their own vows to each other to make the service personal to them. But it is also lovely for everybody there if the couple use the same wording in their vows as Christians of all denominations have used in marriages for literally centuries. It is a delight to hear children and grandchildren make the same promises to their wives and husbands as their parents and even grandparents made decades before. In this ever changing world where everybody seems to think newest is best, it is valuuable to have continuity and permanence.

When I was Chairman of Churches Together in Brentwood I got to represent the churches of the town at the ordinations and inductions of clergy in all the other churches. This is the Preface which the Bishop reads in the Act of Institution and Induction of a new Vicar in the church of England.

“The Church of England is part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

New Vicar … in the declaration you are about to make, will you affirm your loyalty to this inheritance of faith as your inspiration and guidance under God in bringing the grace and truth of Christ to this generation and making Him known to those in your care?

The task all churches share is to proclaim the Christian faith afresh in each generation, and to bring the grace and truth of Christ to this generation. But it does so from the firm foundation of the faith uniquely revealed in Holy Scriptures, set forth in the great creeds and the historic formulations of the church. The church has a great inheritance of faith as its inspiration and guidance and a continuity of proclamation of the gospel from generation to generation – not apostolic succession in the sense of authority being passed down from bishop to bishop, but apostolic succession passing on the message the apostles preached to each successive generation.

As Baptist Christians, evangelicals and charismatics, we don’t do much with liturgy. But liturgy is very good in its place! It reminds us of our place in the history of the church. We could use it more!

Prayers

Just as it is valuable to have continuity in the rites of passage and occasional offices of the church, so there is a great deal of value in continuity of prayers.

We free church Christians value spontaneity in prayer, prayer as familiar unreserved conversation with God. But remember, the vast majority of Christians through the centuries, and the Jews before them, did not generally pray the way we do. Many today do not. Other traditions very happily use set prayers – prayers written by other people, prayers often passed down through generations. They often use the prayers found in Scripture in the Psalms. Most make much more use than we do of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, which we call the Lord’s Prayer but is really a pattern for our prayers as disciples.

Set prayers have their dangers. They can become “vain repetitions” where we don’t think about what we are saying. But that same objection can apply to the songs we sing. Most Christians are very happy to use hymns and songs and choruses which other people have written. We don’t feel we need to make up a brand new song every time we praise and worship God. The precise advantage of using words somebody else has written is that we can devote ourselves to thinking about the meaning of what we are singing, instead of having to use most of our concentration on thinking of the right things to say.

And the same can be true of our prayers. Sometimes using words which another believer has written can help us to express our deepest feelings better than we are able to do ourselves. It is good sometimes to be able to focus purely on God instead of having to search for the best words. It is a good thing to add our voices sometimes to the voices of countless saints in many places over many generations by using the very same prayers they used. And praying the same words as other believers have also prayed helps deliver us from that temptation of individualism which is gripping this generation. It does our soul good to admit sometimes that there are other Christians who have expressed themselves in prayer better than we ever can. So we humble ourselves and borrow their words to make their prayer our own.

There is nothing wrong with using the same words on different occasions. Telling my wife Ruth I love her – I often use the same form of words – they aren’t copyright, you could use them too – write them down: “I _ love _ you.” Nice to find other words sometimes, but the standard words are fine for most occasions.

Our spiritual traditions as Baptists, evangelicals and charismatics undervalue set prayers and liturgy. If we want to learn more about prayer that it shouldn’t be a question of either spontaneous prayers or set prayers. It should be both and. If we want to learn more about prayer we should never look down condescendingly on the rites and rituals and liturgies and set prayers of other traditions. All Christians can benefit from liturgy and sacrament and written prayers AND intimacy and informality and spontaneous prayers.

LIVING STONES – People

The place where we encounter the history of salvation best is in other believers. In the saints who have gone before us and given us living examples of love and grace and holiness and faithfulness. It is good to share our testimonies, as we have in our little book, The Difference Jesus Makes. And it does each one of us good to remember the ways God has blessed us over the years. For our own individual walks of faith we should work on remembering, for it is the doom of men that they forget!

Communion

As we share in Communion we can reflect on the continuity beginning with Christ Himself through all the churches and countless disciples right up until today. We are remembering Christ and at the same time we are remembering his church. We are breaking the bread and sharing the cup with somebody who broke the bread and shared the cup with somebody who broke the bread and shared the cup with maybe fifty links of breaking the bread and sharing the cup with one of those first disciples who was there when Jesus first broke the bread and shared the cup! Real stones, words, people who are the living stones, the continuity of communion, honouring the past to inspire us for the future.

Some people dismiss history and liturgy as “The dead faith of the living.” Far better to think of it as “the living faith of the dead?”
Hebrews 11:4 ¶ By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.

May we learn from those who have gone before us and never forget what God has done for us!

_______________________________________________________________________

time OF PRAYER – specific thanksgiving for events / people who have shaped our lives

Event
Person
Book
Hymn/song

Deuteronomy 20 When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3 He shall say: “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be faint-hearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them.

The Israelites stood at the door to Canaan. But they would have to fight many battles to take possession of their inheritance, the promised land. And as Christians we also face many battles to enter fully into our inheritance in Christ, to live holy and Christ-like lives and to proclaim the gospel before a hostile world. The Christian life is no bed of roses or a picnic – it is a battlefield.

Eph 6:11 Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

So as Christians we fight spiritual battles on three fronts:

(1) The world
John 15: 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

1 John 2: 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives for ever.

We must fight spiritual battles to stand firm for Christ and proclaim His saving truth against a hostile world.

(2) The flesh our fallen sin-spoiled human nature.
James 1:13 When tempted, no-one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

So often the hardest battles we face are against ourselves – to do what God wants instead of what our own selfish human nature wants.

(3) The Devil.
1 Peter 5 8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

As Christians we face a formidable adversary – the devil

In these battles against the world, the flesh and the devil, God gives us the victory.
We cannot win the spiritual battles on our own – we need God’s strength.
When we stand up for Jesus and share the gospel with others, it can be scary! The forces which stand against God’s purposes can be terrifying – but God gives the victory! That’s why Moses gives this rather strange instruction for the times when the Israelites are about to go into battle as they take possession of the Promised Land. He doesn’t say, bring on the military leaders who know how to fight battles. Bring on the good warriors. When it’s time for a battle, the instruction is, “Bring on the priest”. Not “time for some strategy” but “time for a good sermon!” Because the battle belongs to the Lord!

2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3 He shall say: “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be faint-hearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. 4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

We thought about that this morning in the promise, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. God’s blessings are for those who humbly put their trust in God as they wait for Him to intervene on their behalf. We saw the same spiritual strategy when the Israelites came to the edge of Red Sea
Exodus 14:13 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
15 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen.” …..
21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

In any battles we have to face we have this promise. GOD gives us the victory!

PSALM 20: 6 Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed; he answers him from his holy heaven with the saving power of his right hand. 7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. 8 They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.

Deuteronomy 20 4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

Meekness and humility. Our part in the battle is simply to trust in God.

But God know that some of his chosen people are not ready for battle. And that is as true for some Christians today as it was for some of the Israelites in those days. They weren’t ready for battle. Their minds were on other things. So God graciously allows for their human weakness. If some people aren’t ready for the fight, God can win the victories without them. The Bible suggests there can be four things which can get in the way of God’s chosen people going into battle for him. Four kinds of things which could take our minds off the spiritual tasks God has for us to accomplish. If we wanted to be clever we could come up with four headings each beginning with the same letter!
WEALTH – Preoccupation with possessions
We do all need somewhere to live. It is good to have enough clothes and enough to eat. It is so easy to look beyond what we need to set our hearts on what we might like to enjoy. And God understands this.
5 The officers shall say to the army: “Has anyone built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may dedicate it.

WORK – Preoccupation with our careers
It is important to give ourselves to our jobs – to do whatever we do as if we are serving the Lord, not serving men, to do everything wholeheartedly. It is so easy to get caught up in career and success and promotion. And God understands this.
6 Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it.

WOMEN – Preoccupation with relationships
Relationships with other people are important. Especially marriage and family life are vitally important. God understands this.
7 Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her.”

WORRY- Preoccupation with fear at the scale of the battle we face!
20:1When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.
The opposing forces may appear overwhelming – we may indeed be terrified. God understands this.
8 Then the officers shall add, “Is any man afraid or faint-hearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too.”

When Gideon face the Midianites in Judges 7, this was exactly the principle God commanded Gideon to use.
Judges 7:1 Early in the morning, Gideon and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh. 2 The LORD said to Gideon, “You have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands. In order that Israel may not boast against me that her own strength has saved her, 3 announce now to the people, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’ ” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

Spiritual battle is not for wimps. And God understands that!
Someone asked an ex-paratrooper how many jumps he had made. He responded by saying, “None! I was pushed out 18 times!” That is a sad picture of the lives of some Christians. We would rather avoid the spiritual battle if we possibly can!

So here were four things which could get in the way of the Israelites fighting the battles God gives us to fight. Wealth – work – women – worry. Four things which can just as easily get in our way when we seek to serve God. People whose minds are preoccupied with these things, or with anything else apart from God, are no use to God in the spiritual warfare we are engaged in. We must love the Lord God with all our soul, and all our heart, and mind, and with all our strength! If we do this all the other things will fall into place. God must be our first love! If we are to be any use to God we must not allow ourselves to be distracted by other things! God understands our weaknesses – he allows for them – but only those with courage and determination are useful to God in spiritual battles. Only those who are single minded in serving God.

Will you notice the grace of God! Those who go back to their houses aren’t criticised. They don’t lose their inheritance. Those who go back to their vineyards aren’t criticised. They don’t lose their inheritance. Those who go back to their fiancées aren’t criticised. They don’t lose their inheritance. Those who go back because they are too scared to fight aren’t criticised. They don’t lose their inheritance.

We don’t earn our spiritual inheritance by putting God first, by being singleminded for God. We don’t lose our inheritance when we put other things before God, whether it be wealth or work or women or worry or anything else. We don’t forfeit our salvation if these things hold us back. But the point is, we are of no use to God if we allow possessions or careers or relationships or fear to get in the way of serving God. We still receive the inheritance which God gives us as a free gift – but we are of no use in serving God in the spiritual battles he calls us to fight.

This is essentially what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3.
1 Corinthians 3:10 By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11 For no-one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

If we want to build with silver and gold, if we want to be useful to God, we must put God first. We must put our trust in God and step out and fight the spiritual war!
To win victory in spiritual battles and to enter fully into our inheritance we have to FIGHT! We may be afraid to fight the spiritual battles we find ourselves in. But we should not be!

Deuteronomy 20 When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. 2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. 3 He shall say: “Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be faint-hearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them. 4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.”

At first sight it is not obvious how passages like Deuteronomy 19 apply to the world of the 21st Century. It is a complicated chapter which covers a number of issues. So let’s unpack them.
Deuteronomy 19 :1 When the LORD your God has destroyed the nations whose land he is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses, 2 then set aside for yourselves three cities centrally located in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess. 3 Build roads to them and divide into three parts the land the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that anyone who kills a man may flee there.
Deuteronomy 19 introduces the idea of cities of refuge, places to which innocent people can escape to in order to find safety – what we today would call places of sanctuary.
Accidents do happen!
Deut 19:4 This is the rule concerning the man who kills another and flees there to save his life—one who kills his neighbour unintentionally, without malice aforethought. 5 For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbour to cut wood, and as he swings his axe to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbour and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. 6 Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him in a rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and kill him even though he is not deserving of death, since he did it to his neighbor without malice aforethought. 7 This is why I command you to set aside for yourselves three cities.
The Book of Numbers allows for the same possibility that accidents do happen.
Numbers 35:22 “ ‘But if without hostility someone suddenly pushes another or throws something at him unintentionally 23 or, without seeing him, drops a stone on him that could kill him, and he dies, then since he was not his enemy and he did not intend to harm him, 24 the assembly must judge between him and the avenger of blood according to these regulations.

Accidents do happen. Here is an important truth which is increasingly forgotten with the growth of the “culture of blame”. “Have you had an accident at work?” “Did you trip over a hole in the pavement?” “Were you injured in a car accident which wasn’t your fault?” “Contact ‘Injury Lawyers for You’. We will get you the compensation you are entitled to. Minus our own cut of course!”
This “blame culture” leads people to think that if something bad happens, if somebody is suffering, the right thing to do is to find somebody you can blame and then sue them for every penny you can get. One advert for “injury lawyers for you” was explicit – if you are suffering then the definition of a lawyer is a person who finds out who was to blame and gets you compensation. In this blame culture, threats of legal action and the spread of “Health and safety” are being used not only to keep people safe but at times to trample over human rights.
A few years ago a Christian nurse in Exeter was been removed from caring for patients because she refused to obey a policy preventing her from wearing a pendant with a visible cross, allegedly for health and safety reasons. The Christian Legal Centre commented, “Unfortunately an aggressive, secularist, politically correct agenda is being driven in the NHS and in other public sectors at present.”
In other places, human rights legislation is being applied in a different direction to persecute Christians! In case after case, the freedom of Christians to express their beliefs is being overruled by the alleged rights of all kinds of groups not to be offended. Something has gone very wrong in the way our legal system understands accidents, blame, and human rights!

So Moses was told to establish three “cities of refuge” to protect the rights of innocent people. In time three cities would not be enough.

Deut 19 8 8 If the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he promised on oath to your forefathers, and gives you the whole land he promised them, 9 because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today—to love the LORD your God and to walk always in his ways—then you are to set aside three more cities.
These special cities were created specifically in order to provide a vitally important
Right of sanctuary –
Num 356 “Six of the towns you give the Levites will be cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone may flee. ….
Numbers 35: 9 Then the LORD said to Moses: 10 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, 11 select some towns to be your cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone accidentally may flee. …. 15 These six towns will be a place of refuge for Israelites, aliens and any other people living among them, so that anyone who has killed another accidentally can flee there.

Through the centuries churches have been seen as places of refuge or asylum, for soldiers, political refugees and others whose lives were at stake. Here is a timely reminder that the church should still be at the forefront of fighting for justice for the oppressed and persecuted, immigrants seeking asylum, Gypsies, Travellers and Roma fighting to keep their homes, or even Christians being persecuted for their faith right here in England. Tonight we could think especially about the crisis of refugees leaving Syria, travelling to Europe to find sanctuary. We could think about those currently being sent back from Greece to Turkey and those just over our border in France. But I’m not going to focus on those particular situations tonight. Just highlight that ideas of refuge and sanctuary and asylum are thoroughly Biblical and should very much be the concern of Christians today.

Preventing the shedding of innocent blood
Deut 19 10 Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the LORD your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.
The important principle here is the Presumption of Innocence. It is better than a crime goes unpunished than an innocent person is punished for a crime they did not commit. Our legal system embodies the principle that a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty! But again, here is a principle which is being eroded, particularly in the area of safeguarding.
Under the rules for child protection with the new Independent Safeguarding Authority, parents who regularly drive children for sports or social clubs will have to be vetted or face fines of up to £5,000 under new rules. Along with parents who host foreign exchange students, they will fall under the scope of the Vetting and Barring Scheme, the Home Office has confirmed. Critics have branded the new rules “insulting” and say they could deter volunteers. Informal arrangements between parents will not be covered, but anyone taking part in activities involving “frequent” or “intensive” contact with children or vulnerable adults three times in a month, every month, or once overnight, must register, it has emerged. It is thought that 11.3 million people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – close to one in four of all adults – may register. After November 2010 failure to register could lead to criminal prosecution and fine. The clubs themselves also face a £5,000 penalty for using non-vetted volunteers.

Some people have argued that it will be worth all the time, effort and expense of this if just one child is saved from abuse. But others have argued that the system won’t be foolproof. Those who wish to commit crimes against children, like the school caretaker who murdered the schoolgirls at Soham, will just find ways to trick the system. But more fundamentally it completely goes against the presumption of innocence – the whole system says, “you are wanting to work with children so you have to prove you are not a paedophile!” And some writers have pointed out that the system may be used maliciously against individuals and groups. Teachers and social workers will be at risk of false accusations by those they work with. And churches could easily face problems with malicious accusations against those working with children and young people.

Making the punishment fit the crime

Deut 19 11 But if a man hates his neighbour and lies in wait for him, assaults and kills him, and then flees to one of these cities, 12 the elders of his town shall send for him, bring him back from the city, and hand him over to the avenger of blood to die. 13 Show him no pity.
Deut 19 21 Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
Numbers 35:31 “ ‘Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.
Making the punishment fit the crime
This passage reminds us of the importance of punishing crime. In legal and ethical theory, punishment serves three possible purposes. Retribution means causing the person to suffer, either physically or socially for example by imprisonment or financial penalty. Deterrence is a punishment to deter that individual or others from committing the same crime. Prevention refers to putting the criminal in a situation where they will not be able to reoffend, for example because they are in prison. And rehabilitation is a form of punishment which is designed to change the criminal’s attitudes. Today’s world accepts the importance of deterrence and prevention and rehabilitation. Ideas of “retribution” are considered old-fashioned. The idea that a person deserves to suffer because they have inflicted suffering on others is considered “barbaric”. But the roots of morality in the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam see punishment as the fair and appropriate retribution for wrongdoing. Such punishment should never be excessive and always be proportionate – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and ultimately, with the death penalty, a life for a life. In many instances, scales of punishment in today’s legal system have lost this principle. So crimes against property, such as stealing and fraud, are often punished more severely than crimes of violence against a person. And I can understand why the families of victims of murder are upset by so called “life sentences” qualified by “serving a minimum of ten years”. I would not argue for the death penalty, except perhaps for extreme instances of evil, but the principles revealed in Deuteronomy certainly support the idea that life imprisonment should mean the whole of life. Life should mean life.
The Bible commands “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life.” Let the punishment be proportional to the offence. Instead in today’s world we have a paradox. Murder is punished by a sentence of “life imprisonment” which can mean less than 10 years. On the other hand, defending your Christian faith in a private conversation can land a person in court, as happened last year to a Christian nurse who gave a Muslim colleague a Christian book and invited her to church. Christians are being threatened with the sack for wearing a cross, the symbol of our faith. It appears the courts are soft on serious crimes but far too ready to defend the so-called rights of people who claim to have been offended.
Evidence of two witnesses
15 One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offence he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Here again the problem comes when people can be attack by false accusations. The children’s charity Childline does wonderful work protecting children from all kinds of abuse. But there are also teachers whose careers have been ruined by malicious and false accusations by children or parents. It is completely right that an accusation by a single individual can trigger an investigation – but guilt or innocence needs to be established by other kinds of circumstantial or forensic evidence. The word of the accuser with no corroborating evidence should not be enough to convict. The evidence given by only one witness would always lead to the risk of condemning the innocent. In the investigation of accusations of historic sexual abuse some horrendous crimes have come to light. But at the same time the reputations and even the lives of some individuals have been completely ruined by malicious or even mistaken accusations. The principle of requiring the evidence of two witnesses, or in English law one witness plus some corroborating physical or circumstantial evidence, is an important principle but in some areas it is being ignored. In many kinds of circumstances accusers have the right to remain anonymous whilst the identity of the accused is made public. This cuts across the principle of presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Seriousness of perjury – lying to the court, false accusation.
16 If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse a man of a crime, 17 the two men involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, 19 then do to him as he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you.
This is an important principle. Perjury, lying to the court and false accusation are very serious offences because they can have devastating consequences on a person who is falsely or maliciously accused. The consequence to the career of a teacher or a church worker falsely accused by a child or even an adult they are trying to help can be devastating. The consequence to the child or even an adult accuser can be minimal – they may well have the right to remain anonymous even after their accusation has been proved to be false. Here I do see a very easy way for the enemy to attack Christians and churches, through police and courts. What I don’t see is any guarantee of justice!
So – what have “cities of refuge” got to do with England in 21st century – much more than we think! Christians should be concerned for the plight of refugees fleeing persecution. But more than that, Deuteronomy 19 points us to important principles of law and justice. The cultures of blame, health and safety and political correctness are conspiring to silence the gospel. People are presumed to be innocent – except in wanting to work with children and young people, we are presumed to be guilty and have to demonstrate our innocence. And when one word of malicious accusation can do as much damage than the evidence of many witnesses, justice will not always be served.

One of the good things about preaching from an unfamiliar book of the Bible is you come across things you wouldn’t normally have thought of preaching about. Tonight – the tribe of Levi, the priests of the Old Testament.
The priests in the Old Testament had very special duties and very special privileges. They were the cornerstone of the faith and religion of Israel. The word priest or priesthood occurs a staggering 937 times in the Bible. And the Levites are mentioned another 312 times. That’s an average of more than once every page across the Old Testament! We read about them in many different places in Deuteronomy, and just that one book it speaks about the different responsibilities of the priests.
10:8 At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.
What a privilege. To carry the ark of the covenant – the box containing the stone tablets with the 10 commandments written on. To be closest to God. And to declare God’s blessings to the people in the name of the LORD. To be God’s representatives and the channels of his blessing. Alongside the ark the priests also guarded the Law of Moses.
31:24 After Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law from beginning to end, 25 he gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD: 26 “Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God. There it will remain as a witness against you.
So the priests were guardians of God’s truth, the commandments and the book of the Law of Moses. They taught the faith of Israel to the people.
18:3 This is the share due to the priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the jowls and the inner parts. 4 You are to give them the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep, 5 for the LORD your God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the LORD’s name always.
It was the priests’ privilege to offer sacrifices to the Lord, to attend his tabernacle and stand and minister in the Lord’s name. The priests, and only the priests, had access into the very presence of God. They represented the people before God and they also God to the people. So they had a part to play in bringing God’s healing
24:8 In cases of leprous diseases be very careful to do exactly as the priests, who are Levites, instruct you. You must follow carefully what I have commanded them.
And the priests also had another function we may not be so familiar with – a legal function.
17:8 If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the LORD your God will choose. 9 Go to the priests, who are Levites, and to the judge who is in office at that time. Enquire of them and they will give you the verdict.
But all these privileges of the Old Testament priests came at a specific and great cost to the whole tribe of Levi. They were set apart from the ordinary people of Israel. They had no land and no inheritance of their own. They lived hand to mouth dependent entirely on the generosity of God’s people.
18 The priests, who are Levites—indeed the whole tribe of Levi—are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the offerings made to the LORD by fire, for that is their inheritance. 2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
Day by day the Levites were dependent on God’s provision and the offerings his people brought.
12:11 Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD. 12 And there rejoice before the LORD your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns, who have no allotment or inheritance of their own. …. 19 Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.
14:27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
So the priests and their families, indeed the whole tribe of Levi, were at the heart of the nation of Israel. They taught and safeguarded the Law, they offered the sacrifices, they pronounced God’s blessings and his healing, and even spoke for God in legal disputes. And in return God provided for their needs from the offerings all of Israel made to Him.
18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
This pattern of priests and people was in place for at least 1500 years before Christ. And after a short period of transition in the first century, this has been the pattern for Christianity ever since. Priests and ministers and pastors safeguarding the faith of the church, set apart by ordination and supported by the gifts the ordinary Christians made to the church. This pattern is most obvious in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, but it has been the pattern in most Free Churches as well. I was set apart, trained, ordained and nationally recognised in the Baptist tradition to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament – to teach and preach the Word of God and to minister the sacraments especially of believer’s baptism and of the Lord’s Supper, communion.
And Priests and ministers give up a great deal to follow their vocation in terms of income and property and, in some ways security.
18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
So the Old Testament pattern of the priesthood continues even in the church today. But not, I suspect, for much longer. Because I see a number of factors diminishing the place of ordained ministers in the life of the church. Recruitment to the clergy has been decreasing over the last half century. As the churches numbers and strength have been waning resources to pay for clergy have been severely stretched. But more than that, I see at least five factors in operation which make me think that churches don’t actually want ordained priests and ministers so much any more.
Changes in and patterns of learning
Uganda, India, Global South, school and adults, rote learning, only knowing what you have been taught. But in UK, USA, Canada, Europe, global North education is all about independent “learning for yourself”, problem solving.
Up until 20th century, was the same in the north as it still is in global south – except for intellectuals, learned classes, you only knew what you had been taught. In church you only knew what the priest or minister taught you. Most ordinary Christians couldn’t read – they were entirely dependent on faith handed down to them through the church.
Throughout history, the nation of Israel and then the church have needed an educated elite entrusted with passing on the faith to everybody else. Now all Christians are educated there is not that need. Or at least, many people think there isn’t.
Increasing involvement by “lay Christians”

Alongside universal education, churches have also rightly been keen to release the members of the churches to exercise their own spiritual gifts. So whereas there was a time when only those ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament would preach, or lead prayers, or lead worship, or preside at communion, or counsel those in distress, certainly in Baptist circles we would say that any Christian is allowed do any of these things. The minister is not the “one man band” So we have the rise of worship leaders, and homegroups where ordinary Christians are taught by each other, not just by the minister. This is entirely right! Leadership shared between Minister and Deacons. Absolutely! Every Christian reading the Bible for themselves, and thinking for themselves! Quite right!
But now we have education, books, internet – people learn for themselves. Now ordinary church members are doing things which for many years only clergy would do – what’s a minister for???
Growing distrust of “experts”
An article in The Telegraph listed “50 things which are being killed by the Internet”. At number 28 was “Respect for doctors and other professionals”.
The proliferation of health websites has undermined the status of GPs, whose diagnoses are now challenged by patients armed with printouts. But most people are still happy to go to a doctor or a dentist. Most people go to a solicitor. Many use a financial advisor. We are happy to consult specialists because they have years of study, years of training, years of experience. Why is it that in church people are decreasingly likely to trust the minister?
A doctor undertakes three years of academic study and then at least two years of practical training before they are able to practise medicine. A lawyer takes three years studying law and a further year of specific training before they begin to practise as a solicitor. In the same way a Baptist Minister nowadays will usually take three or four years of academic theology and then three or four years as a “Newly Accredited Minister” still training while serving a church before he or she is recognised as a fully “accredited minister.” Many ministers will have postgraduate degrees in theology, not to mention any qualifications, skills and experience which many bring from their previous careers in industry or social work or education. Not forgetting that ministers were commended for training by their sending church because they were highly respected as gifted and leading members of that original church in the first place.
And then it one of the major tasks of ministry to continue to study, more even than for doctors or lawyers. Before speaking on a particular topic, or before counselling a person with a specific problem, a minister will have spent hours and sometimes days researching that issue. Not only in personal study of relevant books and journals but often also learning from discussion with fellow ministers.
All this being the case, it is hard to understand why, but it is nevertheless the case that priests and ministers have a decreasing influence in churches. At a minister’s meeting, one Baptist minister put it this way.
“We ministers spend our lives working for the church. We may give hours or days or even weeks of thought to what we say. Then people come along to a meeting and after just 5 minutes thought on a particular issue believe they know better than the minister.”
Time was when the minister was the local church’s “parish theologian”. Nowadays Christians are more likely to put their trust in things they heard from big-name speakers on Christian radio or God TV or at Spring Harvest than they are to trust the considered beliefs of their own minister. Some Christians will put more trust in the latest internet site or blog of some American or Australian or African evangelist nobody has ever heard of than they are in the study and experience of their own minister. “It must be true – I read it on the internet. And that site gets lots more hits than our minister’s own website does – so it must be true!”
Changes in patterns of learning, increased lay-participation and lay-leadership, distrust of “experts in every area of society. The fourth issue which I think is diminishing the influence of priests and ministers in the church today is one simple question.
Who pays the bills?
OT – people gave their offerings to God, priests were paid from gifts given to God
Now – people give money to church, some focus on fact that minister is paid from by church from gifts given by members. (Not so much a problem for Roman Catholics and Anglicans where gifts are given to “the church” as national/worldwide entity, and “the church” pays the priest or vicar. But an issue in free churches, and especially congregationally-governed churches where each independent congregation has to pay its own minister.
This affects priests and ministers in at least two ways.
(a) “He who pays the piper calls the tune”. Many Christians think they are entitled to a say in what their minister says and does, how he or she spends his time and even the things he or she preaches about, or should not preach about.
(b) With growing “professionalism” ministry is being seen as a profession, not a vocation. Changes in Employment law mean that in some church ministers are treated as employees, not as leaders. The whole point of the Levites being supported by the gifts of the people is that they were accountable to God and not to the people. That is the principle underlying the provision of a manse for a Minister and the payment of a stipend, not a salary. The purpose of Ministers being “Office Holders” and not employees is so they can be completely free to do and what they believe God is leading them to do and say, without any pressure from individuals in the church. Ministers are servants- but servants of GOD, not employees of the church. For all kinds of reasons that fundamental principle is being eroded.
Of course Priests and Ministers are accountable – but accountable to a much higher authority than the church they serve or even their denominational authorities. Any minister recognises that they are accountable to God for the way they exercise their ministry. The day that any Christian thinks that the minister should do what they say because they are paying his stipend is the day that individual ceases to benefit from that ministry.
The final factor which may end up being the nail in the coffin for full-time ministry is the widespread rise of what is called “bi-vocational ministry.” It is true that there have always been some ministers following two vocations at the same time by serving a local church and at the same time serving as a hospital chaplain, or prison chaplain, or teaching in theological college, or serving the local Baptist Association or the Baptist Union at their Headquarters in Didcot. At the same time there have always been some so called “lay-pastors” or “locally recognised ministers” working in full time secular employment who have been called to lead usually very small churches. But what we have been seeing in the last 10 years or so is the rise of trained accredited ministers who are bivocational in the sense that they work only part-time for the church and earn the rest of their living in a secular job. One obvious reason for this is that fewer and fewer churches can afford to pay the going rate for a full time minister. Many ministers are having to supplement their income with other paid work. But there are ministers and churches who are suggesting that this should become the normal pattern for the future. Some people are seeking to make a virtue out of a necessity and argue that ministers will be better ministers if they have to hold down a day job as well. And there are suggestions that ministerial training should become angled towards the expectation that all ministry will become bivocational, that is, part-time.
Being a Minister in the church today is never going to be the same as being a priest in Old Testament Israel. But I do believe there is still a future for full time ordained ministry in the churches of the 21st Century. It seems to me that a number of verses of the New testament bear this out!
1 Thessalonians 5:12 Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
I believe there is still a place for paid full time Ministers of Word and Sacrament, set apart to devote their lives to teaching and prayer, and supported by the church to do so.
2 Timothy 5:17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”
Ga 6:6 Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.
I believe there is still a vital place for priests and ministers in the church. 18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
That’s the way it always has been and that’s the way I believe it always should be. But I do fear for the future of the ministry. I do wonder whether in even fifty years from now, any Baptist churches will be served full-time by Ministers of Word and Sacrament any more.
One of the good things about preaching from an unfamiliar book of the Bible is you come across things you wouldn’t normally have thought of preaching about. Tonight – the tribe of Levi, the priests of the Old Testament.
The priests in the Old Testament had very special duties and very special privileges. They were the cornerstone of the faith and religion of Israel. The word priest or priesthood occurs a staggering 937 times in the Bible. And the Levites are mentioned another 312 times. That’s an average of more than once every page across the Old Testament! We read about them in many different places in Deuteronomy, and just that one book it speaks about the different responsibilities of the priests.
10:8 At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today.
What a privilege. To carry the ark of the covenant – the box containing the stone tablets with the 10 commandments written on. To be closest to God. And to declare God’s blessings to the people in the name of the LORD. To be God’s representatives and the channels of his blessing. Alongside the ark the priests also guarded the Law of Moses.
31:24 After Moses finished writing in a book the words of this law from beginning to end, 25 he gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD: 26 “Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God. There it will remain as a witness against you.
So the priests were guardians of God’s truth, the commandments and the book of the Law of Moses. They taught the faith of Israel to the people.
18:3 This is the share due to the priests from the people who sacrifice a bull or a sheep: the shoulder, the jowls and the inner parts. 4 You are to give them the firstfruits of your grain, new wine and oil, and the first wool from the shearing of your sheep, 5 for the LORD your God has chosen them and their descendants out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the LORD’s name always.
It was the priests’ privilege to offer sacrifices to the Lord, to attend his tabernacle and stand and minister in the Lord’s name. The priests, and only the priests, had access into the very presence of God. They represented the people before God and they also God to the people. So they had a part to play in bringing God’s healing
24:8 In cases of leprous diseases be very careful to do exactly as the priests, who are Levites, instruct you. You must follow carefully what I have commanded them.
And the priests also had another function we may not be so familiar with – a legal function.
17:8 If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the LORD your God will choose. 9 Go to the priests, who are Levites, and to the judge who is in office at that time. Enquire of them and they will give you the verdict.
But all these privileges of the Old Testament priests came at a specific and great cost to the whole tribe of Levi. They were set apart from the ordinary people of Israel. They had no land and no inheritance of their own. They lived hand to mouth dependent entirely on the generosity of God’s people.
18 The priests, who are Levites—indeed the whole tribe of Levi—are to have no allotment or inheritance with Israel. They shall live on the offerings made to the LORD by fire, for that is their inheritance. 2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
Day by day the Levites were dependent on God’s provision and the offerings his people brought.
12:11 Then to the place the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the LORD. 12 And there rejoice before the LORD your God, you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levites from your towns, who have no allotment or inheritance of their own. …. 19 Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.
14:27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.
So the priests and their families, indeed the whole tribe of Levi, were at the heart of the nation of Israel. They taught and safeguarded the Law, they offered the sacrifices, they pronounced God’s blessings and his healing, and even spoke for God in legal disputes. And in return God provided for their needs from the offerings all of Israel made to Him.
18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
This pattern of priests and people was in place for at least 1500 years before Christ. And after a short period of transition in the first century, this has been the pattern for Christianity ever since. Priests and ministers and pastors safeguarding the faith of the church, set apart by ordination and supported by the gifts the ordinary Christians made to the church. This pattern is most obvious in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, but it has been the pattern in most Free Churches as well. I was set apart, trained, ordained and nationally recognised in the Baptist tradition to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament – to teach and preach the Word of God and to minister the sacraments especially of believer’s baptism and of the Lord’s Supper, communion.
And Priests and ministers give up a great deal to follow their vocation in terms of income and property and, in some ways security.
18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
So the Old Testament pattern of the priesthood continues even in the church today. But not, I suspect, for much longer. Because I see a number of factors diminishing the place of ordained ministers in the life of the church. Recruitment to the clergy has been decreasing over the last half century. As the churches numbers and strength have been waning resources to pay for clergy have been severely stretched. But more than that, I see at least five factors in operation which make me think that churches don’t actually want ordained priests and ministers so much any more.
Changes in and patterns of learning
Uganda, India, Global South, school and adults, rote learning, only knowing what you have been taught. But in UK, USA, Canada, Europe, global North education is all about independent “learning for yourself”, problem solving.
Up until 20th century, was the same in the north as it still is in global south – except for intellectuals, learned classes, you only knew what you had been taught. In church you only knew what the priest or minister taught you. Most ordinary Christians couldn’t read – they were entirely dependent on faith handed down to them through the church.
Throughout history, the nation of Israel and then the church have needed an educated elite entrusted with passing on the faith to everybody else. Now all Christians are educated there is not that need. Or at least, many people think there isn’t.
Increasing involvement by “lay Christians”

Alongside universal education, churches have also rightly been keen to release the members of the churches to exercise their own spiritual gifts. So whereas there was a time when only those ordained to the ministry of word and sacrament would preach, or lead prayers, or lead worship, or preside at communion, or counsel those in distress, certainly in Baptist circles we would say that any Christian is allowed do any of these things. The minister is not the “one man band” So we have the rise of worship leaders, and homegroups where ordinary Christians are taught by each other, not just by the minister. This is entirely right! Leadership shared between Minister and Deacons. Absolutely! Every Christian reading the Bible for themselves, and thinking for themselves! Quite right!
But now we have education, books, internet – people learn for themselves. Now ordinary church members are doing things which for many years only clergy would do – what’s a minister for???
Growing distrust of “experts”
An article in The Telegraph listed “50 things which are being killed by the Internet”. At number 28 was “Respect for doctors and other professionals”.
The proliferation of health websites has undermined the status of GPs, whose diagnoses are now challenged by patients armed with printouts. But most people are still happy to go to a doctor or a dentist. Most people go to a solicitor. Many use a financial advisor. We are happy to consult specialists because they have years of study, years of training, years of experience. Why is it that in church people are decreasingly likely to trust the minister?
A doctor undertakes three years of academic study and then at least two years of practical training before they are able to practise medicine. A lawyer takes three years studying law and a further year of specific training before they begin to practise as a solicitor. In the same way a Baptist Minister nowadays will usually take three or four years of academic theology and then three or four years as a “Newly Accredited Minister” still training while serving a church before he or she is recognised as a fully “accredited minister.” Many ministers will have postgraduate degrees in theology, not to mention any qualifications, skills and experience which many bring from their previous careers in industry or social work or education. Not forgetting that ministers were commended for training by their sending church because they were highly respected as gifted and leading members of that original church in the first place.
And then it one of the major tasks of ministry to continue to study, more even than for doctors or lawyers. Before speaking on a particular topic, or before counselling a person with a specific problem, a minister will have spent hours and sometimes days researching that issue. Not only in personal study of relevant books and journals but often also learning from discussion with fellow ministers.
All this being the case, it is hard to understand why, but it is nevertheless the case that priests and ministers have a decreasing influence in churches. At a minister’s meeting, one Baptist minister put it this way.
“We ministers spend our lives working for the church. We may give hours or days or even weeks of thought to what we say. Then people come along to a meeting and after just 5 minutes thought on a particular issue believe they know better than the minister.”
Time was when the minister was the local church’s “parish theologian”. Nowadays Christians are more likely to put their trust in things they heard from big-name speakers on Christian radio or God TV or at Spring Harvest than they are to trust the considered beliefs of their own minister. Some Christians will put more trust in the latest internet site or blog of some American or Australian or African evangelist nobody has ever heard of than they are in the study and experience of their own minister. “It must be true – I read it on the internet. And that site gets lots more hits than our minister’s own website does – so it must be true!”
Changes in patterns of learning, increased lay-participation and lay-leadership, distrust of “experts in every area of society. The fourth issue which I think is diminishing the influence of priests and ministers in the church today is one simple question.
Who pays the bills?
OT – people gave their offerings to God, priests were paid from gifts given to God
Now – people give money to church, some focus on fact that minister is paid from by church from gifts given by members. (Not so much a problem for Roman Catholics and Anglicans where gifts are given to “the church” as national/worldwide entity, and “the church” pays the priest or vicar. But an issue in free churches, and especially congregationally-governed churches where each independent congregation has to pay its own minister.
This affects priests and ministers in at least two ways.
(a) “He who pays the piper calls the tune”. Many Christians think they are entitled to a say in what their minister says and does, how he or she spends his time and even the things he or she preaches about, or should not preach about.
(b) With growing “professionalism” ministry is being seen as a profession, not a vocation. Changes in Employment law mean that in some church ministers are treated as employees, not as leaders. The whole point of the Levites being supported by the gifts of the people is that they were accountable to God and not to the people. That is the principle underlying the provision of a manse for a Minister and the payment of a stipend, not a salary. The purpose of Ministers being “Office Holders” and not employees is so they can be completely free to do and what they believe God is leading them to do and say, without any pressure from individuals in the church. Ministers are servants- but servants of GOD, not employees of the church. For all kinds of reasons that fundamental principle is being eroded.
Of course Priests and Ministers are accountable – but accountable to a much higher authority than the church they serve or even their denominational authorities. Any minister recognises that they are accountable to God for the way they exercise their ministry. The day that any Christian thinks that the minister should do what they say because they are paying his stipend is the day that individual ceases to benefit from that ministry.
The final factor which may end up being the nail in the coffin for full-time ministry is the widespread rise of what is called “bi-vocational ministry.” It is true that there have always been some ministers following two vocations at the same time by serving a local church and at the same time serving as a hospital chaplain, or prison chaplain, or teaching in theological college, or serving the local Baptist Association or the Baptist Union at their Headquarters in Didcot. At the same time there have always been some so called “lay-pastors” or “locally recognised ministers” working in full time secular employment who have been called to lead usually very small churches. But what we have been seeing in the last 10 years or so is the rise of trained accredited ministers who are bivocational in the sense that they work only part-time for the church and earn the rest of their living in a secular job. One obvious reason for this is that fewer and fewer churches can afford to pay the going rate for a full time minister. Many ministers are having to supplement their income with other paid work. But there are ministers and churches who are suggesting that this should become the normal pattern for the future. Some people are seeking to make a virtue out of a necessity and argue that ministers will be better ministers if they have to hold down a day job as well. And there are suggestions that ministerial training should become angled towards the expectation that all ministry will become bivocational, that is, part-time.
Being a Minister in the church today is never going to be the same as being a priest in Old Testament Israel. But I do believe there is still a future for full time ordained ministry in the churches of the 21st Century. It seems to me that a number of verses of the New testament bear this out!
1 Thessalonians 5:12 Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
Hebrews 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.
I believe there is still a place for paid full time Ministers of Word and Sacrament, set apart to devote their lives to teaching and prayer, and supported by the church to do so.
2 Timothy 5:17 The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”
Ga 6:6 Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.
I believe there is still a vital place for priests and ministers in the church. 18:2 They shall have no inheritance among their brothers; the LORD is their inheritance, as he promised them.
That’s the way it always has been and that’s the way I believe it always should be. But I do fear for the future of the ministry. I do wonder whether in even fifty years from now, any Baptist churches will be served full-time by Ministers of Word and Sacrament any more.

MALACHI 3: 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
God’s accusation through the prophet Malachi was that his chosen people were holding back on their giving to God. Their giving was not up to scratch. They were not giving the tithes they owed to God – and by that omission they were actually robbing God! God’s blessings were there, the floodgates were ready to open, just as soon as the people of Israel got their giving sorted out!
The idea of tithing isn’t practiced so much in English churches. But it is very common in American churches. It comes from the Old Testament and in particular here in Deuteronomy 14. So what does the Old Testament teach us about our giving to God and to the Lord’s work?
Deut 14:22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.
Tithing simply means setting aside one tenth. The Old Testament practice was very simple. One tenth of everything the Land produced is holy – it belongs to God.
Lev 27:30 30 “ ‘A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.
God has blessed his people. We have thought about this before from Deuteronomy Chapter 8. All the blessings we enjoy come from not from our own efforts but from the hand of our generous God.
DEUT 8:17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.
Everything we have comes from God – and in the Old Testament, one tenth of that belongs to Him. That is the simple principle of Old Testament giving. One tenth of everything belongs to God. We find that ancient practice first in the life of Abraham.
Gen 14:18-20 18 Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, 19 and he blessed Abram, saying,“Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.20 And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
One tenth of everything. One tenth gross, before taxes, before national insurance, before pension contributions. One tenth of everything. There are a few important points to make about this principle of giving one tenth.
The first is that it applied equally to everybody. From the richest to the poorest. Well – not quite everybody. We will think about the exceptions in a minute. But everybody who owned land, who had some kind of income in fruit or grain or livestock. One tenth was set apart for the Lord.
So giving was to be proportionate. The more God blessed you the greater your tithe would be – the greater the amount you would give back to God in gratitude.
Of course the tithe was not the only amount an Israelite should give to God. Over and above that one tenth, there were offerings.
Deut 16:10, 16-17 10 Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you.
16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the LORD empty-handed: 17 Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the LORD your God has blessed you.
So as well as one tenth of all their produce to God, Israelites were supposed to bring Freewill Offerings to God three times a year, at each of the major festivals. And those offerings again were to be a gift in proportion to the way your God has blessed you. No fixed proportion this time, but still “in proportion.” They were freewill gifts – but at the same time “no man should appear before the Lord empty handed!”
Tithes and offerings. But back to the tithes. Notice also will you what the tithes were to be used for.
23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always. 24 But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the LORD your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the LORD will choose to put his Name is so far away), 25 then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the LORD your God will choose. 26 Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice.
To put it simply, the tithes of all the good things God had given were to be used for a great big party to celebrate God’s goodness! Yes those things were holy to the Lord. They belonged to the Lord. But a tenth of all they produced was to be used, not for day to day living but for wonderful extravagant celebrations to honour God. The people gave back to God. But then God gave back to his chosen people once again allowing them to enjoy that produce which was holy to Him in celebration of his name! The tithe was set aside specifically to be eaten in the presence of the Lord with rejoicing.
Well, that was what the tithe was used for two years out of three. In the third year it was different.
Deut 14:27 And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own. 28 At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

So every third year the tithe was not used for the family’s needs but for the needs of two specific groups of people. Firstly the levites, the tribe of Levi, the priests. They had no land of their own. The Bible specifically says “the Lord Himself is their inheritance.” They lived off the tithes of the ordinary people.
Then there were others who had no land of their own because of their circumstances, the alien, the refugee, the fatherless and the widows. These tithes in the third year were set aside to provide food and drink for the poor and needy.
Deut 26: 12 When you have finished setting aside a tenth of all your produce in the third year, the year of the tithe, you shall give it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied. 13 Then say to the LORD your God: “I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the alien, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them. 14 I have not eaten any of the sacred portion while I was in mourning, nor have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor have I offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the LORD my God; I have done everything you commanded me. 15 Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling-place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.
So those who were blessed with land and grain and fruit and oil and livestock set aside one tenth of all they produced. And every third year that was given to take care of the poor and needy. Caring for the widows and orphans and refugees was part of the duty of the whole community. A “welfare state” was build into the system. That principle of giving has been part of the nation of Israel for thousands of years.
But how does all this apply to us today?
Some churches, particularly in America, teach that tithing means every Christian should give one tenth of their gross income to the church every year. I understand why they believe that, but I have to say I don’t agree. We are not under law we are under grace. If I was to teach tithing as a rule for today then there are all kinds of other Old Testament Rules I would think had to apply – like never wearing clothes made of more than one type of fabric, and I just don’t believe that the Lord really disapproves of polyester cotton shirts. More than that, those churches which teach tithing as a rule expected of every Christian don’t seem to me to follow on by using the tithes for great big parties every year. They use the tithe money for other things like buildings and lighting and heating which I suppose are a blessing to the worshippers, but some how aren’t the same as a big party celebrating God’s goodness.
So I don’t believe that tithing is a rule we should be bound by as Christians! But I do think it is a helpful principle! I read a lovely story about one American church.
The day the church treasurer resigned the church asked the local grain elevator manager to take the position. He agreed under two conditions. That no treasurer’s report would be given for the first year. That no questions be asked about finances during that year. The people were surprised but finally agreed since most of them did business with him and he was a trusted man. At the end of the year he gave his report:
The church indebtedness of $228,000 has been paid. The minister’s salary had been increased by 8%. The Cooperative Program gifts has been paid 200%. There were no outstanding bills. There was a cash balance of $11,252!
Immediately the shocked congregation asked, “How did you do it? Where did the money come from?” He quietly answered: “Most of you bring your grain to my elevator. Throughout the year I simply withheld ten percent on your behalf and gave it to the church in your name. You didn’t even miss it!”

The first principle tithing gives to me is that our giving to God should come before all our other expenses. Everything we have comes from God. If God says that 10% belongs to Him, or any other proportion belongs to him, for Him to say what it should be used for, then that is fine by me.
For us one problem we may have with giving is that our work does not produce goods, fruit or grain or oil or livestock which we can measure one tenth of. Our work produces money. And as soon as that money goes into our bank accounts we inevitably think of it all as “our” money. Not like offerings in the churches I visited in Uganda, where people bring up to the altars their cassava and bananas and live chickens, or if God has truly blessed them that year, a cow!
I think the idea of giving back to God even before you realise the money is in your bank account, even before you think of that money as “yours” is a good idea. Giving directly and regularly to the church by Standing Order with Gift Aid claimed back of course. Or giving directly and regularly to Charities Aid Foundation or Stewardship Services and deciding later which Christian work the gifts should go to. Giving straight away, to acknowledge that everything we have comes from God’s goodness.
Then the principle of giving in proportion to what we have received is a good principle. I don’t necessarily agree that the proportion has to be one tenth. But ten per cent is a good figure to start with for regular giving. Of course on top of that should come freewill offerings, but again, in proportion to how the Lord has blessed us. Somebody once put it this way. “May we all increase our offerings to be in proportion to our incomes, lest the Lord reduce our incomes to be in proportion to our offerings”! A frequent question in American churches is “Are you a tither? Or are you just a tipper?”
And the third principle I get from tithing is, curiously enough, the principle of one third. The principle that a proportion of our giving should be directed to the Levites and the aliens and the fatherless and the widows. In other words, not necessarily one third, but a substantial proportion of every Christian’s giving should be directed to the two causes of funding Christian workers (the levites) and to caring for the poor and needy. Jesus in the sermon on the mount says, “When you give alms”. Not “If you give alms”. Caring for the poor and needy is a Christian duty, not only in practical love but in generous giving.
Set aside one tenth. Not a rule – but a valuable principle for Christian giving.
Soviet Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, the author of Tortured for Christ, suffered terribly for the Lord. Yet he said that even while in prison, he saw fellow Soviet believers practice generous giving. “When we were given one slice of bread a week and dirty soup every day, we decided we would faithfully ‘tithe’ even that. Every tenth week we took the slice of bread and gave it to the weaker brethren as our ‘tithe’ to the Master.”
10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.

Some passages of Deuteronomy are hard to apply today because they seem to belong to a bygone age, the Old Covenant of the Law of Moses.

Other passages are hard to apply today because in them God demands from his chosen people more than we are ready to give Him! What on earth are we supposed to do with passages like Deuteronomy 15: At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.???
Literally cancelling debts

15 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. 2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the LORD’s time for cancelling debts has been proclaimed. 3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. 4 However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. 6 For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.

Here is a fascinating text in these days of a Credit Crunch caused by sub-prime lending and toxic debt. A novel solution which in certain respects many governments are adopting. Cancel the debt! Write it off! Clear the decks and give everyone a clean start!

At the personal level the same principle is available to individuals who find their finances in a real mess. When somebody owes more than they can possibly ever pay back there are the options of complete Bankruptcy, or else of an Individual Voluntary Agreements. Most or all the debts are written off and the person can start again afresh.

And these arrangements are so important in order to give people HOPE. Rather than being trapped in debt forever, there is always the possibility of starting over again. The God of hope had this idea first. The year of cancelling debts. The generosity of the Lender who is expected to give up money he has loaned to others is meant as a reflection of the immense generosity of God Himself.
there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,

God has blessed his chosen people so much – we are commanded to be extravagantly generous in return.

But surely this is a recipe for economic ruin! If a man writes off all the loans he has made every seven years! Economic ruin – except for the gift of God. In fact it is a recipe for faith. It is a plan to make sure the Lender continues to trust in God’s grace and God’s provision. If your savings are diminished because you have lent them to others and then written those loans off, you can’t rest on your laurels and trust in your savings. You have to trust God for the next seven years once again. The people who follow God’s command by cancelling debts are the people who God will then bless richly once again! Because they trusted God and obeyed God and put their lives and their fortune once again into God’s hands!
Giving generously to the poor and needy

7 If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your poor brother. 8 Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs…. 10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. 11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open-handed towards your brothers and towards the poor and needy in your land.

God calls his chosen people to be generous to the poor and needy. Notice – this is not the kind of giving in proportion to what you have received which we talked about a while ago. Here the Bible makes clear that our generosity must not be defined by how much we have, but by how much is needed!

do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your poor brother. 8 Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs. WHATEVER HE NEEDS
I command you to be open-handed towards your brothers and towards the poor and needy in your land.
Whatever He needs. We are to be open-handed not closed-fisted. And our attitude has to be right! 10 Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart;

In the face of the migrant and refugee crisis, here is a challenging text. Again, surely this is a recipe for financial ruin! If you give to everybody WHATEVER HE NEEDS you will end up with nothing! Surely there must be limits on how much we have to give? We might hope that the New Testament will show some common sense in this – some get-out clause, some small print somewhere which would excuse us from giving all our money away! Luke’s Gospel records more than the others of Jesus’s teaching on money wealth and possessions – but listen to these words of Jesus in Luke 6.
Luke 6: 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners’ love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners’ do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners’ lend to `sinners’, expecting to be repaid in full.
35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

v.30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
v. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.

Just the same recipe for economic catastrophe! Give to EVERYONE who asks you?? What kind of a life would Christians live if we actually obeyed that command! When people learned they could ask us for anything and we would have to give it to them! If anyone takes anything, do not demand it back – isn’t this just a thieves’ charter!

Lend to your ENEMIES without expecting anything back. Crazy!! If we did live by these rules we would end up with nothing! We would be less than poor – we would be destitute! But perhaps for some people that would be better than the state they are in where treasures on earth count for more than treasures in heaven. Perhaps the vows of poverty taken by monks and nuns through the ages do have something to say to us today.

When a missionary called Henry Richards took the gospel to the people of Banza Mateke in the Congo, each day he would translate and explain 10 verses from the book of Luke. When he came to the 6th chapter, he hesitated because most of his followers were very poor, and might misunderstand the 30th verse. He said that Jesus’ words illustrate a principle and had to be interpreted in the light of other Scriptures. But they took them literally and quickly asked for almost everything Richards owned. Without hesitation he gave them what they requested. Soon, his most cherished possessions were in their hands. After talking among themselves, the people concluded that Mr. Richards was truly a man of God, for they had never seen anyone so self-sacrificing. One by one they came and returned what he had given them. Because of his willingness to give up everything, the missionary’s work bore much fruit.
Jesus’s teaching is clear: when anyone has a genuine need, we who are His followers must be generous and never allow greed or a love for things to keep us from giving assistance.

This teaching in the Old Testament is not just for the Old Testament. Jesus Himself puts it even more strongly. Listen again to these words which we conveniently forget about:

15 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts …
do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your poor brother. 8 Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs. …
Give to everyone who asks you, … and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Each one of us needs to think very hard about how we put these commands into practice in our own finances. And we must consider how we as a church respond to these words. Do we really trust God enough to cancel debts, to give to everyone who asks us and lend without expecting to get anything back?

But this teaching in Deuteronomy 15 has a spiritual as well as a material dimension.
Showing God’s kind of forgiveness

The old Testament speaks about cancelling debts. In at least two places Jesus uses financial debt as a picture for spiritual debts. The most familiar of those places may surprise you – it is in the Lord’s prayer.

MATTHEW 6:11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 14 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
There in the Lord’s prayer the word recorded is not trespasses or sins, but “debts”. The underlying Aramaic word Jesus used undoubtedly meant debt, “that which is owed”.
Our sins put us in debt to God, just as those who sin against us owe us a debt. God cancels all our debts – but commands us to cancel the debts of other people too.

Matthew 18:21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents (millions of pounds) was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow-servants who owed him a hundred denarii. (a few hundred pounds) He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow-servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow-servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”

This parable talks about literal debts. But that is a picture for us of the kind of forgiveness God has shown to us, the pretty amazing grace He has lavished on us. Our debts worth millions of pounds have been cancelled. The debt of our sins so great none of us could ever repay it has been cancelled. Since God has forgiven us so very much, we also should forgive others from our hearts when they sin against us.

Here is an interesting question to think about. Which is easier? To forgive sins? Or to cancel monetary debts? Both cost us. If it is a debt of money, we have to let go of that money. We may have worked hard for it – saved it over a long time. But now that money is in somebody else’s hands and if we cancel the debt the money will never be ours again. On the other hand, if we forgive somebody for some sin they have committed against us, we are letting go of our right to justice. They may have caused us sadness or pain – we have to let that go. So which would be easier? To forgive somebody for something. Or to cancel their financial debt?

Which of these we would find easier tells us something important about ourselves. And about where we are storing up our treasures. Treasures on earth or treasures on heaven. Because I have a sneaky suspicion that many people would actually find it easier to forgive somebody else’s sins than they would to cancel their debt. Letting them keep the money would actually be harder. And I also suspect that is not the way round things are meant to be.

I read an inspiring story. Many years ago two young men were working their way through Stanford University. At one point their money was almost gone, so they decided to engage the great pianist Paderewski for a concert and use the profits for board and tuition. Paderweski’s manager asked for a guarantee of $2000. The students worked hard to promote the concert, but they came up $400 short. After the performance, they went to the musician, gave him all the money they had raised, and promised to pay the $400 as soon as they could. It appeared that their college days were over. “No, boys, that won’t do,” said the pianist. “Take out of this $1600 all your expenses, and keep for each of you 10 percent of the balance for your work. Let me have the rest.”
Years passed. Paderewski became premier of Poland following World War I. Thousands of his countrymen were starving. Only one man could help – the head of the U.S. Food and Relief Bureau. Paderewski’s appeal to him brought thousands of tons of food. Later he met the American statesman to thank him. “That’s all right,” replied Herbert Hoover. “Besides, you don’t remember, but you helped me once when I was a student in college.”

Literally cancelling debts
Giving generously to the poor and needy
Showing God’s kind of forgiveness

What does God expect YOU to do about these things?

What is the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament? Of course that is a trick question because there is no difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and Israel IS God the Holy Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit.
The New Testament introduces us to Jesus Christ, Immanuel, God with us and to the Holy Spirit, God living inside us. And as God is revealed to be so close to us we gain a familiarity with God which would be impossible in the Old Testament. Because if there is one difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament it would be this. God is the Old Testament was much, much, much, much bigger!
Deuteronomy chapters 10 and 11 make this point most powerfully.
Knowing God in Christ we can sometimes bring God down to our own level in our thinking. Until we reflect on the God of the Old Testament.

The GLORY of God
We can briefly see the glory of God in the face of Christ in the story of the Transfiguration. Compare that with the glory of God in the Old Testament. So great, so awesome, so holy, that no human being could look on the face of God and live.

10:44 The LORD wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
on the mountain, out of the fire – glory of God!
Exodus 19: 16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him.20 The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up 21 and the LORD said to him, “Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish.

The overwhelming awe-inspiring glory of God! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

God the Creator
10:14 To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it
Creation is very big: 10^79 atoms – ten million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion atoms – and God made every one of them! And whatever the Heisenberg uncertainty principle may think, God knows where every single one of those atoms is and exactly what each of them is doing right now. And God knows where every single one of those atoms has ever been for 13 billion years and more!
God is the Creator and Sustainer of the whole Universe. Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

God of gods and Lord of Lords
10:17 For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
Somehow the short title “The Lord Jesus Christ” does not do justice to just how great Jesus is. God of gods. Lord of Lords. King of Kings. Mighty and awesome – that is our God!
Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

God of Justice and compassion

10:17 the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. 19

The God of justice and compassion. Bow down and worship – for this is your God!

Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

God’s Mighty acts of Salvation

21 He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.

We know that Jesus has accomplished forgiveness and salvation for the whole church – millions upon millions of believers in every place and every age. But on the surface, in some ways the scale of the story of Easter may appear small to us. Just one man dying on a cross. Just one man risen from the dead. Compare that with the drama of the Exodus. The ten plagues on Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea so that millions could pass across.

11:2 Remember today that your children were not the ones who saw and experienced the discipline of the LORD your God: his majesty, his mighty hand, his outstretched arm; 3 the signs he performed and the things he did in the heart of Egypt, both to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his whole country; 4 what he did to the Egyptian army, to its horses and chariots, how he overwhelmed them with the waters of the Red Sea as they were pursuing you, and how the LORD brought lasting ruin on them.

God’s mighty acts of salvation. Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

God’s miraculous provision
– and then His miraculous provision for all those Israelites through forty years in the wilderness.

11:5 It was not your children who saw what he did for you in the desert until you arrived at this place,

The Feeding of the 5000 and changing water into wine were amazing miracles. But in terms of scale even they were somehow less impressive than God’s miraculous provision of manna and quail and water in the desert for millions of people for all of 40 years!

All God’s mighty acts of salvation! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

Now let’s think for a moment about Economics of scale

As Christians we tend to think of salvation as a personal thing. We think of the salvation of individuals. In the Old Testament the focus moves at the Exodus from the preservation of the family of the descendants of Abraham to the salvation of the whole nation of Israel.

10: 22 Your forefathers who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.
One family of seventy people have become as numerous as stars in the sky! Between 2 and 3 MILLION people escaped from Egypt in the Exodus!
We can easily forget how big the church is. Only the book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of the sheer magnitude of God’s purposes in Christ!

Revelation 5:11 Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. 12 In a loud voice they sang:
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise!”
13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!” 14 The four living creatures said, “Amen”, and the elders fell down and worshipped.

The overwhelming scale of salvation! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!
Let’s pause for a moment and reflect.

And finally consider all the Blessings of salvation

11:8 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 9 and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. 12 It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

The promised land was so full of Physical Blessings. And there would be no need to cultivate or labour/ Everything was handed to the Israelites almost literally “on a plate.” But that is only a picture for us as Christians of all the blessings God has poured out to us in Christ!
EPHESIANS 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
The Glory of God: God the Creator: God of gods and Lord of Lords: God of justice and compassion. Remember His Mighty acts of salvation and the Economics of Scale. So many Blessings of salvation! The God of the Old Testament IS the God of the New Testament and we should never forget it!! Bow down and worship – for this is your God!

When he died at the age of 120, the whole nation of Israel wept and mourned for Moses for thirty days. And we read this epitaph in Deuteronomy 34.
10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, 11 who did all those miraculous signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no-one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
We remember Moses for the burning bush and the confrontations with Pharoah. We remember Moses for parting the Red Sea and leading the Israelites through the wilderness. We think of Moses on Mount Sinai receiving the ten commandments. But there is one part of Moses’ life we often forget. Moses was a man of prayer. Moses the Intercessor. Not only was he a man of prayer, but God heard his prayer requests.
When Aaron and Miriam opposed Moses’ leadership and God struck Miriam, Moses’ sister with leprosy Moses prayed for he to be healed and the Lord healed her.
When the Israelites complained about the Manna that the Lord had given them the Lord sent fire that destroyed the outskirts of their camp, Moses prayed and the fire stopped.
When the Israelites asked the Lord for a leader to lead them back to Egypt the Lord got angry and was going to strike down the Israelites, Moses fell down before the Lord and prayed and God relented.
When the snakes were biting and killing the Israelites Moses prayed and the Lord made way for them to be healed.
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai and the Israelites were worshipping a golden calf the Lord became angry and said he would start over with just Moses, Moses prayed and the Lord changed His mind.
When Moses prayed God listened.
There are many good reasons why God listened to Moses. The main reason why God answered his prayers was because their relationship was two sided. God listened to Moses because Moses first listened to God. Moses was an obedient man and he listened to God and obeyed Him. Secondly God answered his prayers because Moses was a humble man. The Bible tells us that Moses was the most humble man that ever lived. And then Moses had faith – faith enough to see the face of God!
Hebrews 11:24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. 25 He chose to be ill-treated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. 26 He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. 27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. 28 By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel. 29 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to do so, they were drowned.
Moses had faith that God would answer his prayers. Obedience. Humility. Faith. The heart of Intercession.
But then there are specific lesssons we can learn about prayer from Deuteronomy 9
Moses the intercessor. God was all set to destroy Israel – but Moses prayed and interceded for them.
Deut 9:18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the LORD’s sight and so provoking him to anger. 19 I feared the anger and wrath of the LORD, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the LORD listened to me. 20 And the LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too.
Moses the Intercessor. Intercession simply means praying for other people. Praying about their needs. Often praying particularly that God will have mercy on people and pour out his forgiveness and his salvation and his healing on them.
We need to learn to pray for people – to intercede from them. What can we learn here from Moses the Intercessor about intercession?
Deut 9:18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the LORD for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water,
Intercession takes time.
Intercession is hard work. Intercession takes time – in contrast to this age of Instant Everything
Until a few years ago we had a dining room table which had been passed down in Ruth’s family for generations. It was made by hand from a tree in Knowsley Forest which Ruth’s Great Grandfather chopped down himself. Contrast that with buying our new table – the most strenuous part of that process was typing our pin number into the machine.
When I visited Uganda a number of meals featured the local staple carbohydrate. It was called Kwen in Nebbi and Enya in Arua but it was the same porridge made out of cassava – the stuff tapioca or sago is made of. The missionaries fondly referred to it as purple playdough because that is what it looked like and tasted like. To make Kwen or Enya somebody first has to harvest the cassava roots, by hand. Then somebody has to peel and chop the cassava, and then leave the pieces out in the sun to dry. Then somebody has to grind the cassava by hand into flour and finally to boil the flour to make the porridge.
Kwen and enya are usually served with groundnut (that is peanut) sauce. First harvest the peanuts. Remove the nuts from their shells. Grind the nuts and season to make the sauce. It took the best part of a day’s work for the wife in the family to prepare their meal for that day. Every day.
Contrast that with the ease of buying food in supermarkets and cooking it, never mind buying ready meals and putting them in the microwave.
We live in a world of instant everything. But intercession is not like just putting your coin in the machine and out comes the answer to prayer! Intercession demands time and effort.
Intercession is costly – prayer with fasting.
We need to find out more about what fasting means. As he taught his disciples about fasting in the sermon on the mount, Jesus said “When you fast,” do this. Not if you fast but when you fast! For Christians as for the Jews before us even from the time of Moses, fasting is a way of showing God we mean business when we pray! We need to learn much more about the place of fasting in intercession.
Intercession takes time. Intercession is hard work. So what did intercession involve for Moses?
25 I lay prostrate before the LORD those forty days and forty nights because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
Intercession appeals to God’s character – declaring who God is
26 I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Sovereign LORD, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Intercession appeals to God’s promises
27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin.

Intercession appeals to God’s plans and purposes
28 Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the desert.’ 29 But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.”
Intercession appeals to God’s character and to God’s promises and to God’s plans and purposes. And Moses prayed like this for forty days and forty nights!
We find it hard to keep on praying about the same topic for 40 minutes let alone 40 days and 40 nights! We run out of things to say. We get bored. We repeat ourselves. We lose concentration. Our minds wander or we even fall asleep. What was Moses actually doing when he was interceding for Israel for so long? He was reminding God of His diving character and claiming God’s promises. And Moses was finding out what God’s plans and purposes were so He could pray according to God’s will.

So often we find intercession difficult because we don’t know enough about what we are praying about. Usually we don’t know enough because we don’t really care enough about whatever it is we are praying . We need to learn how to intercede and we learn to intercede by practising!
There is a phrase I learned in our University Christian Union about intercession. It was “praying through” an issue or an event. Praying about every facet, every aspect. Bringing all the details before God, not just jumping to the punchline “God bless that event”
I first prayed like that in the prayer meetings on Crusader camps. On camps the leaders spent half an hour together every morning. After briefly going through the practicalities of the programme for that day the rest of the time would be spent in prayer, “praying through” the day.
The first list of verses I ever compiled was for crusader leaders and helpers to pray through on the camp on which I was speaker. Leading up to the camp I gave them a month of daily verses and topics for prayer. Not just the titles of the ten talks but also praying about the quiet times in the tents before bed time. Praying for the sports. Praying for the catering. Praying for the outings. Praying by name for all the leaders and helpers. Praying for health and strength and stamina. Praying for safety. Praying for unity and love amongst the leaders. Praying that the teenagers who weren’t Christians would become Christians. Praying that those teenagers who were already Christians would be built up in their faith. A month of prayers to ask, each one with a promise from Scripture to claim. And the first of those Scriptures was a challenge. The words of the prophet Samuel to the people of Israel in 1 Samuel 12:23
23 As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.
Intercession – praying through! So praying through our personal witness. Asking God who we can specifically pray about among our friends, neighbours and colleages. Praying for that person’s needs. Praying for an opportunity to talk to them about Jesus. Praying whether we should invite them to the International Evening, or to the film afternoon on Good Friday, or to the Tea Party celebrating the Queen’s Birthday, or perhaps to the Meet Jesus course starting after Easter. Praying that they will say yes to our invitation. Praying for all the practicalities of those events, for the publicity materials, for happy times and helpful conversations. Praying for our Easter leaflets as we prepare and deliver them and that somebody in each house will read the Easter message. Praying whether we should offer our friends a copy of our book of testimonies, The Difference Jesus Makes, or the DVD of Billy Graham’s message about the Cross. Praying they will accept the gift and actually read the book or watch the DVD. Praying that they will want to talk more about what they have read or watched, or about an event they have been to. We ask God to take away our fears so that we will be open to doing whatever it is God calls us to do. We thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit who enables us to be witnesses for Jesus and we pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
This is what we mean by “praying through” events or activities. In each aspect, we remind God of his character and his promises and his plans and purposes.
We know we need wisdom about who to invite so we claim God’s promise in James 1 that He will give wisdom to everybody who asks. We also know we should only talk to a person about God when we have first talked to God about the person. So we remind God that He loves all people and doesn’t want any of them to perish. We pray for God to move in our friends’ hearts and that they will begin to hear His voice.
In our intercession we remember that all witnessing and evangelism is spiritual warfare and the most important thing we can ever do is pray.
As 2 Corinthians 4:4 says The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Prayer is about an inexhaustible supply and an almost unlimited demand. The unlimited demand is the lost state of the world – their ignorance, their superstition, their sinfulness, the needs for their bodies, their minds, their souls. The inexhaustible supply is the grace of God to meet these needs. And the one simple thing which brings that supply to meet that demand is intercession – the persevering prayers of God’s people.