Where Have All the Elders Gone? Deuteronomy 31:9-13

["When the Best of Me is Barely Breathing"]

When the best of me is barely breathing

When I'm not somebody I believe in

Hold on to me

When I'm missing like a night star

When I'm a slamming dog, dogs are moving

Hold on to me

Hold on to me

Hold on to me when it's too dark to see you

When I am sure I have reached the end

Hold on to me when I forget I need you

When I have all hope we are here

When I don't feel right I'm not pretending

When I'm tired of your not pretending

Hold on to me

When I start to break in desperation

I don't need no weight or expectation

Hold on to me

Hold on to me

Hold on to me when it's too dark to see you

When I am sure I have reached the end

Hold on to me when I forget I need you

I had a strange moment in time some years ago.

We were planting this church.

It was in the early days of starting New Heights Fellowships.

We had a woman in our church at that time who was ill.

She was supposedly pretty sick, but she didn't come to church.

So we didn't know exactly how sick she was.

Then it was brought to my attention where I was reminded

that there's a passage in the New Testament

where it talks about the elders should go and pray over a sick person

and anoint them with oil.

I wanted to do that.

I'm like, okay, that's something we need to do.

I looked at our church and the question that is the title of the sermon for today

immediately came to mind.

I thought, where are all of our elders?

We're planting a new church and no one is an elder.

No one has been around for a long time.

So no one's old.

No one is an old Christian even.

Then I thought to myself, I don't think I know what an old Christian is.

There are people in my church that I had come out of, the planting church,

that were clearly my elder and I respected them as elders in the general sense.

But I remember sitting across the table at a meeting

that we were having with one of the men at that church.

He said something that I felt was almost un-Christian

even though he was supposed to be God's man

and he was somebody I had greatly looked up to.

Then I remembered being chastised by an associate pastor

very harshly for doing a kind thing, very simple, very kind thing.

It didn't cost anybody anything.

He said, you're the reason this generation is being ruined

even though it's just a simple small kindness.

I looked at our church and I'm not judging.

They were Christian men, godly men.

We all have our issues.

I make mistakes literally daily.

Some days I look at my day and I say, I made a mistake literally every hour today.

So I'm not judging anybody.

If you think you're perfect, if you could write it down so I can follow your example,

that would be great because I'm definitely not.

But what I'm saying is when I look at the church,

I ask myself where have all the elders gone?

And we're a relatively young church.

And if you're sitting there right now saying, I could be an elder,

I know enough, I'm older and I know a lot out of the Bible and stuff like that,

then I would caution you.

I would say rather than making that decision about ourselves,

we would be wiser to be learning and reaching every day new heights in Jesus Christ.

That being said, in that moment in time when we wanted to go,

what we decided an elder was was very generically put,

somebody who loved the Lord, who was willing to follow the word

and be obedient to God and go and pray for healing for that person.

And so we did that.

And that person was healed.

I don't know that we could for sure say it was miraculous,

but within 24 hours they were doing much, much better.

And I felt like I had made it through the urgency or whatever,

and I sort of put the concern on the back burner.

But for 25 years, this has been a concern for me.

Where have all the elders gone in the church?

In my church, my old church, every church I've ever been,

I've had a lot of young men who were trying to follow the Lord.

We have some, quite a few of us here, who are trying to follow the Lord

and maybe know the word better than somebody else knows the word or whatever like that.

But I, for one, would be unwilling to consider myself an elder just generically put.

So this text that we're going to, it's short, right?

It's just five verses.

Yeah, just five verses.

So if you grab your Bibles and maybe give me an amen or a hoot or a holler or something,

as we turn to Deuteronomy chapter 31.

Deuteronomy 31 · chapter mention

Amen.

This is God's word.

We mark that moment in time and we ask ourselves to sort of get a little outside of ourselves

to remember that what goes on here as we read the word, then this is God's word.

It's not my word. I didn't write it.

Had it been written by me, I guarantee you,

if it weren't for a miracle of God, I would have surely screwed it up.

But I'm going to read to you from Deuteronomy 31, 9 to 13,

break down these five verses as we go through and then look at a few key points.

Based on what I studied, this should go by fairly quickly but fairly intensely.

So I would ask you to be very engaged.

All right, here we go.

Deuteronomy 31, verse 9 says,

Deuteronomy 31:9

So Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests,

the sons of Levi who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord

and to all the elders of Israel.

So this is a summary statement and it's kind of in an odd place when you think about it.

We've been reading everything that we've been reading up through 31

and now we have this statement where it says, well, he wrote all this down

and he gave it to these certain people.

And it sounds like, okay, then we're kind of done, except we're not done.

There's a whole bunch more after that.

And it also seems like it should be kind of like the culmination of what come before

and it sort of sticks out a little bit.

It says Moses wrote the law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi

who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord and to the elders of Israel.

So we've got two groups of people, if you will, inside Israel

who will now be entrusted with whatever it is that Moses just gave them.

And I say that for a reason and I'll come back to it in a second.

But the Levites would be the priests.

They are the descendants of the original priests.

They will be the priests in theory forever

as long as Israel would exist and certainly as long as they would be in the promised land.

And then the elders.

And that word there literally means older folk.

So it's nothing special.

It's not like pastors or laymen or lay priests

or those who were already well versed in what Moses said.

It's just old people.

So he gave it to the older people of Israel and also to the Levites.

And so at that point in time, I submit to you,

we've gotten no help whatsoever in our search for where have all the elders gone

because some of us are older and we certainly know,

you certainly know people who are older who would not necessarily be qualified as an elder.

So we don't really have any help in that regards yet.

Verse 10.

Then Moses commanded them saying, at the end of every seven years,

at the time of the year of remission of debts at the Feast of Boots.

Pause.

There's a countable pause there before we go to the next verse.

So Moses is giving them a command.

Of course, he speaks on behalf of God.

He's telling them what to do.

At the end of the seven years, so they had a principle.

Every seven years, they would give up whatever they had loaned to somebody.

So if they loan you $1,000 at seven years, they'd say, you don't got to pay me back.

They loaned you seven coats or seven goats, right?

At the end of seven years, you don't got to pay me back.

By the way, I'm of a mind to think and I don't know because I wasn't there for sure,

but this is the same principle upon which the laws of bankruptcy in the United States of America

were originally founded and you could file bankruptcy after seven years.

Most of the men who founded our country claim to be Christians,

whether or not they were, that's between them and the Lord, of course,

and of the men who signed, for example, the Declaration of Independence,

all but one of them was either a deacon or a pastor.

So if you ever stop and think about where our country came from,

you'll realize it was authored by God in the hearts of men who thought,

at least, that they were following God.

And so Moses wrote the law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi.

Moses then commanded them, the priests and the elders,

saying at the end of seven years, at the time of the year of remission of debts,

at the Feast of Booth.

So we've got two things going on, the remission of debts.

Does anybody remember or do you remember why the remission of debts?

Well, I mean, very simply, without getting into it too deeply yet,

we can say this is to remember that all that you have, you have from God.

And so what you've been given by God, you very generously share with anybody else who's in need.

There should be no poor amongst you because you're ready and willing to loan them

whatever that they need and then at the seven years, surrender it.

Now, a modern principle like this in Christianity is basically never a borrower nor a lender be.

If somebody needs it, you give it and hopefully you get it back.

If they want to give it back, but if they don't, then you don't worry about it.

You're not too tied because, by the way, if you borrow from somebody,

now they have a hook in you and they can kind of control you.

If you loan to somebody and are worried about getting it back,

also they have a hook in you and can kind of control you.

So it's not really a good place to be. We have one master, it's Jesus.

So be careful about that. If you can't afford to lend it, probably never getting it back,

then you shouldn't be lending it. This is the bottom line.

So here is the remission of debts at seven years.

The idea was we're going to lend generously and then not expect to be paid back,

at least at the seven-year mark.

At the Feast of Booths, they were to be reminded that when they came out of Egypt

and God brought them out of captivity, listen to the symbolism here,

when God brought them out of captivity and into darkness,

before he brought them into the promised land, he had them live in tents.

You hear the symbolism?

When he brought them out of darkness and out of captivity,

before he brought them into the promised land, he had them live in temporary shelters.

So you can hear definite Christian undertones there because if you've been saved in Christ,

you've been brought out of the darkness, out of captivity,

and are now living in a temporary shelter pursuant to the promised land.

So we get that imagery very well. Verse 11,

When all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place which he will choose,

you shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing.

So in other words, when they were all gathered together at the Feast of Booths

and in the remission of debts, so it's every seven years,

this law, quote unquote, this law, would be read to them.

Now scholars debate on what exactly he's commanding them to read.

Was he commanding them to read the entire Torah every seven years?

The entire Torah would take a long time to read.

It's 79,975 words and would take between 1200 and 1500 minutes, or 20 to 25 hours,

to read through straight.

And it's got some stuff in there that people struggle to communicate.

And so a lot of times people break that down, they pause, they restate words, things like that,

to make sure that they're being clear, it could take a long stinking time.

By the way, that never happened.

There is no historical record of anybody during the remission of debts at the Feast of Booths

reading the entire Torah every seven years. That never happened.

And so that makes me think the other theory, which is that it's the first 30 chapters of Deuteronomy,

which is 13,223 words and 53 to 66 minutes to read straight through, makes more sense.

So they'd come together for an hour and they would read for an hour the first 30 chapters of Deuteronomy,

which is a summary of what has happened and how they got where they are and the law.

Now that makes a lot of sense.

Except the problem is there's no historical record of them ever coming together

at the seven-year remission of debts at the Festival of the Booths

and reading the entire first 30 chapters of Deuteronomy over and over again every seven years.

Now we have stories where they've forgotten to do it for quite a while and they find it and they go and read it

and then people repent and they realize that they've done wrong and they fix it.

So I submit to you it has happened not only in their life but in the lives of humans ever since humans could read.

It has happened that those who have the most access to the law have been slow in making it available to all.

Now this is exactly what they're commanded to do.

The law is given to the Levites and the elders, the older people,

and they were commanded that every seven years they're going to read it to all the people gathered at the Festival of Booths

and the remission of debts, which puts it every seven years.

Seven, seven, seven, seven. We did it again. We did it again.

And now, and he's about to explain the purpose for that, but I submit to you that we have seen throughout our history,

for the largest part of human history, the Word of God was unavailable to the average individual.

They couldn't read it. In fact, reading wasn't even a skill that most people had.

And even to this day, we're living in America.

It's said that in Toledo, for example, roughly 40% of Toledoans have a third grade or below reading level.

Now Bibles are available in the King James for a dollar at the Dollar Tree.

Now the King James has a reading level of sophomore in college.

So the average person with a reading level second grade is going to go to the Dollar Tree

and buy a dollar at King James Bible, and they're going to look at this and they're going to go,

I don't get it. Even if they could basically understand it,

they're going to have a hard time because it's written in a way that it's hard to follow.

And so for all of humanity, it has happened that people who have the greatest access to the law,

to the direction of Moses, which remember testifies about Jesus,

have been slow in delivering it, making it available to all. What are the motivations for that?

Well, I'll come back to that in a moment and we'll talk about it briefly.

And we're almost done with the text. So shall read this law in front of all Israel in their hearing.

Twelve, assemble the people, going to have a little process here, assemble the people,

the men and the women and the children, and the alien who is in your town.

Don't forget that it's for all people, and the alien who is in your town

in order that they may hear and learn and fear the Lord your God.

And be careful to observe all the words of the law.

So we've got like four things kind of expected of them.

Of course, you know, we'll come back to that in the points.

All of that was to flow out of the fact that they were going to read this law,

whether it was the entire Torah or Deuteronomy 1 to 30, which mirrors closely Exodus 20, 22 to 23, 33.

And so it could have been that segment.

But the bottom line is whatever they were going to read to them was designed

so that they could do these things that was on this list.

Then verse 13 says, and their children who have not known will hear and learn to fear the Lord your God

as long as you live on the land which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.

So he's saying as you go while you are living, as you go into the promised land, the grace land, the holy land,

we talked about that, as you go into that place that I'm going to give you,

set a principle for yourself, you Levites and elders,

to make sure that the law is available to everyone so that they can do these things

and so that your children who have not known.

Now I submit to you, they not only have not known the law,

although they would be getting taught that in their homes, hopefully,

but not only have they not known the law, they have not seen the pillar of fire,

they have not seen God's presence hovering over the tabernacle,

they had not seen the parting of the Red Sea, they had not seen the ten plagues, right?

The children that were with them had not seen any of that.

They've only been alive to see Israel wandering the desert, living in tents,

having little access to worldly goods and having God leading them,

and it's only been fairly recently toward the end of that, okay?

So the new children in the promised land won't have seen any of that.

So once they're in the promised land for five years, everybody that's five years and younger

will not have even seen the parting of the Jordan for them to come into the promised land.

Well, probably after ten years, none of them will have even seen the ark of the covenant

being carried before God's people.

And the solution, Moses says, is every seven years read the law,

which I'm of a mind to say probably since it says he wrote all the law down

at this point in time, concluded doing so in verse 9,

I'm of a mind to say it's probably the first 30 chapters of Deuteronomy.

Read that every seven years and make it available to everyone.

That's what Moses said.

Now even that is not a full solution as we'll see in the chapters we go forward.

There's the song of Moses coming up and they're supposed to memorize the song

and that's to help them know about God and so on.

But we can see that Moses has a passion to make the truth of God

available to the coming generations.

And he is commanding the Israelite Levites and elders who have been given the copy

of this law, probably Deuteronomy 30, into their hands, that they would do the same.

And I think any person can rightly see that it has happened that those who have

the most access to the law have been slow to make it available to all.

What are the motivations behind that?

Some of them are quite sinister.

There is a loss of power.

When the King James Bible was translated, there were a number of words, 173 I think,

I'm not 100% sure, you can Google that if you're concerned about the exact number,

but that's about right, that were, it was 170, it was 170 exactly, that were transliterated,

which means from Hebrew moved into English, they were given an English word that sounded

like the Hebrew word but that did not previously exist in English language.

The same thing was done in the New Testament from the Greek or whatever New Testament text,

it was usually the Koine Greek, into the English, they were given a word.

So for example, we have the word baptism in English, Bible scholars, which comes from the Greek word,

anybody? Baptismo or it comes with some different endings, right?

So if you look at them, they look exactly like the Greek letters, which it's not, it's beta, alpha, row, right?

Looks like B-A-P, because a row is like a P, that's what it looks like.

So they took that word and moved it into English.

I'm not trying to judge anybody or say anything negative, but the bottom line is,

it could simply say immersion or dunking, because that's what baptism means,

so, but we know why the Catholic assigned people to baptize or to translate,

the Bible didn't want to say dunking or immersion, right?

Because no one had been dunked or immersed for a thousand years.

They hadn't been doing it for 1500 years.

With rare exception, they had been pouring or sprinkling,

and they'd been doing it as a baby because of original sin,

which also you'll have trouble finding that being ordered in the scripture, right?

But the bottom line, people were getting poured or dunked.

And now if you have to baptize the entire church anew because the Bible is becoming available to them,

you've got the problem, right?

You've got a church of a thousand people, and now they all have to be dunked because they translated it into English,

the words actual translation got a problem.

So I submit to you that those who had the greatest access to the law and understanding of what the word actually meant

were slow in giving the actual translation or making it available so people could understand it

because of a loss of power, a loss of control, an exposure of their own evil deeds, feelings of guilt,

and they might even have genuine concern for the people and say,

well, look, we can't baptize 150,000 people next month, we can't get everybody caught up to the way it should have been,

and they're all going to be freaking out because of this concept that we have that if you're not baptized,

you go to hell, which isn't actually accurate according to scripture, right?

And so we got that, we're going to have all these people freaking out, we're going to panic,

and everybody's going to be terrified, we want to keep the peace, we want to be gentle with them,

all these good motivations as well.

So the bottom line is there's lots of reasons why that people might actually,

for concern of the people or for concern of themselves,

avoid delivering the law as it was delivered to us into the hands of common folk

that actually need to know it, actually need to respond to it because it is a personal relationship with Jesus.

If you are sitting here today and you have not personally encountered God through Jesus, His Son,

you are not saved. That's what the word says.

There's only one way that a man comes unto God, it is through Jesus.

I am the way and the truth and the life, no one cometh unto the Father but through me.

And if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and call upon Him to be saved,

how feeble your understanding might be, but if you're earnest and true and your heart really wants to be saved through God,

you could be saved through the name of Jesus literally without even knowing the name of Jesus.

There are tons of stories, hundreds if not thousands of stories,

of people who got saved before they ever heard the word Jesus.

Even though you have to be saved in the name of Jesus, that's how it has to happen.

I submit to you that Abraham and Moses were both saved without the name Jesus.

Enoch was saved without the name Jesus because Jesus had not been born yet and the name had not been assigned yet.

Now it means Yahweh saves essentially, so they were trusting in the way that God would make

and God made a way and it's Jesus.

He said, however you want to do it God, that's fine by me.

And God says, well I'll do it by Jesus.

And I said, well God, I said that was fine by me, however you want to do it.

Jesus is fine.

And they got there and they met Jesus in person for the very first time,

called him by the name Jesus perhaps, because lots of things are revealed after you die and go to heaven,

and Jesus saved them.

People need to respond to this truth and they need the truth displayed to them so they can do so.

So the first thing I want you to see in this text then is that the text is the defining of elders.

The text gives us a definition of who the elders are.

Now I get it, we're talking about old folks who have maybe seen stuff,

they've been around a while so they're older in the text.

But I submit to you that the moment that Moses hands them the word of God,

the moment that he hands them the law, he defines them.

They are the ones to whom the law was given.

They have a responsibility.

Yes, maybe they're 50 or 60 or 80 years old, whatever old was for Israel at that time,

but the bottom line is once Moses gave them the word, from that point on you were an elder if you had the word.

You were defined at that moment by having received in the New Testament church when Paul says,

James says, have the elders go and pray over somebody.

Nobody in that church was a Christian for 80 years because the church hadn't existed for 80 years yet.

Until Pentecost, the Holy Spirit hadn't come.

And six months after that they ordained the first deacons.

So before we say somebody's got to be a Christian for a long period of time, that's the definition.

They've got to be old so that they have a wise understanding of the world.

I submit to you that my understanding in Christianity is the older you get,

the harder it is to come to a transforming faith.

When you're younger you're wise to go, hey, this affects me deeply, I'm going to respond to it.

When you're older you've been affected deeply by the loss of loved ones, by the loss of jobs,

by the loss of health, by everything you've been through, relationships breaking up, etc.

And you've been affected deeply by many things and the word comes and affects you deeply

and you debate with yourself whether or not you want to adjust your entire life 60 years in around this thing.

But at 15 you get a pimple and you think you're going to die.

And then the word comes in and you go, look, if I don't accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,

I'm going to die. And guess what? You're right that time.

And so you're willing to do it.

But people make those same radical decisions about things like drinking or drugs or sex

or relationships with their parents, mom and dad are too strict, etc. when they're young and that's unwise.

So is it possible for a young person to be unwise and not be an elder? Absolutely.

Is it possible for an older person to be unwise and not be an elder? Absolutely.

What defines the elder is they are someone to whom the law is given.

If you know your Bible, you have reached qualification number one.

That's the bottom line, which is why the word commands us to study the word.

It's why we do what we're doing right now. We're breaking down this text to better understand it.

Here and from this moment on, elders are defined as those to whom the word was given.

The law was to be made available through them.

They were to ensure that the law was read.

So now we have the elders are the people who have the law, love it enough to realize it's a value to other people

and make sure that it delivers to them as prescribed.

Well, you can do that in a lot of ways. You can support the pastor, the Bible teachers.

You can literally take what you know of the Bible and explain it to other people.

You can do it in a one-on-one conversation. You can talk anytime you get the opportunity.

People tell you what's going wrong with their life and say, hey, the Bible may have an answer for what you're talking about.

There's a myriad of ways you can do that.

But you cannot do it while you're primarily discussing your favorite hobby, your toys, the things that you like to do, etc.

While your mouth is being used for other things, you will not be talking about God.

I submit to you that if 90% of what you say is about something else and only 10% of it God enters into it,

then you are not following the ordered press of God to ensure that the Word of God is delivered into the world.

As Christians, we speak what we know and what we know is of God.

So, defining elders would be those to whom the law is given and those who are ordered to ensure that it is read or made available to the common people.

Those who remember the law then also.

Now, I'll break this down a little bit more in the next point, but I want to share with you right here.

Notice that they were the older people in the congregation, so they had a longer record of what God had done.

They had more first-hand experience of seeing things that God had done.

But it isn't that they had a longer record, it was that they knew that God had done something.

As I mentioned, the New Testament church were folks who had been at Pentecost and six months later became deacons.

So, it wasn't that they were Christians for a real long time and had a notebook full of thousands of journal pages of miracles that God had done,

but it was that they knew that God had done a miracle, the miracle of their salvation at the very least.

And from that moment, I've seen people who got saved and got on the phone and were immediately trying to lead other people to Christ.

If you believe what you believe, then it will transform what you think.

And if you believe and your thoughts are transformed, your mouth will flow out with truth that can then help others find the way.

It becomes automatic. Do you remember your salvation? If you don't remember it, it didn't happen.

It's that simple. Now, sometimes I put my keys somewhere, I don't remember putting them there.

I will go back and I will stare at them and I'll say, I swear my wife must have done that.

I can't possibly believe I did that. Okay?

But it's entirely possible that I did put them there because I also understand that at 53 years old, I'm just a little bit senile when it comes to where I put my keys.

However, my salvation was a different kind of experience. I didn't put anything anywhere.

I didn't even put myself at the front of the church building to tell them that I wanted to follow Jesus.

I was standing back there going, I don't think there's any possible way I'm going to be able to walk forward.

I'm so intimidated. I can't get up in front of people. I've been avoiding people looking at me for the last 25 years.

There's no way I can do that. And I said, but I've got to because if I don't, I'm going to go to hell.

And so I turned my foot like this. Next thing I know, I was six inches nose to nose with a pastor who had three hairs between his eyebrows.

And he's telling me how to go to heaven. And I'm going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Saying I'll do stupid things that I knew I wasn't wanting to do, but because I wanted to follow Jesus, I was going to do them because that's what it meant to follow Jesus.

I'm never going to forget that. I remember the miracle that God has done.

Do you remember the miracle that God did when he saved you? Because if you don't, you aren't saved.

It doesn't even matter if God actually tried to save you in that moment.

Your lack of faith and ability to recognize what God was doing inhibited him from doing what he was trying to do.

When Jesus was walking through Galilee and he could only do a few healings there, only cast out a few evil spirits.

Jesus, God, God the Son, limited in what he could do because the people didn't believe.

And it's like that for us too. If you believed and he transformed your life starting at your salvation, then you remember your salvation.

If you remember your salvation, it should affect what comes out of you.

You are the one to whom salvation was given. You are the one ordered that salvation should be spoken of, lived out and made available to others.

And you are the one who must remember.

Brings us to the second point, which is essentially they were those who remember.

God brought them to the promised land, to the grace land, to the holy land.

We talked about all of that in three separate sermons and gave them everything.

Notice that the reading of the law would take place at the Festival of Boots and the Remission of Debt.

At that time, there's an interesting combination of things going on.

The remission of debts is remembering that God gave us everything.

And the Festival of Boots is remembering that when God brought us out of the darkness, brought us out of captivity,

that he caused us to live in tents for quite a while, before he brought us into the promised land.

If you know where you're going and you know you're going to heaven, when you get there,

you will never forget that after God saved you for a while, he put you to work, sharing the Gospel,

living out the truths that you knew before you were fully transformed.

Now, it won't be a sort of mourning. It'll be a sort of admiration and glorification of God

about the awesome and powerful thing that God was able to do.

When we were living up in Michigan, a small puppy, which we would eventually name Penny, a Yorkie,

which is not really a poodle, it's a different kind of a thing, it was a kind of copper color,

came wandering up to Alicia while I was working on my truck on the driveway,

and it was 38 degrees outside and raining, and the dog's nose felt warm, and it was sick, it was clear it was sick.

And so Alicia started playing with it, and I'm like, don't play with that dog, and she did.

And then next thing you know, okay, we're going to own the dog.

So we couldn't put the dog back out in the rain, and we drove the neighborhood.

We couldn't find anywhere the dog belonged. The dog didn't have tags, had a collar, but no tags.

And so we took the dog in. But the dog was sick.

Now, from the moment we took the dog in, we knew if we were going to take care of the dog,

we were going to have to deal with its issues.

And I'm thinking, you know, I don't really have money to go to the vet, but the dog's got to go to the vet,

because I don't know how to make its nose not warm anymore.

I don't know how to do that. I just knew enough to know that it was sick, a little snot dribbling out its nose.

I can't have that, and it's snot dripping all over my house. We've got to do something.

And so the next day we made an appointment, and we took the dog to the vet.

Now listen, the dog lived in my house with a snot dripping, warm nose for 36 hours before it got to the vet.

Now that's what we are.

If you're a Christian, God already owns you. He's taken you to the promised land.

He will one day make you perfectly healthy, perfectly wealthy,

but He does not promise either one of those things here on the earth.

You have a responsibility to maintain your body, you have a responsibility to maintain your mind,

you have a responsibility to maintain your finances, all of that.

It's all given back over into your stewardship because it's all a gift from Him.

That's what they were remembering with the remission of the debts. We ought to be generous.

Every dollar you've ever given, 100%, 100 pennies out of every dollar, is for you to be generous with.

That you can take care of the people around you, your family, your friends, your everybody.

Now, do you need to take care of yourself along the way? Yes, you do.

But if for you it's all about getting better off, better off, better off,

and just kind of occasionally handing out scraps, that's not the generosity that they were called for.

They were to be living at that festival remembering that God gave them everything,

but yet there was more to come. That's where that festival was.

The booths, the tents were about, we're not there yet,

and we must not forget that after God called us out and brought us into His ultimate protection,

He told us, we're not there yet.

God had His tents stay in the wilderness even because they did not listen,

and they stayed there for a long time.

And then finally, finally, He brought them in.

Now, the New Testament says of us as Christians in 2 Corinthians chapter 4,

2 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

that we have this truth in earthen vessels.

So the law has been given to you.

The law has been ordered for you to disperse it and share it with everyone you possibly can.

And the law is something that you must remember, but not only the law,

the miracles that God has done that you have seen, and those things ought to drive you and motivate you.

And you have all of that truth in earthen vessels.

Your body is falling apart.

It will die if Jesus does not come again first.

The only question is, can you ensure that when it dies, it dies for Jesus rather than for your pleasure?

Because if it dies for your pleasure, you and your pleasure will rot in hell for an eternity.

But if it dies for Jesus, you will be resurrected into a new body,

glorified in heaven and then ultimately the new heaven and the new earth for an eternity.

It's a little different way between the two possible endings.

We have this truth in earthen vessels now.

They had their festival of the booths to remember that when they were called out of Egypt,

out of the darkness, out of ignorance, out of slavery, they were first put in a holding pattern, if you will, in tents.

We have that too. This is my tent.

Also in that moment in the festival, they were remembering that they got everything from God.

1 Corinthians 4-7, I think it's really neat that it's 2 Corinthians 4-7 and also 1 Corinthians 4-7.

We have these truths in earthen vessels, 2 Corinthians 4-7, and then that we got everything from God.

It says, if you got everything, I'm paraphrasing, if you got everything from God,

why do you behave as if you did not receive it? That's 1 Corinthians 4-7.

That's the crux, that's the moment, the conflict, the point.

They were remembering they got everything that they had from God and yet for a while they had it in temporary housing, if you will.

That's the moment at which the law was to be delivered.

Also at the remission of debts, generosity was called for.

Debts were forgiven and debts should be forgiven.

God's love, the Holy Land, the promised land, the grace land, is for all people, not just for you.

Now I understand, maybe you might think, well, if only so many people go to heaven,

let's say if only a million people go to heaven and there's a hundred million acres there,

then we each get a hundred acres, whereas if a hundred million people go, we each only get an acre.

It doesn't work like that. Those are earthly thoughts.

So they were warned not to think about, okay, next year I have to forgive this guy's debts,

so I want to make sure I don't loan him too much because in a year I have to forgive the debts.

They were warned not to think earthly thoughts about what God would bless them with.

You can give your salvation away to someone else every moment of every day for the rest of your life,

and when you get to the end of that act, you will have more salvation than you had when you started.

Spiritual realm, salvation, truth of God, does not work like anything else.

When you give it away, you actually get more of it.

However, even though as I say that, I am reminded that in the kingdom of God,

it actually works that way with everything. When you give your time away, you get more time.

When you give your money away, you get more money because everything we were given was given for the generosity of God.

Now to prove that point, that everything was given, Jesus tells a story of a man with two sons in Matthew 21.

We won't go there and read it, but in Matthew 21, he tells the story of two sons.

Both sons were asked to go and work in the man's garden.

The first son says, yeah, sure, dad, I'll go work, but he doesn't because he's got too many things going on.

You know what I'm saying? Or he thinks he does.

The second son says, no dad, I'm sorry, I can't. I can't go work in the garden today, dad.

But then later, he recognizes that he kind of owes it to his dad. It's the right thing to do.

It's justice. And he goes and works in the garden.

And Jesus says that the second man is so much better off than the first.

In fact, he even goes on to say, because of the attitude that were in the Jewish people of that day,

and I submit, he doesn't say this, but I submit in parenthesis there, you could put that they were not delivering the truth to people who needed to hear it,

because of their attitude about what they had been blessed with,

he says that the tax collectors and the whoremongers would come and sit down in the kingdom of God before them.

So let me tell you this. If a tax collector or whoremonger comes and sits down in the kingdom of God before you do, you're not an elder.

Surprise! They might be, because they will have received the word, they will have been ordered to share the word,

and they'll be passionate about doing so because they came and sat down in the kingdom of God.

They will have remembered the miracle that God has done, so they'll be going around as a whore,

somebody who may be still breaking out of prostitution, or as a tax collector,

somebody who's still cheating people, manipulating, stealing from people whenever he can to survive, right?

And the tax collectors were allowed to take whatever taxes they wanted, the more they took, the more they got to keep.

And they had Roman soldiers to enforce it, so they were hated people.

So we're talking about hated people that nobody wants, they come and sit down in the kingdom of God,

but then by the time, if you even do get around to accepting real salvation, by the time you do so,

they'll have been there for a while and seen additional miracles, had God's presence have been growing in Jesus.

They'll be the elders. So you look at somebody that's in your life right now that's a really bad person,

you can hardly stand to be around, or maybe they're in jail right now because of actual crimes they committed.

They really did do what they were charged for, and that's why they're there.

And you look at them, they accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Jesus doesn't look at the crimes they committed.

Jesus doesn't look at their present situation. There are people living for the Lord, elders of the church.

Where have some of them gone? Some of them are in prison.

Some of them are not allowed or able to minister to the people that they want to minister to the way that they want to,

and they're just wishing that you would get around to it.

That we would get around to ministering because they are the elders, because they have genuinely accepted Christ,

and they're still living in a temporary domicile, unable to do what they really want to do,

and they may not be able to do it until they get to heaven, but we have the opportunity.

Defining elders is here, to whom the word is given, ordered to ensure that it should be read or known by all,

not restricting its spread. Those who remember the miracles of God, and those who remember,

remember that God brought us out into temporary dwellings, that God has His people stay in those temporary dwellings

until He finally brings us in into the true promised land, the true grace land, the true holy land,

which will be for an eternity. Generosity is called for every day, not just when you feel like you have an abundance,

but every day. God's love is every day, and it is for all, and it is our responsibility to deliver it to all.

If you're busy and distracted by the things of this world, then you can pretty much guarantee you're not an elder,

because that's not what it was set up to be. The third thing to see in here is that all people should have the ability to hear.

It's very clear that Moses was making a provision for every generation to come, and because he said also all of the aliens

who will be within striking distance, if you will, or live in your communities, it was for everybody, all people,

which is fortunate for us, because most of us, and probably all of us, are not Jews or do not have Jewish heritage,

and therefore you were brought in under the principle that Moses said, everybody should have the opportunity to hear.

Not just to hear, right, but also to learn, which is what you're doing right now, and what you're doing Tuesday night Bible study,

and what you're doing on your lunch hour when you break out your Word and sit down and study it.

It becomes study when you read it and you write something down and you're digesting, you're figuring it out, right?

They all were supposed to have, all of us were supposed to have the opportunity to hear.

Did you know by the time I was 25 years old that I had not heard five Bible verses?

I saw people at sporting events on the TV with a big poster that they held up or a phone board or whatever back in the day

that said John 316, and I didn't know what that was.

I'm like, was that John 316? I didn't know it was a Bible verse.

One time, it was probably about the 10th time I saw it on TV, one Sunday afternoon or something, and my dad just happened to be there,

and I said, Dad, what is that? I see that all the time. What is that?

He said, oh, that's a Bible verse. It's a Bible verse?

So I said, so what's the 3 and the 16? What does that mean?

He said, well, that's where you find it at in the Bible, like the third chapter in the 16th verse in that chapter.

And I was like, oh, okay, and I went on with my life.

But I had seen it all those times before and never even knew what it meant.

Never knew that it was a Bible verse or anything.

I give credit to that guy because that guy who's at the sporting event may or may not have been an elder,

but at least he was trying to make sure that there was an opportunity for somebody to hear he had at least one of the qualifications of being an elder.

We are supposed to make sure not hold back.

Listen, if you go out and tell people that to truly honor God, they ought to use their mouth in a God-honoring way,

the next time you see them, they're going to expect you to be using your mouth in a God-honoring way.

Oh, gosh, well, now maybe I'm not so sure I want to tell people they should use their mouth,

because then when I get caught not doing it, then it looks bad for me.

Why is it that people don't share again?

Why is it that people who have the most access to the law are slow to make it available to all?

Well, one of the reasons is because I think they may hold me to the very standard that I'm teaching them.

And I frankly know I'm not doing a very good job meeting it, except what?

The real standard of all the law is just one thing. Jesus.

It's not about whether you keep every one of these points correctly or not.

Now, I was watching, I saw a reel, which I quickly deleted, by the way, but I saw a reel on Facebook this week,

a guy talking about how he's a Christian living for the Lord and he wants to try to get the word out, whatever.

And he was talking about how people who were not saved were debating whether they were saved or not because they had sin in their life.

And he goes, well, you've seen my girlfriend, right?

And he said, we do some getting busy, but I still consider myself a Christian.

And I went, delete.

If you will willingly sin against God after becoming a Christian, then you ought to have serious questions about who you are in Christ.

Now, if you will incidentally, or if you will because you yield to temptation, but at the same time forewarned is forearmed.

There is no kind of temptation except that which is common to man.

So if you know you're going to be tempted, you ought to be ready to be tempted.

And when you're tempted, you should resist the temptation.

Flee if necessary.

We have those commands. We know better.

But that being said, when we teach somebody not to yield to temptation, even as I say that, I know tomorrow I will probably give into some kind of a temptation and I'll be repenting and turning back to the Lord.

So don't teach the gospel like this.

If you follow Jesus, you're going to be all fixed up and you'll never do anything wrong again.

Like I never do anything wrong.

That is not the Bible.

That's somebody's idea of how to make friends, win friends and influence enemies.

Right.

You're trying to get people to like you because you want them to see you got it all together.

But if you've actually got it all together in this lifetime, you're probably not a Christian.

Somebody's got it all together.

There's some pretty wealthy people out there and they own everything they want and they've got lots of people chasing after them to serve them and love them and all these kinds of things.

All in a worldly fashion.

None of it matters.

It means squat.

They all go to hell when they die if they don't have Jesus.

But if you can have Jesus and teach the law that it all points to Jesus and the person gets saved, why on earth would you not want to teach them that?

It's our responsibility that they hear.

It's our responsibility that they learn.

It's been entrusted to us.

Written on our hearts.

Not just in a book.

But written on our hearts.

All people should have the ability not only to hear and to learn but also to fear the Lord.

When you look at what God has done and you're intentionally going against Him.

That scares the crap out of me.

That I would stand before anyone and flat out lie about what God has done.

I would be scared.

I'd be like God could crush me.

And He can.

There's literally nothing stopping Him except His love.

He could do it.

He has done it.

There are people in this room who tell you stories.

I have been there where I have intentionally sinned against God, made a choice, and then felt such conviction when the first time I was ever asked to preach.

I could not eat.

I could not sleep.

I was sick to my stomach.

And I didn't have a virus or a cold.

I was just sick.

Sick because God had said to do something and I told Him no.

For 48 hours.

When we were living up in Michigan, Sheri had a similar circumstance where she went to a Bible study that they taught to the kids at our church.

And they taught something that was wrong.

It was not what the Bible meant.

They poorly exegeted the passage, told the kids what it meant, and they were wrong.

And my wife was there.

It was her first time ever at the children's ministry in our new church.

And she said, I've got to say something.

I can't.

And she went home and she said, I'm just not going to go anymore.

I can't say anything because it was the children's pastor right hand.

It wasn't children's pastor.

It was her right hand man that did the teaching.

I can't say anything against it because I'm rocking the boat.

I'll be causing trouble.

The church will probably kick me out.

I don't know.

Whatever.

She was scared.

And she's like, so I'm just not going to go to children's ministry anymore.

And she went home.

She's pregnant.

Now, six months pregnant is bad enough.

That's bad enough.

I'd have done it.

I've had sympathy pain, but I've never been through it.

But I can tell you, six months pregnant is already pretty uncomfortable.

And for 48 hours, she could not eat.

She could not sleep.

She was in pain, the kind of pain that was unrelated to her pregnancy.

Her feet hurt.

I mean, I guess that's technically not unrelated.

But you know what I'm saying.

Anyway, every kind of pain, she couldn't sleep.

She couldn't sleep overnight.

She got up in the afternoon about 1 o'clock after trying to sleep for like 13 minutes.

She was trying to sleep for like 13 hours.

And she said, I'm going to call.

I'm going to call this lady right now because she had the number of the children's pastors.

I'm going to call right now.

She went to walk.

She was afraid.

And she walked away.

And she tried to lay on the couch.

And she lay on the couch.

And she said she felt like she was being poked.

Like there was like, come on.

Aging her on, she felt nervous and anxious.

She couldn't take a nap.

Six months pregnant, hasn't slept in 48 hours, and she couldn't fall asleep on the couch.

Finally, she got up and went and called.

And she said, I got to talk to you.

I was at the children's lesson.

And you weren't in the room at the time.

But this was taught, and it is not godly.

And I can't stand for it.

And she said, if you can't fix it, that's OK.

But I'm not coming back.

And I'm not going to be involved in this because it's not godly.

And she said, but I think it should be.

And this was the children's pastor.

She said, OK, can you teach it the right way next week?

And Sherry was like, and all she wanted to say was no.

That's all she wanted to say.

But for 48 hours, she hadn't slept.

She'd been uncomfortable.

She'd been convicted.

She'd been pushed.

She didn't dare say no.

There's no way.

She needed some sleep.

She's like, I'm not going to get any sleep.

And she's like, OK, fine.

So then for the next week, she pushed.

And she'd locked out time to study and make sure she wrote a lesson so she could teach

it right.

And she went and taught it.

And then when she taught it, the person who taught it wrong walked in and stood in the

back of the room.

Now, my wife's not really big about crowds or getting up in front of people or certainly

not when people are thinking negative thoughts of her.

She's a normal person with regards to that.

I don't think any of us like that.

And she had to teach the lesson to the kids.

They had about 12 kids.

It wasn't a huge room.

With that person standing in the back of the room the whole time, knowing that she was

teaching the exact opposite of what the person taught.

And at any time, they might pull out their car keys and throw them at her or slam the

door on the way out or say something nasty or whatever.

And they didn't.

And right after the lesson, they came up and she said, listen, I want to explain something

to you.

After I taught that lesson last week, I was under such conviction.

I knew something was wrong, but I couldn't put my finger out.

I couldn't figure it out.

And when you taught it, retaught it today and taught it today, I was like, OK, fine.

I've got it.

I've got it.

I'll retought it today and taught it correctly.

She said it was probably good for the kids.

I don't know how much they even absorbed last week or this week or whatever.

It's probably good for the kids.

But you saved my life.

God is not, turn it off.

God is not a teddy bear God.

He's not somebody you can curl up on his lap and just keep doing what you're doing.

And the world ought to have the right to fear him.

Some of what the world is doing is because they just don't know enough to fear him.

Lastly, they ought to observe. They ought to be able to observe it. Everyone should

have the ability to observe the law and what God has commanded us to do and be

and especially as points to Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. As we talked about

in the sermon last week, that word to observe there means a lot of different

things, but simply put it means to do. The world needs to have the chance to do

what God wants them to do. And they're busy doing what God doesn't want them to

do and in many cases it is because they have not heard, they have not learned,

they do not fear the Lord, and they have not been given the opportunity to do.

That brings us to our conclusion. Interestingly enough, it has happened

that those who have the most access to the law have been slow to make it

available to all. We talked about many motivations that bring us to that, but

all of those motivations pale or fall apart when we realize this one important

truth. The law is not a set of rules. It's not a governing set of restrictions.

It's not a set of punishments to be delivered if people don't listen even

though it does contain those things. The law is a clearly marked out road to

freedom. It delineates the edges of the highway of holiness, as Isaiah put it,

the road that is narrow, but if you travel upon it you will arrive in

eternity and live in peace and hope and joy in a kingdom reigned by a master,

benevolent, possibly the only benevolent master to ever exist, God our Father.

Paul wrote to Timothy, entrust these things that I am sharing with you and

trust them to some faithful men that they may then deliver them on to others.

Those brothers and sisters are the elders. They are the ones who will receive

the Word of God. They will ensure that that Word of God is spread to anyone who

will listen, even those who may not want to listen. They will remember the amazing

things that God has done. They may be nine. They may be 80. There will surely be

80 year olds who have thought about it, wished they could do it, been through

miraculous interventions by God and never told anybody about it, and there

will surely be nine year olds who know nothing about what it means to be saved.

But regardless of your age, regardless of your current circumstances, you can be an

elder in the faith if you will receive the truth of the Lord our God, if you

will remember how good he is and that all people should have access to this

Word. If you will remember that he has given us these treasures in earthen

vessels, that means we're never gonna quite be right this side of heaven, but

we can be right in who we know and who we relate to and who he is. Salvation is

not about you or how well you deliver it. It is about God's character and whether

or not they accept it, whether or not they believe. All they got to do is

believe. Being a human and believing is all you got to do. The parable of the

four soils is about that and the number one qualifier for everybody gets saved

when the seed comes in is they encounter the seed and Jesus said, and the seed is

the Word of God. Will you be an elder? Will you be someone who receives the

Word of God and is willing to make sure that everyone has access to it, who is

ready or willing to have access to it? Will you tell others, your family members,

your friends, everyone that you encounter, anywhere that you encounter them and who

is willing to hear anything from you, ought not to hear football stats before

they hear the truth of Jesus. Ought not to hear about your personal hobby or

what you're working on or what the weather is going to be like before they

hear the truth of Jesus. Now, once you've brought up the truth of Jesus, whether

they're saved or not, all of those other topics are perfectly fine. They're all

perfectly fine, but they ought not to be your priority. If you are an elder, if

you're a person who loves the Lord, then you will be someone who ultimately

testifies of how Jesus is the fulfillment of all the law. Jesus said, I

did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. You did not come to abolish

it or to fulfill it. You came to receive it and then if possible to deliver it.

And it is not your place being someone who has, if you're here today, I will

guarantee you that there are less than a thousand people in the world who have a

better understanding than you do of Deuteronomy 31, 9 to 13. It's only five

verses. It ain't much, but it's everything. You take it and deliver it to anyone who

hear it. This is how the church works. We receive it, we deliver it, they receive it,

they deliver it. You couldn't save the world ever by addition, but you can save

it by multiplication because if we go out and share it and if we manage to

share it with just 20 people and they share it with 20 people and they share

it with 20 people and meanwhile the first 20 people are still going to be

sharing it and it multiplies and it goes on and it goes on and it goes on. But you

are a person who has received the Word of God and you have a responsibility to

deliver that Word of God to anyone who will listen and having done so they have

they need to have the right to hear, learn, fear, and obey. That's what I want.

That's what I want for me. I want to be somebody who gets something, whatever God

decides to give me, and delivers it wherever He'll let me. What about you?

Where have all the elders gone? Well, maybe they're afraid that their evil deeds

will be exposed. Maybe they have feelings of guilt which are not brought on by God.

Maybe they're afraid of loss of power or loss of control. Maybe they're afraid

that a tax collector or a whore or a whoremonger or whatever will come and sit

down in the Kingdom of God before they will if they go tell somebody and that

person will actually start living for Jesus. I can't tell you the number of

times that as a Christian pastor I've shared the gospel and seen people's on

fire for Christ within the first week of their Christian life and been ashamed of

my own walk and had to repent and say Lord you know what I'm taking for

granted the amazing thing that you did in me. Don't put yourself there repeatedly

but don't be surprised if you share it with somebody who just you go no they're

not gonna listen there's no way and then you share and they're utterly and

completely transformed and take off for Jesus and therein is the work of the

Holy Spirit therein is the work of the church there in his salvation for all

who will have it. Where have all the elders gone? They're right here. You're it.

I'm it. This is our job. Let's do it. It's not about some apostle. We don't need an

apostle to hear the word of the Lord and share it. They were just ordinary people

just like us. Father in heaven help us. We can do this. I'll ask the praise team to

come forward at this time and lead in our final song. If you're here today and

you realize that Jesus is calling upon you to be saved, be a Christian. Say I can't be an

elder because I've not dealt with the first matter which is trusting him in my life.

Then you trust him. Trust him right now and say okay God we do whatever it is you want to do in

me. I'll trust in the way that you've made and you'll be saved. If you're saved

you say I already know. I already trust him. But you've been holding back. I've

been sharing the truth. I've been studying your word to know the truth and

not been sharing it. You've been reluctant to live it out. Repent. Turn to the Lord.

Make your commitment public and tell it in front of everybody. Look this is me. I

may be some days worthless but this much I know. God is real. His son died for me.

I'm gonna deliver that truth to anybody who will listen. And let's start. Let's start

being what it is that we're called to be. Maybe there's something God's calling

you to specifically. You already know God's calling you to be baptized, be a

member of a church or start a ministry or be aggressive in doing what

something that he has for you. Maybe talking to your mom or your dad or your

brother or your sister or cousin or uncle or person you work with. Very specifically about Jesus.

He's calling you to that. This is your opportunity to publicly say look I know

God wants me to do X and from here from this moment I'm saying I will do X. I will do what God's calling me to do.

They got it and I told you. In all the history of Israel at the

remission of debts and the festival of booths they did not read the whole law

every seven years. See how that went. It got worse and worse and spiral of sin and then it got

better for a while and had a leader who stepped up and said no we're gonna do it

God's way and then when that leader died it got worse and worse and worse. Then one

stepped up said no we're gonna do it God's way and it got better for a while

but every time they lost their leader and went back in sin it got worse and

worse. And I'll be us too until our leader is Jesus and we're following Him and Jesus doesn't die

and he doesn't fade and he doesn't go away when he comes he stays. Will you let

him come and stay? I'm gonna sing this song with me and let's give praise to God.

But if you're making some kind of decision you can respond and I'll be keeping the front.

Euros

I'll be there, I'll surrender all.

That's all.

That's your relationships.

I'll surrender all.

That's you on the job, the money that you earn.

That's your health.

All the things you want.

The use of your time, the use of your time.

You surrender all.

I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender me.

Be a slave to the Holy One.

Let me feel thy Holy Spirit.

To me know that thou art mine.

I surrender all.

I surrender all.

All to thee my flesh and shame,

I surrender all.