THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So brothers and sisters, we have a wonderful passage before us. I almost think I start every time we're in the word saying that because the whole of God's word is incredibly wonderful.

But we need to remember where we are. We need to remember who the original audience is in this passage. We know Moses is speaking to a people, Israel's second generation, not far from crossing the Jordan and going or engaging in the conquest. But we also need to remember what had happened 40 years earlier. Because all too often we think of the people of Israel as those that the Lord had rescued from the land of Egypt, and that is true, and we're reminded once again in this text that that is true.

And sometimes we think that that is the blessedness, that they were once in bondage, but now they're set free. Praise be to God, that is an incredible blessing, but that is not the ultimate blessing. The greatest blessing that these people can experience is not simply being rescued from bondage, being liberated from the tyrannical power of the pharaohs of Egypt. Praise be to God for that. But the greatest blessing that these people, the people of Israel, are able to experience is to know God and to be known by him.

The greatest blessing is that they are now being entered into a covenant relationship with the God of the universe. Brothers and sisters, is there anything more glorious than to know the God of the universe and to be known by Him? Is there anything more glorious than to be the recipients of His love, of His mercy, and of His grace, and then for Him to covenant with these people in His love, and then reveal His heart, His word, so that they would know how to love Him, how to serve Him, how to obey Him, how to fear Him. Is there anything more glorious than that? This is something that is incredible.

And then you must be thinking, why would any people, even for a moment, entertain the thought of veering away or walking away from something so precious, such a relationship that is so beautiful and wonderful as that with Yahweh? What else could even compare with a relationship with the Lord God of the universe, the only true God who has revealed himself to them? That might be our initial thoughts. But I hope we're humbled immediately after this. Because beloved brothers and sisters, there's no polite way of saying, so I'll just go ahead and say it, sin.

Sin makes people into fools. that which is precious, that which is a treasure, that which is wonderful, is forsaken, it is abandoned for that which is temporal, the temporal pleasures of this world. And that's why we have passages like Deuteronomy 13 before us. passages that speak about a people forsaking the only true God, abandoning God, committing the sin of apostasy and turning to another rather than being fully satisfied in the God of Israel, the God who called them out of the land of Egypt and rescued them from that bondage, and then to walk away. Walk away from Yahweh.

And beloved, we need to realise that to walk away from Yahweh is to walk towards another. Your hearts, your hearts are never vacant. They're never vacant. You're always worshipping. You're either worshipping the only true God, that, or Him and Him alone, or you're worshipping an idol.

There's no two ways, no two ways about it. Because the Lord God has predicated with these people, and he's established his covenant relationship with them. And the very first commandment he has uttered in the 10 words is, they shall have no other gods before me. So this is a serious sin. Actually, it is the most serious sin, the sin of apostasy.

It's a heinous sin in the eyes of God, and I hope we can see it due to the penalty that is given in the three examples that we have. It's death, death, death. Nothing short of death. There's no punishment here whereby the person remains alive. It's death that comes upon the people.

It is the most serious of sins and it carries with it the most serious of penalties because it is the sin of idolatry. It's the sin of turning one's back upon God and turning towards another. The people here, as we see, are called to be vigilant because there are various ways that one can veer away from the only true God and sell out part of his soul to another. There are various ways, and we have examples before us in Deuteronomy chapter 13, and the people have been called to be proactive, not reactive. They've been called to be vigilant, to keep their eyes open, to make sure that they purge the evil from among them.

That's their responsibility. That's the responsibility God is giving these people, beloved, to purge the evil from among them. It's the responsibility he's given the church. You remember the words of the Apostle Paul says the same thing. When sin is evident in the house of God, in the church, and it's persistent unrepentant sin, the Apostle Paul says, purge the evil from among them.

That word purge is literally burn. That's that word, it literally burn or consume the evil. In other words, exterminate it so there's not even a hint of such sinfulness, such wickedness, such evil among them before the eyes of the Lord. And it matters not where it comes from. The punishment is death.

The chapter divides into three sections. The first two sections that we see before us from verses 1 through 11, we've been given two examples, two ways that apostasy can creep in amongst the assembly, amongst the people of God. And then we have from verse 12 through the end of the chapter, verse 18, we see an example where that sin, where the false teaching comes in, rather than the people being vigilant and quickly, quickly casting out the evil that is among them, it is allowed to dwell. And then it is unchecked. And then we have the result, a whole city falling in the sin of apostasy.

First, the first example, it speaks about a prophet or a dreamer of dreams. Now, beloved, you may remember that in Hebrews chapter one, we're told long ago and many times in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by who? By the prophets. In many ways, it is through the mouth. The prophets were the mouthpiece of God.

They spoke on behalf of God. God spoke to them through dreams and visions and other ways. So this is speaking to someone who seemingly is an authentic messenger of God. He looks like one. He walks the walk.

He talks the talk. And in fact, what makes matters even more complicated is he has power. He comes and he says he performs signs and wonders among them. Beloved, the word here, the phrase signs and wonders is used in its exact form to describe Yahweh's mighty hand when he pulled or when he rescued and delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt. The Bible is not using any other words.

These look authentic. They look like the real deal. Prophet comes among you and performs these signs. This is not circus act. This is not a slight of the hand.

This looks like the real deal. But even then, even if this prophet wows you with the power that he's demonstrating, even if your jaw drops and you think none other than God himself can do this, Bible says, and it's very clear, if he draws your heart away from the God of Israel, if he says to you, come and let's worship another God, then you are to stone him and not have pity upon him. The second section speaks to another group of people where this sin of apostasy can come in or creep into the assembly. Where this sin can be taught and manifest and then others can be dragged into the sin. But this one is a little bit closer to home because the second section that speaks from verse 6 through 11 speaks about family.

Those who are close to you, those who you've learned to love and trust, listen to how the Spirit of God writes these words. He says, if your brother, the son of your mother, closeness, your son or your daughter, those who come from your very loins, or the wife you embrace, not just the wife, the wife you embrace. You can see he's speaking about a closeness here. And then he goes on, or your friend who is as your own soul. In other words, you have this relationship, your best, absolute best friend, the guy that you can trust more than anyone in the world, that David and Jonathan friendship.

That's what he's speaking about. He says, and he entices you secretly saying, there's an enticement. This is family. You can trust family, can't you? Someone you trust and you've grown up with comes alongside and says, Dom, come, let's go worship in this way.

Come, let's do something that may be violating God, but no one will know. Do it secretly. I won't, Dom. You won't, Dom. Let's just do it.

It's worth it. The grass is greener on the other side. Come, you can trust me. You've trusted me before. Have I led you down the wrong path?

Come, come with me. But then Yahweh says, if they draw you away from me, if they draw you away from true worship, if they draw you away to foreign gods, false gods, small G, then you are to have no mercy. Wives, husbands, what is the most intimate relationship we know on this planet? It's that of a husband and a wife. The two shall become one flesh.

No one else has that spoken of. And he's saying, even if your wife, husbands, even if your husband, wife, draws you away from God, he says, you either have no mercy, and it doesn't stop there. He says, not only are you have no mercy, of course, it goes through the normal judicial means that God has instituted for the people of Israel. But then he says that you'll be the first to cast the stone. and then the people of Israel.

This is a collective, that everyone in Israel, everyone in the assembly of God are to be concerned with the purity that is among God's people, that there's not a hint of sinfulness, not a hint of false doctrine, not a hint of rebellion. That word apostasy literally means rebellion among God's people. They must deal with it. Why is it so serious? Look at verse 10.

Verse 10. This is why you are to stone him. Because he, that word he is collective, speaking about all the family members, any family member that causes you to sin in this way. He sought to draw you away from the Lord. your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, A, is because he's drawing you away from the only true God, and then B, 11, and all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do such wickedness as this among you.

We know Israel's history, don't we? We read the Bible. We're not given any examples where this was carried through, unfortunately. Unfortunately, in which way you look at it, but we know Israel did commit the sin of apostasy on many occasions through their history. It's a great offense.

This is a great offense before Yahweh. He's saying, if one allures one of my own, if one comes and entices one of my own, who I've gathered unto myself covenantally, and entices that person to follow after another God, then there must be no pity. You've got to cut evil at its roots. Have no mercy, even on those closest to you, he says. Your loyalty must be to God.

God alone, first and foremost, and all evil, all sin, all rebellion must be exterminated from among the people of God. That's how serious God looks upon the sin of apostasy. Beloved, a little leaven works through the whole lot. That sin will beget more sin. That unbelief will beget more unbelief.

And just like a cancer, it'll go through the people of God. Sin undealt within your own life or within the life of the church will result in destruction. That's why God deals with this. And that's exactly what happens. This sin permeates everyone.

And before you know it, everyone begins to be okay with this sin. And the example we're given in example number three from verse 12 is that exact thing. It says, worthless fellows have made their way into a city. and these worthless fellows have come in, unprincipled men, and they've espoused a certain doctrine, they've illuminated or they've come to people and they've spoken things against God's law, they've attracted the hearts of many, they weren't vigilant in canceling and cutting down the sin at its roots, they listened. And they listen long enough to accept.

And before you know it, the whole city falls into abandonment. They forsake the Lord God. Whole city falls into apostasy. And now the surrounding cities hear about it. Remember, this is Israel.

The surrounding cities hear about it, and they know that now, just like one person can infect many with their false doctrine and with their sin, that this city can infect the rest of Israel, the rest of the people of God. So they must act. They must act. And how do they act? Listen to how they act.

They are to go in there, and they are to completely annihilate. Everyone and everything. This is the same judgment that in a few weeks' time, the people of Israel are going to cross the Jordan and inflict upon the Canaanites. When they go in, the Lord says that you'll go in and you'll kill their men, their women, their children, their cattle, and you burn everything, devote all things to destruction. And God is saying that that city that that sitter that I have given you and the people that I have called covenantally, that if they act in this way, if they abandon the Lord God, if they commit the sin of apostasy as a collective, you are to deal with them just like you're going to deal with the pagan Canaanites.

That is their judgment. And you are not to take absolutely anything from them. That's it. You are not to defile yourself with their silver or their gold or their artifacts. We know what happens when Achan does that in the book of Joshua, don't we?

The sin of apostasy is a heinous. A heinous sin. And the people of Israel, the people of God are to be vigilant to keep the false teaching, to keep that which speaks against the only true God and causes a heart to be drifting away to worship another. They are to be vigilant to bring that to an end. But how?

How are the people of God to protect themselves from being lured away or enticed away? Because that enticement is something that is alluring at the heart. It's something that allures at the flesh. It's not as though you're enticed by something you don't want. But it's something that there is an inclination in you that is sort of going in that direction.

We know we're talking about the flesh now, aren't we? and realizing that Israel, for the most part, when she commits apostasy in the future, beloved, we know that Israel, for the most part, doesn't completely cut out Yahweh. It's no longer, she doesn't say we no longer recognize ourselves as the people of Yahweh. They synchronize their religion. In other words, they begin to blend in the religious practices of the Canaanites and the surrounding nations, and they bring that in, and they are declared apostates.

They are declared forsaking the God of Abraham. Forsaking the God of Abraham doesn't mean that you don't no longer name his name or confess his temple or call yourself by his name. It is to turn your back on what he's taught you fundamentally and turn to another. And God was clear with these people. He gave them the covenant.

He gave them his law. And for them to turn away, then that is the sin of apostasy. because the foundation to their covenant relationship with the Lord is this, Dear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. You can say I believe in the God of Israel, but I also want to include in my religious practices serving of the Baals. or the Ashtaroth, or the Molech's, or the Dagon's, you name your false deity.

You add anything to what God has commanded and you've sold your whole soul to the enemy. That's how it works. You abandon God, you abandon his first commandment that thou shalt have no other gods but me, and you abandon God, God himself. Not only did they know what apostasy was, they also knew how to prevent it from happening. So I want us to see this in this chapter in closing.

I want us to see that in chapter 13 of the book of Deuteronomy, the how is really given. That is, there are two critical truths that are presupposed in the words of this chapter. One of those truths I hope I made clear a few weeks ago when I said that God's people must first and foremost recognize that the only true God is a God who speaks. You remember me saying that a few weeks ago. that God is not mute.

He is the unknowable God, but he has spoken, and what he has spoken is true, and he's spoken to his people. That's the first thing that needs to be recognized. But the second thing I want us to see, which is presupposed in this chapter, is this, that when God speaks, he expects his people to understand what he says, to know what he says, and to believe what he says, to believe what he's spoken. to make sure that he proclaims his heart, his truth, his commands, and those, the recipients, also understand them. Now, we know his mouthpiece here is Moses himself, that's his servant, but before long, Moses will write everything that God has spoken to him and inspired him to write, and then he will leave a copy providentially from the hands of God of scripture, which is the authoritative word of God.

The people of God have had always the word of God. The people have not been called to worship and to love and to serve and to fear a God of their own imagination. I've always had clarity about who this God is because God has revealed himself. And he's also revealed how he ought to be worshipped and he's preserved his word for his people throughout all generations. These two things are very critical that we see them and we understand them.

For God is a God who has spoken. And that which he has spoken, he expects his people to understand, to know, and to believe. And he has left them with his inerrant, infallible word. And that's why he's able to say in verse three, when he speaks about the prophet coming and producing these signs and wonders, which would make these people's jaw drop. That's how God can say, I am testing you.

I am testing you to see if you love me. I am testing you. In other words, there's something greater than the miracle. There's something greater than the supernatural. There's something more sure than all of these things.

And that is my word. That's what God is saying. My word, that which I've spoken, that which I've said, that which I've given you, my word is more sure than any of these miraculous things that you see with your very eyes. Don't follow simply because there's a miracle. Jesus warns his disciples about that in Matthew 24, if you would remember.

No, no. You follow when it is consistent with the inherent God-breathed word. That's why I hope that as I've been working through the gospel according to John, Most of the miracles that we've been going, or we've gone through six of them now, I've said that the miracles ought to have stopped the people in their tracks to recognize that only God can do such, but then stop them to listen to what Jesus is saying. The miracle itself won't save them, but the Word of God spoken through the Son of God will save them. The question is, will they obey?

So every one of those three sections that I just mentioned speak a different type of people or the examples we're given when one is lured to walk away from Yahweh into apostasy. And beloved, in every single one we have the consistent words. If you look at verse 2, it says, the person who comes, the false teacher, he says, let us go. In verse 6, let us go. In verse 13, let us go.

not satisfied to hold this teaching to self. Always wanting to bring along others. Always wanting to destroy the faith of others. This is the work of the enemy. It is so blatant in these verses, because we're told, it says, let us go after other gods which you have not known, or your fathers have not known, and let us serve them.

It's so blatant in the text that is before us. But beloved brothers and sisters, how many times do we know of that that allurement is far more subtle than that? It may come with the authority of a Bible teacher that you've known and you've respected for a long time, and then they utter words that you're not too sure about, but you believe because of his prestige, the power he has over you, or even as the example we're giving may come from the lips of someone that you've come to love and trust, someone who couldn't possibly lead you down the wrong path. And yet the Bible tells us clearly we are to be like the Bereans, the Apostle Paul himself, demonstrating the power of the gospel with signs and wonders, he comes into the Berean church, and we're told, what? They were more noble than the Thessalonians.

Why? Because they went to the scriptures to see these things are so. The apostle Paul is right in front of your very eyes, and he carries with him the authority of Christ. Yes! But we know that God has given us his word, and his word at that point in time was going to be added to, but what he has revealed to us is sufficient for faith, for life, for godliness.

And as God's people, they believe that, and they build their lives upon that principle. And that's why last verse in the previous chapter, beloved, The last verse in this previous chapter, which really could be the first verse in our chapter. You know the chapter breaks are not inspired, the text is. It reads this way, everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do, you shall not add to it or take from it. Everything I command you, you shall be careful to do.

You shall not add to it or take from it. You see, the presupposition in chapter 13 that the people of God will be able to recognize a false teacher, the false prophet, the one who comes in to try to allure your heart and mind and take our eyes off Jesus Christ, off the only true God, and lead us down the path of destruction, the presupposition is this, that A, we are people who have recognized that God has spoken, and B, that we recognize that God has preserved his word through the inerrant word of God, the canon of scripture, and we're a people who are given over to the study of the word, just like the Bereans. Beloved, how important is it for us to study this word, to meditate upon it, to believe it, to consume it day and night. Fathers, to teach it to our children. No wonder why back in chapter 11, we're told here, Moses speaking to the people, he says, you shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

You shall teach them to your children. Talking of them, then you are to, talking of them when you are sitting in your house and when you are walking by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up, what's he saying? This word has to have a part in every part of your life. The way you worship. the way you love your wives, husbands, wives, the way you love your husbands, the way you bring up your children, the way you relate to the church family, the way you relate in the workplace with strangers and so forth.

This is God's word and it's principle for every part of our lives. And beloved brothers and sisters, upon the authority of scripture and what we know here in Deuteronomy chapter 13, if we are not a people of the word, if we haven't committed our hearts and our souls, to study, to meditate, to consume, to believe what is written, and then look to Christ as the power of God in us. His spirit is in us to help us obey his word. If we are not that people, then we are headed towards destruction. Because we don't have the power.

We don't have the power in and of ourselves to fight the fight against the enemy who has got much more experience and much more deceptive than you and I can ever imagine. We know, we know his schemes. We know where he's taking, we know his deception, not because we're smarter than the rest, but because the Lord has given us his word. The same word that has taught us that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. came and died on the cross to give us life.

The same word that tells us that Christ is the only way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the Father but through him. The same word that tells us we are unrighteous in and of ourselves, only the blood of Jesus can cleanse us, make that which is like scarlet white as snow. The same word that teaches teaches us all things about life and godliness. That same word is the word that we want to consume and teach our children so that we can have godly families, a godly church, and that we can continue to shine the light of Christ in this dark, dark world. Let's pray.