The prophetic voice is a gift of God’s grace.

Questions: When you hear the word prophet, what comes to your mind? Does it usher in thoughts of ease and comfort? When you study the lives of men like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, are ease and comfort what you find with those men? Or is it more accurate to say that God’s prophets meet with resistance from forces hostile to God and God’s ways? The questions answer themselves, of course.

Text:

When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.” (Judges 6:7-10)

Teaching: In Judges 6, as in sundry other passages from Judges, God sends prophetic voices to wake the people up from spiritual slumber and apostasy. The prophetic voice is a gift of God’s grace.

Verse 7 of Judges 6 records that “the people of Israel cried out to the LORD . . .”
Why? Because they were being overrun by the Midianites. And what did God do in his grace? He sent them a prophet. The truth-telling prophet called the people back to God, to the history of God’s fidelity, to God’s providential hand, and the prophet called the people to trust. He didn’t call them to trust wicked leaders; he called them to trust God and God’s messenger.

Encouragement: May God grant hearts and minds that discern God’s truth-telling prophets. Why? Because the prophetic voice is a gift of God’s grace.

After a day of work, I met my wife and son for an early supper at our Mexican restaurant we patronize with regularity. CJ and I split a plate of fajitas. Our son got his usual, too. We talked during our time together and drove home afterwards. I drank a cup of coffee, played with Ladybug, our dog, for a bit, and then sat down to study a bit more for teaching our congregation through 1 Peter.

This coming Lord’s Day we are in the first few verses of 1 Peter 2. Verse 1 of that text reads thus: “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.” There is so much practical Christian wisdom in that one sentence.

Context, Context, Context: Peter was writing to what he termed “elect exiles.” That is, his initial audience was Christians who were enduring some level of persecution. Peter knew they were feeling pressures to chuck their faith, to give up, to give in, to doubt God and God’s providence.

Thus Peter, “the apostle of hope,” as he is known in church history, wrote to encourage the saints. And how did Peter do that? By reminding Christians of the fundamentals. And what were some of those fundamentals of what not to do? Just in verse 1, Peter names five specific things Christians are not to do:

• Be malicious
• Be deceitful
• Be hypocrites
• Be envious
• Be slanderous

All that is just in verse 1.

Encouragement: Have you ever noticed the amount of damage inflicted by just these five things? Malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander undermine Christian witness. Folks, we can learn from all examples, especially bad ones. Let God’s people come to terms with the high calling of being salt and light in a sin-saturated world.

Questions:

• Was Moses a godly leader?
• Was Moses commended by the Lord?
• Was Moses a perfect man?
• Did Moses enter the land of promise?
• What lessons should Christians learn from Moses’ life?

Text:

Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel (Dt 34:7-12).

Teaching: Regardless of how many times I read the Bible, this writing about the end of Moses’ earthly life moves me viscerally. Why? I think it’s because there are some people with whom we strongly identify.

Moses was a shepherd. He truly cared for his people and endured vast amounts of suffering on their behalf. He led them like a biblical shepherd leads a flock—selflessly and sometimes with great private pain. He worked hard on their behalf.

Moses was godly. He was certainly a sinner. That is clear from his not giving God the glory when he (Moses) struck the rock at Meribah (Num 20:8). Moses was also a murderer (Ex 2:11-15). And yet God expresses unique love for Moses (Dt 34:10-11).

Moses was a fallen man, and yet God used him centrally as part of Israel’s deliverance and future conquering of Canaan.

Moses was not allowed by God to enter the Promised Land. Why? Because of his own sin. It moves me viscerally when I think upon this judgment of Moses. Moses did not have to answer for the sins and recalcitrance of the sins of those he led. He had to answer for his own sin.

What should Christians learn from Moses’ life?

• God judges us individually.
• God pronounces benediction upon godly leaders.
• God welcomes intimacy with himself and that hinges upon God’s immanence and believers’ lives of spiritual obedience to God’s revelation.

Encouragement: When you have a moment, read Deuteronomy 34 again and again. Then read it again. It is only twelve verses, but those few sentences are among the most laudatory and tender verses in all of Scripture, and they are a master study in the life of Moses, a man “the LORD knew face to face” (Dt 34:10).

Text:

When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers you shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. Only he must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, ‘You shall never return that way again.’ And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold (Deuteronomy 17:14-17).

Questions:

• What does the Bible teach about the importance of godly leaders?
• What traits should be present?
• What traits should be absent?
• What possible dangers lurk when people have wicked rulers?
• What blessings come via godly leaders?

Teaching: In the text above from Deuteronomy 17, God instructs Moses in all these issues so that he would model godly leadership. Peruse the text and see if you don’t see all of these things:

• God blesses godly leadership. Leadership is inevitable. Someone will always take charge. The only question is, What kind of leader will he be?
• The leader is to be “whom the Lord your God will choose” (Dt 17:15).
• The leader is to be out for the team rather than out for self. The leader “must not acquire many horses for himself,” the text says in verse 16. In other words, if you see the leader using his position for his own agrandizement, “Houston, we have a problem.”
• The leader is to be modest rather than self-absorbed. That’s what verse 17 teaches, namely, that the leader shall not “acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.”

Encouragement: It’s cliche for a reason: Organizations rise or fall based upon the quality of their leadership. “[I]f the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Ps 11:3). Let us be a discerning people who inculcate godly leadership.

Text:

And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good? (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)

Moses was summarizing the main points of God’s covenantal nature for Israel’s hearing. As the shepherd of the flock, a picture of Christ and his church, Moses shouldered an immense responsibility. He was charged with leading a people but to lead them in God’s ways. Why? For their good.

That’s the phrasing that Scripture uses in Deuteronomy 10:13. God does what he does for our good, for the good of his people, because God is good, and what God does is good.

But did you notice how the first section of the text above begins? Did you catch the first requirement God has for his people? We are to fear the Lord. Why? Because that is the beginning of wisdom. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Pr 9:10a).

It’s when we don’t revere the Lord that we fall into sin. Sin festers, infects, and destroys when we fear men as ultimate rather than fearing God.

But God is not a cosmic killjoy. That is the opposite of what Scripture reveals. For God’s people, Scripture teaches that in God’s presence is fullness of joy (Ps 16:11). That’s the way the human story began. We had fellowship with God. We walked with God. Eden was not just a real geographical location in the ancient Near East but it was a picture of what man was created for–fellowship with God and a creation fit for him that he was to steward. God had provided everything and pronounced it good. Moreover, God had created for man a helper suitable/fit for him, namely, the woman. And there you have the paradigm: a husband and wife, commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and to fill the earth as stewards responsible to God. And it was done for their good.

Encouragement: But the nature of sin is to thumb one’s nose at the wisdom of God’s ways and to believe the liar and father of lies. Yet God, being rich in mercy, has determined to save a people for himself: “even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” (Eph 2:5). God is the great rescuer of us spiritual rebels. And he does it all for our good and his glory. Those two things–our good and his glory–are inextricable.

Text:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Dt 6:4-9)

This was one of the first passages I committed to memory in my years of studying Scripture. It’s the Shema. That is from the Hebrew word for “Hear.” The emphasis here (pun intended) is upon hearing the Word of God and doing it. It’s the same principle Paul labors in Romans 10 where he writes, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17).

Hear the Word and do the Word. The principle recurs in James’ letter, too: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (Jas 1:22). Hear but then do.

The Shema matters because it is the map for discipleship.

And the Lord teaches his people why this hearing and doing of the Word is crucial: “for the LORD your God [is] in your midst” (Dt 6:15). God is always present. When we experience that reality in our bones, it changes our heart, nature, mind, will, and affections.

Oftentimes I think we suppress that knowledge, just as Paul teaches in Romans 1: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Rom 1:18). That’s the default position of the rebel: suppression of the truth of God.

Encouragement: God is “in the midst,” dear ones. Wherever you are, God is there. He is inescapable. Therefore, let God’s people both hear his Word and do his Word. Trust God with the results, because we will give an account (Rom 14:12).

Text: “Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart” (Pr 3:3).

Context, Context, Context: Like all the book of Proverbs, this is instruction in practical wisdom for everday living. The first part of the verse provides the negative, what not to do. Solomon, writing under the inspiration of God the Holy Spirit, tells his son to not to be the type of person who shirks steadfastness and faithfulness.

The seond part of the verse provides the positive, to bind those things like a necklace. Solomon says to “bind them around [our] neck; write them on the tablet of [our] heart.”

That imagery is so helpful. Why? Because we can all visualize it. We’re to don faithfulness and steadfastness upon us to such a degree that they become our custom, our habit (in the sense of a garment, too).

Then Solomon provides even more imagery to drive the point home. He says we are to “write them on the tablet of [our] heart.” The core of our nature in the biblical worldview is the heart. It’s the seat of what Edwards calls our “affections,” or our desires, will, mind, and emotions. When God’s law is written upon the heart of a person, the person is changed by divine, sovereign grace.

Encouragement: Last night before my wife and I retired to bed for the night, I was telling her about a friend of mine at work. I said, “Every time he and I are together, I just feel better. You can feel Jesus on him.” She knows well of whom I was speaking. She and I love this man, and it just so happens that he and my wife share the same childhood hometown. Why does my friend affect me and others the way he does? Well, he lives out Proverbs 3:3; it’s that simple. What a blessing.

Question: Have you ever thought about the meaning of intercession? “To intervene on behalf on another” is the meaning of the verb form of intercede.

Understanding intercession is fundamental to a biblical worldview. Why? Because Christ is the Christian’s great intercessor. He is our representative. The whole doctrine of imputation hinges upon Christ as our mediator.

That’s what Paul means when he writes to Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).

Christ is the Christian’s mediator, his intercessor.

A Glimpse Back at Recalcitrant People: Remember how often Moses interceded on behalf of sinful Israel? Remember how often the crowds complained to Moses that they had it better in bondage in Egypt? Here’s one example:

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And they said to one another, “Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” (Numbers 14:1-4)

Moses as Intercessor:

Yet God was merciful. God was gracious. He had Moses, his intercessor. And Moses’ job, if you will? To petition the Lord on behalf of others.

Listen to Moses’ words:

And now, please let the power of the Lord be great as you have promised, saying, ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’ Please pardon the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of your steadfast love, just as you have forgiven this people, from Egypt until now. (Numbers 14:17-19)

Encouragement: Do we understand the depths of God’s mercy and grace towards us sinners? God provided Moses as his intercessor on behalf of sinners. It’s a picture of the gospel, folks, where God was doing something through Christ, the ultimate intercessor and mediator, between God the holy and us, the sinners. Intercession is fundamental to a coherent understanding of the biblical narrative of redemption.

It’s a federal holiday here in America in honor of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Despite his legacy being that we ought to be a people who judge people by character rather than skin pigmentation, few seem able to learn that fundamental wisdom. Ugly tribalism thrives among mob mentalities. In this postlapsarian world, I don’t think that will ever change for the undiscerning masses.

As a soldier, I, too, have a day off from work today to celebrate King’s legacy. He was by no means a perfect man. Scholarship has revealed that he was a philanderer and plagiarized much of his dissertation. As one who regularly has his words stolen, it is painful to endure. But each man will give an account one day. So, again, in this postlapsarian world, I do not anticipate a cessation of intellectual theft.

But I do not want to focus on King here or on tribalistic thinking or on intellectual theft. Rather, I want to write of waking up late this morning, of coming down the staircase, of hearing my wife practice “In Christ Alone” on the piano, and of what it means to have a God-fearing spouse.

It’s only Monday and she is already planning the piano pieces for next Lord’s Day. If you’re a Christian, and if you have a Christian spouse, there’s a benediction that you discover (if you pay attention). When I came down the stairs, she was printing off sheets of music, arranging parts for herself and other singers at church, and she asked me to record with her the melody and harmony lines in order that folks could hear their parts, based upon their registers.

I had a suspicion a quarter of a century ago when I proposed that marrying a sweet church girl from GA, a girl whose parents loved the Lord and served their church body, that I was making the right decision. Rather, it was that I discerned that God was making the decision for me in His provision of her in my life. That’s the hand of providence, dear ones.

But you have to have eyes to see that sort of thing. You have to be able to step out of tribalism, groupthink, and the mob mentality. You have to be quiet. If you are, you might hear the sounds of piano keys being played by your spouse’s slender fingers, and hear “In Christ Alone” as you awake and descend the stairwell for your morning coffee.