Deuteronomy 18 ¹⁵ “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your ^[j]countrymen, you shall listen to him. Acts 3 ¹⁷ “And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. ¹⁸ But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His ^[h]Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. ¹⁹ Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; ²⁰ and that He may send Jesus, the ^[i]Christ appointed for you, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the^[j]period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet ^[k]like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. ²³ And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ John 1 ¹⁹ This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” ²⁰ And he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not ^[q]the Christ.” ²¹ They asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” And he *said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.” John 5 ⁴⁵ Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. ⁴⁶ For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. ⁴⁷ But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

Have you ever wondered why they asked John if he was “the prophet”? Not just a prophet, but “the prophet”? I’m not an authority on Judaism, so I don’t really know how many Jewish scholars expected Deut 18:15 to be fulfilled by the Messiah, although I did read that some did. But if Peter was speaking by inspiration (and he was) in Acts 3:17, then Jesus did fulfill Deut 18:15 and was “the prophet” Moses predicted. I doubt that would jump out at us as a Messianic prediction like some of the clearer ones, like Isaiah 53, Micah 5:2, etc., but it is still a Messianic prediction. When Jesus said that Moses wrote about Him (John 5:46), was He referring to Deut 18:15? Probably so. I can’t think of any where else in the Torah (the first 5 OT books) where Moses made a Messianic prediction, although there are indeed types (like the Passover Lamb) and the seed promise to Abraham (Galatians 3:16 that seed was Christ, the Messiah). Probably this prediction in Deut 18:15 is why the Jews came asking John if he was “the prophet” (John 1:21). Surely they were not just asking him if he was “a” prophet. Their next question, “are you Elijah?” tells us that they were looking for the fulfillment of Malachi 4: 5 ⁵ “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. Of course, they expected Elijah himself to be raised and to come right before the “age to come” would begin, i.e. the Messianic Age. Jesus later told the apostles that John the Baptist was indeed the fulfillment of Malachi 4:5. Matthew 17 ¹⁰ And His disciples asked Him, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” ¹¹ And He answered and said, “Elijah is coming and will restore all things; ¹² but I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did ^[d]to him whatever they wished. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer ^[e]at their hands.” ¹³ Then the disciples understood that He had spoken to them about John the Baptist. So why did John tell the Jews that he was not Elijah? Because he was not the actual man Elijah raised that they were expecting. But Jews’ questions to John tell us that they were expecting some OT prophecies to be fulfilled, and that tells us that perhaps they were asking if John was the fulfillment of Deut 18:15 “the prophet”. I doubt if they were asking if he was the Messiah Himself. They were probably expecting some great prophet, like Moses, to come right before the Messiah would come (just as they expected Elijah to come).

Back to our main point, Jesus was “the prophet” predicted by Moses in Deut 18:15. We often think of Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior, the Redeemer, The Son of God, etc., but we usually don’t think of him as “the prophet”. The Muslims speak more of Jesus as a prophet than Christians do, although they believe (incorrectly) that he was just another prophet like Moses who brought some more of God’s word (though they say the Christians corrupted what Jesus taught by saying that Jesus taught that he was the Son of God). They would also say that he was not the last great prophet, but that Muhammed, the founder of Islam, was. But for Moses and Peter to call Jesus “the prophet”, what does that mean? Well, a prophet’s work was to speak the word of God to the people. Jesus did that. He often would tell the Jews that the words he spoke were not his words, but the words of the Father.

But how would the Jews know if someone who claimed to be a prophet was a true prophet or not? Deut 18 ²⁰ But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, ^[m]that prophet shall die.’ ^21 [n]You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ ²² When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him. There were 2 basic tests of a true prophet. 1) Did he teach something totally contradictory to other confirmed scripture? 2) Did all of his predictions (not just some) come true? If he ever predicted anything that did not come true, he was a false prophet and Israel did not need to fear any of his predictions against them.

Those 2 basic tests of a true prophet would still be true today, would they not? Tongue speaking was the original excitement of the charismatic movement in the early 1900’s. But much later in the century, the charismatic movement produced a wave of “prophets” who could supposedly predict future events or to predict events in a person’s future. Unfortunately, none of these so called prophets could predict the future with 100% accuracy and often predicted things that did not come true. They did not pass the Deut 18 true prophet test and thus were false prophets. I read where there was a prophets’ school where these so called prophets could learn how to discern whether what they were predicting was really from God or not. If they were true prophets, they wouldn’t have to do that. Then there have been the numerous “latter day prophets” of the last 2000 years, such as Ellen G. White of the 7th Day Adventists, Joseph Smith of the Mormons, Rutherford and Russell of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many, many more. All of them predicted things that did not come true and none of them predicted the future with 100% accuracy, and yet their followers still regard them as true prophets and their writings as equal in authority to the New Testament. There were inspired prophets in the first century church (Ephesians 4:12) just as there were inspired apostles and teachers. But after the first century and the cessation of the miraculous, there have been no true apostles or prophets. The Mormons even claim to have 12 apostles who have the same authority as the original apostles. Well I read where Jesus told the apostles that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all the truth. John 15 ¹³ But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. But I don’t read where Jesus gave any truth to any prophet or apostle after those original apostles and prophets. If one of these latter day prophets could pass the true prophet test and predict the future with 100% accuracy, then I might have to rethink all this, but they can’t.

Back to the main point about Jesus being a prophet. He spoke the words of the Father, but did He predict the future accurately to confirm that He was a true prophet? Yes He did. He predicted his death, burial, and resurrection on several occasions. He even predicted that his death would involve being lifted up from the earth. John 12 ³² And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” ³³ But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die. Of course, he was talking about being crucified. He predicted that Judas would betray Him. John 13 ¹⁸ I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’ ¹⁹ From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. He clearly tells them that he is predicting the future so that they can believe He is the Prophet when the event takes place.

But the most powerful and amazing prediction Jesus made over and over again was the prediction that the temple and Jerusalem would be destroyed within the lifetime of those He was speaking to. In the “Olivet Discourse” in Matthew 24, He predicted that and then said that it would happen before that generation passed away. Matthew 24 ³⁴ Truly I say to you, this ^[x]generation will not pass away until all these things take place. That word in the Greek “genea” always means a period of about 40 years or a group of people living in a period of about 40 years. It never means a generic race of people over a long period of time which is what some claim it means. The same author, Matthew, in Matthew chapter 1 lists the genealogy of Jesus in 3 sets of 14 generations and the meaning is obvious. The word was used in the same way we use the “baby boomers’ generation”, a group of people living at about the same time who in turn produced the next generation. Jesus predicted this event many times. His predictions were all made during His 3 year ministry around 30 AD. The temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD just as Jesus predicted. If that prediction did not come true, then Jesus should be declared a “false prophet”. But it did come true.

In Mark’s gospel, He made other amazing predictions. Mark 9:1 And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” Mark 1:15 ¹⁴ Now after John had been ^[h]taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, ^[i]preaching the gospel of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God ^[j]is at hand; repent and ^[k]believe in the gospel.””Daniel had predicted that God would set up His kingdom in the days of the Roman Empire (Daniel 2:44). Jesus clearly predicted that kingdom to be established within the lifetime of those He was speaking to. Either that or, if it wasn’t established as He predicted, there must be some 2,000 year old people still alive today! That kingdom was a spiritual kingdom and it was established just a short time after Jesus spoke this. That kingdom was the church established as the apostles preached the gospel and baptized believers into that kingdom. And yet there are many who say the kingdom was not established as Jesus predicted. They say He “delayed” its establishment even though they have no passages in the NT where He said that. Their problem is that, like the Jews, they expect it to be a physical power type kingdom like Israel was in the OT under David, which it is not. But to the point again, if that kingdom was not established in the lifetime of those He was speaking to, then He is a false prophet.

Just one more “teaser” to get you thinking. In the only 4 times in the synoptic gospels (i.e. Matthew, Mark, and Luke) where Jesus predicts that He is coming back, i.e. His 2nd coming as we call it, Jesus said that His 2nd coming would be within the lifetime of those whom He was speaking to. Matthew 10:23 ²³ “But whenever they persecute you in ^[t]one city, flee to ^[u]the next; for truly I say to you, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel until the Son of Man comes. He was talking to the apostles who would be going through all Israel preaching the gospel after He died. Matthew 16 ²⁸ “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Matthew 24 ³⁰ And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. 4 verses after this, He said all these things would take place before the generation He was speaking to passed away. Matthew 26 ⁶⁴ Jesus *said to him, “You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, ^[v]hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Jesus told this to Caiaphas. What could Caiaphas have possibly seen that would fulfill this? It had to be when Jesus “came” in judgment on the wicked Jews, using the Roman Empire to destroy over a million of them.

I challenge you to find any passage in any of the synoptic gospels where Jesus predicted some “coming back” that would occur beyond the lifetime of those whom He was peaking to. So, He either fulfilled that prediction of else He is a false prophet. He did come in judgement on the Jews, using the Roman Empire. If we gave the synoptic gospels to someone who had never heard about Jesus or never read the gospels or never had someone tell them when this 2nd coming would occur, and if they read these 4 predictions, would they not judge Jesus to be a true prophet or not by whether He returned within the lifetime of those He was speaking to or not? Of course, we would. BTW the Muslims, Jews, and atheists all say Jesus was a false prophet because they don’t think His prediction came true. Their problem is that they don’t understand the figurative language of the Bible. His 2nd coming was imminent as He predicted, but it was not some “end of the earth”, body of Jesus coming as people have taught it to be. Christian preachers have confounded this problem by not understanding the fulfillment of the prediction, saying that He did not return soon as He predicted, that His 2nd coming is still in our future and here we are 2,000 years after Jesus made His prediction. Digest all that because it is very imporant that we show that Jesus was not a false prophet in any of HIs predictions, including His prediction that His 2nd coming would be imminent. BTW the apostles taught the same thing. Just one example: James 5 ⁸ You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. The 1st century early church expected His 2nd coming to be within their lifetime because that is what He and the apostles had told them. Either it happened as predicted, or Jesus and the apostles are false prophets! Period!

I hope this article has helped us appreciate Jesus as the Prophet of Deut 18:15. I hope it stimulates your thinking on some of the predictions that He made.

^{Psalm 37: 25} I have been young and now I am old,
Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
Or his ^[g]descendants begging bread. Psalm 72: ^4 [f]May he vindicate the ^[g]afflicted of the people, Save the children of the needy And crush the oppressor.¹² For he will deliver the needy when he cries for help,
The ^[q]afflicted also, and him who has no helper. ¹³ He will have compassion on the poor and needy, And the ^[r]lives of the needy he will save. ¹⁴ He will ^[s]rescue their ^[t]life from oppression and violence,
And their blood will be precious in his sight;

I read these passages and wonder how David can say these things. Did he not know that Doeg killed 85 priests because Ahimelech gave David the consecrated bread for his men? We look back on all the genocides in history and think, “How could men be so cruel?” We know that in the concentration camps they would often send the women and children directly off the train cars into the gas chambers. Did God rescue the oppressed? Many of them no doubt were Christians, although that. doesn’t make their deaths any more tragic than. the deaths of all the others. Children die of starvation and malnutrition by the thousands all over the world, or from polluted water, or from AIDS given to them by their parents. Does God not save the children of the needy?

We should point out that the promises of the Old Covenant were mainly physical blessings. Deuteronomy 7: ¹² “Then it shall come about, because you listen to these judgments and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you ^[aa]His covenant and ^[ab]His lovingkindness which He swore to your forefathers. ¹³ He will love you and bless you and multiply you; He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock, ^[ac]in the land which He swore to your forefathers to give you. ¹⁴ You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. ¹⁵ The Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you. ¹⁶ You shall consume all the peoples whom the Lord your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. Fruitful crops, fruitful wombs, protection from enemies, long life, no diseases or plagues. These are all physical blessings. Of course, Paul tells us that men like David also found spiritual blessings, i.e. the forgiveness of sins (Romans 4), but the main promises of the old covenant were physical blessings. I still wonder if there were no exceptions to this even in the Old Covenant. Did a child of a righteous man never die from hunger? Did every single crop planted yield a plentiful harvest? Did everyone live to an old age? Did no one ever get sick or have some disease? Apparently those would be exceptions and not the rule in the Old Covenant.

Do we have those same type promises in the New Covenant? Isaiah 53: 5 And by His scourging we are healed. This is talking about Jesus.Matthew 8: (Jesus) healed all who were ill. ¹⁷ This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “He Himself took our infirmities and ^[s]carried away our diseases.” Is this promising physical healing for believers? Jesus did indeed heal a lot of physical sickness and diseases. Matthew says the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4,5 is physical healing by Jesus. Peter seems to indicate that the fulfillment of this passage is in spiritual healing. 1 Peter 2: ²⁴ and He Himself ^[x]bore our sins in His body on the ^[y]cross, so that we might die to ^[z]sin and live to righteousness; for by His ^[aa]wounds you were healed. Even in the Old Testament, David spoke of this spiritual healing: Psalm 41: ⁴ As for me, I said, “O Lord, be gracious to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”

If the New Covenant promised physical healing for all believers, then that simply has not been happening. I know a strong believer lady who has spinal bifida, and has been in a wheelchair most all her life. Why did God not heal her when she became a Christian. Please don’t give me that line that she doesn’t have enough faith.

I think I know why God changed the blessings from mainly physical in the OT to mainly spiritual in the NT. The Jews became proud and self righteous because of their special status and blessings. He had warned them in Deuteronomy 8 not to forget God when they entered Canaan and had ready to use vineyards, etc., but they did. That kind of a system can lead to pride, a sense of entitlement. God didn’t want that. He wanted humility. Jesus starts out, “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven”. The poor, not the rich. “Blessed are those who are persecuted”. “Pray for your enemies”, not kill them. No more “holy wars” where God sends out armies to wipe out the Amalekites. God only wants the humble in his kingdom today. He doesn’t want anyone in it for health and wealth. As a matter of fact, that lady with spinal bifida is closer to God than most of us who have never had something like that. Instead of removing sickness as in the OT, God allows it in the NT and can even use it to help us grow closer to God. Look at Christians who have health and wealth. Many if not most of them trust in their riches and are very materialistic. Some who are wealthy use it for God, but many do not. They forget God. So, maybe my speculation helps explain why God changed blessings. Now we can focus on eternal life, not on this life.

Obviously, we don’t know his heart, but I wonder if he was ever had a good heart. We know how he ended up. The people wanted a king instead of judges, so God, even though He did not want a king because He was their king, gave them a king. Jacob had predicted that the rightful kings of the nation to be (Israel) would come from the tribe of Judah, but Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin. God knew that, so why would God make him the first king? Maybe he knew Saul had a bad heart and would use Saul to show the people that their request for a king was bad. As if God gave them what they wanted, not what He wanted, to teach them a lesson. Has that ever happened to you? You pray for something you want without asking God if it is what He wants? You get it and feel good, only to realize later when it turns out bad that your request was not what God wanted. James 3 ³ You ask and do not receive, because you ask ^[c]with wrong motives, so that you may spend it^[d]on your pleasures.

So God gave them what they wanted, and Saul, at least initially, sure fit the bill. 1 Samuel 9 Now there was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah, the son of a Benjamite, a mighty man of ^[h]valor. ² He had a son whose name was Saul, a choice and handsome man, and there was not a more handsome person than he among the sons of Israel; from his shoulders and up he was taller than any of the people. Brave, tall, handsome. What more could you ask? He even seemed humble at first, 1 Samuel 9“Am I not a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel, and my family the least of all the families of the ^[l]tribe of Benjamin? Samuel gave him some signs (the finding of the lost donkeys). 1 Samuel 10 ⁹ Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed ^[u]his heart; and all those signs came about on that day. ¹⁰ When they came to ^[v]the hill there, behold, a group of prophets met him; and the Spirit of God came upon him mightily, so that he prophesied among them. ¹¹ It came about, when all who knew him previously saw that he prophesied now with the prophets, that the people said to one another, “What has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” God changed his heart! Whatever was lacking God changed his heart to accept being anointed king with all the responsibility involved in that. Plus, God gave him miraculous Spirit powers of prophecy! Whatever Saul might have been lacking initially, God gave him all he needed to succeed as the first king even though God did not want a king. It is not like God doomed him to failure before he even started. Maybe God knew how Saul would turn bad, but He gave him every chance to do good as king. Saul even seemed calm when certain worthless men did not want to accept him as king. 1 Samuel 10 ²⁷ But certain ^[z]worthless men said, “How can this one deliver us?” And they despised him and did not bring him any present. But he kept silent. Later, he tries to kill all his political enemies (mainly David), and does get Doeg to kill the 85 priests who gave David bread.

And God blessed him with a military victory at first. He gathered an army and defended the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead from the Ammonites who had threatened to put out the right eyes of all the men in the city. 1 Samuel 11 ⁶ Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul mightily when he heard these words, and ^[ac]he became very angry. Bold leadership. Form an army to defend against enemies. This was the main reason they wanted a king to begin with. 1 Samuel 8 ¹⁹ Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us, ²⁰ that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” Saul even refused to allow his men to kill those who didn’t want him to be king. 1 Samuel 11 ¹² Then the people said to Samuel, “Who is he that said, ‘Shall Saul reign over us?’ ^[af]Bring the men, that we may put them to death.” ¹³ But Saul said, “Not a man shall be put to death this day, for today the Lord has accomplished deliverance in Israel.” Really a very good beginning. 1 Samuel 11 ¹⁵ So all the people went to Gilgal, and there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal. There they also offered sacrifices of peace offerings before the Lord; and there Saul and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly.

I encourage you to read 1 Samuel 12 at this point. Samuel tells the people that they have a history of disobeying God, and they have committed a great evil by asking for a king. If they and their new king commit evil, God will punish them as he has done in their past. But he gives them a choice. If they and their king do good, God will bless them even though they committed this great evil by asking for a king. Samuel calls for what must have been a terrible storm of thunder and rain for a whole day. The peopled were terrified. They ask Samuel to not stop praying for them. Samuel replied, 1 Samuel 12 ²³ Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. We should never cease praying for people, even those who seem to be hopeless. Keep teaching people, sowing the seed, and leave the harvest to God.

So what went wrong with Saul’s good beginning? When did it start to go bad for him as king? It started in 1 Samuel 13. Jonathon smote a garrison of the Philistines, which caused the Philistines to mount a very large force to attack Israel. Saul only had a standing army of 3,000 men so he called for help from the tribes but was vastly outnumbered. Samuel had told Saul to wait 7 days for him to come offer a sacrifice to God for a victory, but Saul panicked when his men kept deserting him, terrified of the enemy. Did Saul not remember the story of Gideon? God sent all the fearful men home, and Gideon ended up with an army of 300 with which God defeated 130,000 Midianites! If Saul had just trusted God, He would have given him a victory no matter how many men he ended up with! But he had a panic attack! Samuel was delayed past the 7 days, and Saul offered the sacrifice himself. I can understand that. I am a fearful person. I often panic and just feel like I have got to do something fast to solve a problem instead of patiently trusting God, waiting for God to help me. So did Samuel consider what Saul did a big deal? Yes! 1 Samuel 13¹³ Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you, for now the Lord would have established your kingdom ^[au]over Israel forever. ¹⁴ But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

Back to our original question. Did Saul start out with a good heart and turn bad? Or was his heart proud and unbelieving all along and this is the first time we see how his heart really was? Does it matter if we can answer that question? Probably not. He had the freedom to choose and made his own choices. Some Calvinists say, “once saved, always saved”. According to Calvinistic TULIP, the P is perseverance of the saints (the elect can’t fall from grace no matter what they do). So, when a person is saved, they will tell them they are part of the elect, usually shown that by some working of the Spirit (like with Saul prophesying). But if that person, a year later, turns from faith in Jesus and returns to a life of sin, what do they say? Some of them will say that person is still saved because he can’t fall from grace. The New Testament clearly teaches that a saved person can fall from grace. Galataians 5 ⁴ You have been severed from Christ, you who ^[b]are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 2 Peter 2 ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. ^22 [h]It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.” But some of them will say, “Oh, that person never was really saved to begin with”, even though they assured that person that he/she was saved a year before! The “once saved, always saved” doctrine is a very dangerous doctrine that could leave someone living in sin and lost, yet thinking he/she is still saved. There would be no need to repent if they can’t fall from grace and they could end up being lost forever. But if some will at least say that a “backslider” (one who has totally forsaken faith in Christ and is practicing sin willfully) will not be saved by grace, then I guess it doesn’t really matter if he was 1) never really saved or 2) was once saved but fell from grace.

So I guess it doesn’t matter if Saul was good at first but turned bad, or never was really good in his heart. So why ask this question? Because he made bad choices that caused him to end up bad, and we might make those same choices even if we did start out with a good heart. The final straw in God rejecting Saul as king came when didn’t kill all the Amalekites as God had commanded him. He spared King Agag and some of the animals to offer as a sacrifice (according to him). He argued with Samuel that he had obeyed God, but Samuel took this very seriously. 1 Samuel 15 ²² Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,  And to heed than the fat of rams. ²³ “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.” Why is this such a big sin? It must be because of Saul’s heart. David commits a lot worse sins and is forgiven, but Saul is punished severely for his sin. David repented and asked forgiveness for his sin, but Saul argued with Samuel that he hadn’t even sinned. He did say “I have sinned” but that was after Samuel told him God was taking the kingdom from him. We trust in God’s grace to forgive us from all our sins, but we should try to obey God as closely as we possibly can. Grace doesn’t mean we can just carelessly pick and choose which commands to obey.

It was all down hill after that. Saul is filled with envy because of the praise David was getting from the people. God sends an evil spirit on him and he tries to kill David (even threw a spear at his son Jonathon) in the palace. He chases David for 10 years in the wilderness. David could have killed him twice, and both times Saul said he was sorry for trying to kill David but he continued to try to kill him. He orders Doeg to kill Ahimelech and 85 priests when Ahimelech gave David the consecrated bread for his starving men. He goes to a witch at Endor to get her to call up Samuel to tell him his fate because God has quit talking to him. Samuel tells him he will die the next day in battle, and he does. The Philistines cut off his head and hand his body on a wall. The men of Jabesh-Gilead (the ones Saul rescued) come and take his body off the wall, burn it, and bury his bones. What a sad ending to the first king of Israel. Maybe Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 10 ¹²Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

Samuel was the last judge. 1 Samuel 8 And it came about when Samuel was old that he appointed his sons judges over Israel. ² Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judging in Beersheba. ³ His sons, however, did not walk in his ways, but turned aside after dishonest gain and took bribes and perverted justice. The people demanded a king “to be like the other nations”. You can understand their condemnation of Samuel’s sons, but God told Samuel that they were rejecting Him (God) as their king. The nation of Israel was a theocracy with God as its king from the very beginning. There was no earthly king or else God would have anointed one. Why do you think they would want a king? The bottom line is that they were continually disobeying God. God would send an enemy to punish them (that was the cycle over and over in the book of Judges). God would raise up a judge to deliver them, but they would just worship the gods of the Canaanites and repeat the cycle. So they are trying to come up with the best plan to defend themselves against enemies instead of just repenting and obeying God, their king. Other nations had kings who formed great armies, so Israel decided that they wanted a king to be like the other nations. Why did God give them a king if He was opposed to the idea? I am speculating here.

1) I think God felt that the best way to control this disobedient nation in the future would be with a king. The period of the judges was anarchy. In the appendix (Judges 17-21), it makes the comment: ⁶ In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6). God started the nation in order to bring the Messiah through that nation, but if the anarchy seen in the Judges period continued, there would be no nation to bring the Messiah through. A king would often be a bad thing. God told Samuel to warn the people that a king would be such a burden on them that they would regret wanting a king. A king would take their sons for his army, their daughters for servants, take their lands, and take a tenth of their produce. Solomon did all these things and 10 of the tribes rejected him a king, although they continued having kings in their newly formed northern kingdom of Israel. 2 tribes, Judah and Benjamin, formed the southern kingdom of Judah. Judah would have 19 kings, most of them bad just like Samuel predicted. But several of them were good and did things that brought the nation of Judah back into obedience to God’s laws. For example, Hezekiah had the people celebrate the Passover in a way they had not done in a long time. Josiah finds the book of the Law while restroing the temple, and has the people read it throughout the land. Asa gets the people to make a covenant to obey God or die. The bad kings, like Manasseh, will bring the nation down into terrible sin. He himself offered his sons to the foreign gods and practiced witchcraft over his 55 year reign. But in spite of the bad kings, what would have happened if there were no kings at all, if the anarchy of the judges period continued. The kings would have armies as Samuel predicted, and God would even use those armies to defeat their enemies. God made Uzziah the king of Judah very strong militarily. He gave Asa’s army a victory over a million Ethiopians. Again, I am speculating, but I think God knew that the best way to keep the nation together until the Messiah would come would be to let them have their kings. If they would have obeyed God as their King, that would not have been necessary, but He knew they would always be rebellious.

2) God would use this earthly king as a type of His Messianic King Jesus in the distant future. After all, did Jacob not predict that the rightful kings would come through the tribe of Judah? Genesis 49 ¹⁰ “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
^[k]Until Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. A scepter imply a king. Shiloh is most likely Jesus. All the kings from Judah would be preludes to God’s king Jesus that He would set over His eternal spiritual church kingdom. The kings of the northern kingdom did not come from Judah (neither did the first king Saul. The kings of Judah did come from Judah (as did David and Solomon). Judah would have kings until the captivity in Babylon (586 BC). There would be about 600 years with no king in Judah. Then Jesus would come to fulfill Genesis 49:10. Daniel 7 had predicted that God would make Jesus an eternal king over his eternal spiritual church kingdom: ¹⁴ “And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and ^[k]a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every^[l]language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. This would be God’s eternal kingdom as predicted in Daniel 2:44 ⁴⁴ In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be ^[av]left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. It was that kingdom that both Jesus and John the Baptist predicted, “The kingdom is at hand” during the Roman Empire (the legs of iron on the statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw in a vision). It was that kingdom that Jesus predicted would be established in the lifetime of those listening to his voice. Mark 9:1 And Jesus was saying to them, “Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” Most of the Jews expected an earthly kingdom and a king that would defeat their enemies and restore the kingdom to the power it had under David. But God wanted a spiritual kingdom. He told Pilate in John 18: ³⁶ Jesus answered, “My kingdom ^[k]is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not ^[l]of this realm.” ³⁷ Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. Jesus would give the apostle Peter the “keys to the kingdom” in Matthew 16 ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Peter would use those keys to open the door to entrance into that spiritual kingdom, the church, by preaching the gospel and telling them how to be saved and added to that church kingdom. Paul said in Colossians 1 ^13 [t]For He rescued us from the ^[u]domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of ^[v]His beloved Son, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus gives an insightful parable in Luke 19:11-27. Some thought the kingdom would be established (even though they misunderstood the nature of it) “immediately”. Jesus had predicted that it was “at hand” and would be established before some of them died, but it would not be established fully the day he died or even in Acts 2 when Peter opened the door to enter the kingdom. In that parable in Luke, Jesus said that nobleman would go off to a far country to “receive a kingdom for himself, and then return to reign in that kingdom. That fits what Daniel 7 predicted to a tee. The Son of Man would go to the Ancient of Days to receive an eternal kingdom, and then return to reign in that kingdom. There was a transition period between the choosing of the king and his coronation. There was a transition period between the old kingdom and the final government of the new kingdom. That transition period would be from the beginning of the church in Acts 2 to the return of Jesus in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. The book of Revelation predicts that destruction of Jerusalem (and the temple) in 70 AD, and says in Revelation 15:11 “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His ^[j]Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” Again, this fulfills Daniel 7 to a tee. It fulfills Genesis 49:10 also. So, God gave the nation a king as a prelude to his eternal king that he would send in Jesus over a thousand years later. I think he also wanted them to see the contrast between all their evil kings and His eternal righteous king Jesus. He wanted them to see that an earthly kingdom depending on earthly power was not the best way to go. Jesus said in Matthew 11 ¹² From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven ^[n]suffers violence, and violent men ^[o]take it by force. Instead, a spiritual kingdom made up of only humble believers (not power seeking citizens) with Jesus as their king. A kingdom where the citizens would “turn their swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2).

Aside from my speculation, I hope that my points are valid. I don’t pretend to know the mind of God or why He does what He does. Maybe Paul said it best in Romans 11:33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! But we have the advantage of looking back at the finished plan of redemption, the finished mystery. Revelation 10 ⁷ but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as He ^[b]preached to His servants the prophets. We are not inspired like the apostle Paul, but we have his insight into the mystery (Ephesians 3 ^4 [a]By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight ^[b]into the mystery of Christ) plus the fulfilled predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. We get the best of both worlds, as they say.

Moses is indeed a case study in leadership. Are leaders born or developed? Probably both in most cases. Moses spent his first 40 years being raised as a son of Pharoah’s daughter in Egypt. Acts 7:22 ²² Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds. BTW that contradicts Moses’ claim that he was “slow of speech” when God called him in the burning bush. We don’t know how he learned that he was a Hebrew, like the slaves: probably from his mother or sister? At the age of 40, he was ready to lead the slaves in an uprising, like Spartacus. Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator, led a successful slave uprising against the mighty Romans in 73 BC, although he eventually was killed by them. Acts 7 ²³ But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his ^[o]mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. ²⁴ And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. ²⁵ And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them ^[p]deliverance ^[q]through him, but they did not understand. Moses obviously planned to lead the slave uprising against the Egyptians using the sword, but the next day, he realized the salves weren’t with him on that idea. Acts 7: ²⁶ On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?’ ²⁷ But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge over us? ²⁸ You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you?’ ²⁹ At this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of ^[r]Midian, where he became the father of two sons.

He fled to Midian, met his future father-in-law Jethro, became a shepherd, married Zipporah, had 2 sons, and apparently would have been totally content to spend the rest of his life in Midian. At the age of 80, God appeared to him in the burning bush and told him to go tell Pharoah to let His people go. Moses did not want to go. After making several excuses and objections, he finally agreed to go. But this time, he would lead with a staff instead of a sword. God would provide the miraculous power to free the slaves, not the power of Moses or the slaves. God would get the glory for defeating the Egyptians and humiliating the gods of the Egyptians. No one mentions who the god of Spartacus was, if indeed he worshiped a god. They only mention the bravery and leadership of Spartacus. Moses will get a lot of credit for freeing the slaves, but it is Moses’ God, YHWH, who gets the glory.

So he goes reluctantly goes back to Egypt to lead the slaves out. Pharoah refused to let the people go and made them make their brick quote finding their own straw, beating them. The slaves were angry at Moses. Moses complained to God: Exodus 5 ²² Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, “O Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? ²³ Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not delivered Your people at all.” He has not “bought into” the process God is using to free the slaves. Instead of telling the people to trust God’s plan and be patient, he complained and questioned God’s plan himself. At a seminar I attended, Lynn Anderson said that leaders have to change the belief system of the church before they can implement new ideas. He said that in reference to changing an eldership from a board of directors to an empowering, shepherding group of men. The elders must be ready to give up a controlling, often dictatorship, style of leadership but the flock must be ready to buy into that. Many still think of the elders as God’s way of controlling the flock, a small group of men controlling the decisions for the entire flock. Lynn gave an example of a church who went from just a few elders to over 40 elders, who changed the model of leadership. Well, the belief system of the slaves had not changed, so they were angry at Moses. Moses had not bought into God’s plan either!

But let’s give Moses credit. He continued on his mission, using his staff to pour out God’s destructive power on the Egyptians in the plagues. He boldly confronted Pharoah over and over until Pharoah finally allowed the slaves to go free after the 10th plague. You would think that the slaves were now sold on God’s plan, but as they were trapped beside the Red Sea with Pharoah in pursuit, ¹¹ Then they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, ^[ge]bringing us out of Egypt? ¹² Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, ‘^[gf]Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness (Exodus 14:11-12).” Moses makes a great statement of faith: ¹³ But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! ^[gg]Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. ¹⁴ The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent (Exodus 14:13,14).” I wonder what he was thinking the Lord was going to do to protect them from the pursuing Pharoah’s army? But at least, he believed that God was going to do something great to deliver them. He doesn’t turn to the Lord and question the Lord like he did when Pharoah first refused to let the slaves go.

 ¹⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. ¹⁶ As for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall ^[gh]go through the midst of the sea on dry land (Exodus 14:15,16).” It is as if the Lord is rebuking Moses for not coming up with the idea of parting the Red Sea with his staff! Great leaders will not only make a stand of faith when confronted with the enemy or problems, like Moses did, but they will also come up with innovative, God given, plans for “going forward” to overcome all obstacles and problems. Many congregations have split because of internal problems. The elders would not prayerfully come up with a God given plan to unite the flock in going forward to do the Lord’s work. Instead, it often became a power struggle over church politics and different ones pushing their own agendas and trying to control the flock. Maybe some suggested a plan to go forward, but the elders rejected that plan out of fear of losing control.

So they cross the Red Sea and maybe the people have finally bought into God’s power and plan. Exodus 14: ³¹ When Israel saw the great ^[gu]power which the Lord had ^[gv]used against the Egyptians, the people ^[gw]feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses. But they hadn’t really fully bought in. When Moses was in on Sinai getting the 10 commandments, they make the golden calf. Moses intercedes for them, convincing God to spare them. Exodus 32: ³¹ Then Moses returned to the Lord, and said, “Alas, this people has ^[u]committed a great sin, and they have made ^[v]a god of gold for themselves. ³² But now, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!” Instead of just complaining, reat leaders intercede for the failings and sin of the flock. Moses is bold in his intercession: “if you won’t forgive them, just blot me out of the book of life”.

God told Moses and the people to go on into the Promised Land but that He wouldn’t go with them. Exodus 33: ⁴ When the people heard this ^[aa]sad word, they went into mourning, and none of them put on his ornaments. ⁵ For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the sons of Israel, ‘You are ^[ab]an obstinate people; should I go up in your midst for one moment, I would destroy you. It is as if the Lord is saying, “I will get you into Canaan, but my presence can’t be with you for fear that I will destroy you because of your obstinance. It is better that I back away from you, get you into Canaan to fulfill the promise to Abraham, but not be with you for even a moment.” What a depressing flock! How many congregations sounds just like that. They exist and continue the church business, but you can tell that God’s presence is not among them. They have left their first love.

But Moses struggles with the burden of leading a flock without God’s presence. Exodus 33: ¹² Then Moses said to the Lord, “See, You say to me, ‘Bring up this people!’ But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, ‘I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.’ ¹³ Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.” ¹⁴ And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” ¹⁵ Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. Do you hear what he is saying to God? “God, these are your people, not mine! We must have your presence.” An interesting passage in 1 Corinthians 14:24: ²⁴ But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ^[l]ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; ²⁵ the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you. Leaders should be concerned that those who attend their assemblies see and feel the presence of God. Too often, leaders are concerned about the superficial things, like the style of worship, the ability of the preacher, the things they use to draw new members, etc. Those things might be good, but does a visitor sense that the members are truly seeking God and bowing in homage to God, that it is not just a big show to draw new members and money.

In Exodus 34:29-35, we read about Moses’ face shining. The Lord would speak to him in the tent face to face. When Moses would come out and tell the people what God had said, his face would shine, showing the glory of the Lord in the words he was speaking. As he would finish speaking, he would put a veil on so the people would not see the shining as it went away. He didn’t want them to lose sight of the glory of what he had just told them. He would take that veil off the next time the Lord spoke to him, and repeat the process. Paul uses this event in 2 Corinthians 3:13-17 ¹³ and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. ¹⁴ But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil ^[e]remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. ¹⁵ But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; ¹⁶ but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. The unbelieving Jews of his day would put a veil on so they could not see the fading glory of the old covenant of death as it was being replaced by the more glorious new covenant of life. The point I want to make out of this event is that Moses as a leader wanted the people to focus on the glory of the Lord in the word of God that he delivered to them. He didn’t want them to focus on his eloquence or appearance. When a leader has been in the word and in the presence of God, we should see a change in his countenance. He should be humbly moved by the words he is presenting, focused on God’s word and not fluffy illustrations or stories. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the ^[a]testimony of God. ² For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. ³ I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, ⁴ and my ^[b]message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ so that your faith would not ^[c]rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

The peak of Moses’ frustration seems to come in the wilderness.The people continually complained about having only the manna to eat. They wanted meat and fish and other foods, especially the rabble of Egyptians who came out of Egypt with them. Numbers 11:10- 15 ¹⁰ Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent; and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, and ^[j]Moses was displeased. ¹¹ So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You ^[k]been so hard on Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all this people on me? ¹² Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom as a ^[l]nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’? ¹³ Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat that we may eat!’ ¹⁴ I alone am not able to carry all this people, because it is too ^[m]burdensome for me. ¹⁵ So if You are going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once, if I have found favor in Your sight, and do not let me see my wretchedness.” Talk about leadership burnout! Talk about boldly telling the Lord just how you feel, boldly complaining to Him! The Lord does not rebuke him for this, but instead gives him some help. He takes of the miraculous Spirit power that Mosses has and puts it on 70 of the elders so they can take some of the load off of Moses. God will help leaders avoid burnout by giving gifts and ability to others who can help lead. But leaders must be willing and seek to delegate to others. That means giving up full control and power, which many leaders find difficult to do. Moses’ father in law Jethro had already given Moses advice in this matter. He met Moses as they came out of Egypt and saw that Moses was wearing himself out going all the judging in disputes among the people without any help. He told him in Exodus 18:18 ¹⁸ You will surely wear out, both yourself and ^[m]these people who are with you, for the ^[n]task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone. He persuaded him to appoint leaders over small and large groups and delegate authority to them to settle minor disputes, leaving only the major disputes or issues for Moses to deal with. Moses followed his advice. But even that was not enough, and God empowered the 70 elders to help Moses in Numbers 11. Paul told Timothy: ² The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2). Perhaps the most fulfilling ministry I have ever been engaged in was doing mission work in Trinidad, West Indies. There had been thousands of baptisms and many churches started, largely due to the work of Bob Brown. My co-worker and I went to Trinidad with a focus on training leaders for these new congregations. We conducted a full time school of preaching, but the best thing we did was probably the Saturday school where we taught indepth mini-courses to the local leaders, men and women who would continue their secular work but would be the leaders, preachers, and teachers in the congregations. After 3 years, we left. 45 years later, those men and women we helped train are still leading, and have trained other leaders, as Paul told Timothy to do. I am amazed at how we have built the American church around the paid professionals. One church had at least 4 great teachers who could have fled the flock on a rotating basis each month. So instead of using those men, that church hired a hundred thousand dollar plus preacher. After a few years, they replaced him with another professional. Big churches have become so dependent on very well paid professional youth ministers, worship leaders, etc. Then there is the support staff of paid secretaries, janitors, and all the things necessary to run the church business efficiently. And often churches do a great job of running the business. They even do a lot of good, teach the Bible, and do some mission work. But most of what they collect and spend is spent on themselves. There I am in Trinidad preparing leaders so they will not depend on paid preachers, which usually comes from money from the U.S., when we don’t even practice that in the U.S. We have gifted deacons who could work with the youth, but we hire professionals to do it. We assist them, but watch what happens when you change the professionals. Someone says, “but we are too busy to do all the leading without the professionals”. That tells you the problem right there. We have the wrong priorities. We are not developing and using leaders so we can use our assets to do the things the Lord really wants us to use them for. Children in 3rd world countries are dying for lack of clean water while we continue to expand and renovate our buildings. The salary of one preacher could drill many wells. I am obviously on a hobby of mine, so I guess I should stop here.

So the Lord told Moses to tell the people that he was going to give them meat, quail. Moses is still frustrated: Numbers 11 ²¹ But Moses said, “The people, among whom I am, are 600,000 on foot; yet You have said, ‘I will give them meat, so that they may eat for a whole month.’ ²² Should flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, to be sufficient for them? Or should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, to be sufficient for them?” ²³ The Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord’s ^[o]power limited? Now you shall see whether My word will ^[p]come true for you or not.” Moses had another lesson to learn in leadership. The power of the Lord is not limited! Leaders should not plan based on the human assets, but on the Lord’s assets. The agony of the annual budget process. Deciding how much money the congregation will give and how it will be spent! Even haggling among some to get their share for their work or ministry. I guess that is necessary since it is a business and should be run efficiently. But leaders should envision what God wants the congregation to do, to prioritize, to spend their assets on. Then trust God to provide, and He will provide.

Leaders must be meek and humble. When Aaron and Miriam criticized Moses’ marriage to a foreigner (Zipporah, the Midianite), God struck Miriam with leprosy. Moses, instead of gloating over that, prayed for her and God only made her leprous for 7 days. I’m sure some other writer added this from Numbers 12: ³ (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.) I would say humility was the number one trait required of good leaders, wouldn’t you? They will be criticized. They will make mistakes. Moses actually was not supposed to marry a foreigner, so he was at fault here although Miriam’s main reason for criticizing was her envy over the authority God had given Moses. A great test of a leader is how do they handle criticism. Regardless of the motives of the one criticizing, they should see if the criticism is warranted, and if so, repent and correct it. If not, they should pray for the person and go to them to try to resolve it, but never take it personal.

Still during that 2nd year out of Egypt, Moses sent the 12 spies to spy out the land of Canaan. 10 of the spies came back saying Israel could not take the land because of the giants there; only Joshua and Caleb said they could. The people wanted to stone Moses and Aaron, choose new leaders, and return to Egypt. God told Moses that he was about to wipe out the whole bunch of rebellious, complainers and start over with Moses as the new seed line and nation. If Moses had not interceded for the people, God would have done that. Moses even made some arguments as to why God should not wipe them out, as if God didn’t think those things through already! He even reminded God that He had told him that He was forgiving (Exodus 34). So, instead of wiping them out, he sentenced all those over 20 to die in the wilderness wandering over the next 40 years. Leaders must be constantly in intercessory prayer, even for rebellious sheep. They must leave the judgment of sheep to God. But leaders should feel free to talk to God freely as Moses did, to even reason with God as to how they would like to see God act. Who knows how that might change God’s plans.

Don’t think that Moses was spineless, however. He became angry with Korah and the 250 men who rebelled against the authority of Moses and Aaron, especially Aaron’s special position with the priesthood. He did not intercede for them. He basically pronounced a death sentence from the Lord for them. Numbers 16 ²⁸ Moses said, “By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not ^[bw]my doing. ²⁹ If these men die ^[bx]the death of all men or ^[by]if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. ³⁰ But if the Lord ^[bz]brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into ^[ca]Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord.” Sometimes leaders have to practice 1 Corinthians 5 withdrawal of fellowship over some repeat offender in the flock who refuses to repent in order to get rid of a bad influence that might spread to others. That would be a last resort, of course, but might be necessary to protect the flock. It takes courage and it might make them look like they are not compassionate to some, but Paul told the Corinthians to do it. Here’s an example. A married brother has an affair with his secretary. Instead of repenting, he divorces his wife and marries the secretary. In just a few months, he joins another congregation who welcome him in spite of what he has done. They might argue that grace covers us today, but shouldn’t the leaders of the congregation confront this brother with his adultery?

The aftermath of the killing of Korah and 250 Levites is found in Numbers 17 ⁴¹ But on the next day all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron, saying, “You are the ones who have caused the death of the Lord’s people.” The people are blaming Moses and Aaron for the death of those men! The Lord said: ⁴⁵ “^[cl]Get away from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly.” But Moses again interceded for the people by getting Aaron to bring a censor with incense in it. He stood between the dead and the living and stopped the plague God was consuming the people with, but 14,700 died already.

But the peak of Moses’ frustration and burnout had to be in the 40th year after the condemned generation had died in the wilderness. Moses is now 120 years old. He just spent the last 40 years wandering around with these faithless, rebellious, complainers but now there is this new generation of those that were under 20 and those born during the 40 years. He is probably excited about finally going into the Promised Land. But then that new generation starts to complain about lack of water. He must have thought, “Here we go again. I can’t make it another 40 years in the wilderness punishing this group! Numbers 20 ³ The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! ⁴ Why then have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die ^[r]here? ⁵ Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of ^[s]grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.” But God, in his patience, told Moses to speak to the rock, the rock which followed them and provided millions of gallons of water daily for them in the wilderness. Instead, Moses, to use common language, “lost it”. Numbers 20: ¹⁰ and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” Do you hear that? Shall “we” (Moses and Aaron) give you water? He was taking credit for it instead of giving God the glory. He not only hit the rock instead of speaking to it, but Psalm 106: They also provoked Him to wrath at the waters of ^[v]Meribah, So that it went hard with Moses on their account; ³³ Because they were rebellious against ^[w]His Spirit, He spoke rashly with his lips. Numbers 20: ¹² But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you have not believed Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.” I wonder how many times that type of thing has happened among leaders. They get frustrated and impatient and pound the pulpit with anger, lambasting the flock. Paul told Timothy who was confronted with many false teachers: 2 Timothy 2 ²⁴ The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, ²⁵ with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, ²⁶ and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive ^[i]by him to do his will. If a leader ever loses his temper, it’s a good sign that he is committing the same sin as Moses did.

Well, that was long! BTW, don’t fell sorry for Moses. Be glad for him. God told him in Deuteronomy 34: ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” He probably viewed the promise land with some disappointment, but he was truly blessed to be spared the next 7 years of fighting the Canaanites and the subsequent disobedience of the next generation. God buried him in an unknown spot and he went on to some form of hadean paradise to wait for his resurrection some day. The devil thought he should get the body of Moses for his sin, but Micheal the archangel rebuked him (Jude 1:9). He along with Elijah appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses was perhaps the greatest leader of God’ people in the Old Testament. Hebrews 3 pays him a compliment: ⁵ Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant. We can learn so many lessons on leadership from Moses, especially we struggle with the burdens of leadership and when we are burned out.

What a strange title for a blog! First, let me say that I don’t take “happy pills” on a regular basis. I think we all know the danger of addiction to prescription drugs. By that I mean, any kind of anti-depressant or anxiety pill. I have taken a few at some times of extreme stress, and I don’t think that is any worse than using other drugs that we use. God put everything on earth for man to use and enjoy if he does so wisely and in moderation. But I hope I have the wisdom to realize when I am coming to rely on any drug.

What about alcohol? I understand the dangers of alcohol. The Bible warns us that “wine is a mocker”, and condemns drunkenness. But most of us admit that the Bible doesn’t condemn drinking alcohol in moderation. I think Jesus turned water into fermented alcoholic wine at the feast. How else could he man say that they had saved the best wine for last? Elders were to “not be given to much wine” (1 Timothy 3). There is simply no other way to interpret that than it means they could drink some wine but in moderation. Timothy seemed to stay away from alcohol for some unknown reason, but Paul told him to take a little wine for his stomach’s sake. Many studies have shown the value of a little red wine each day for the heart, so how could we argue if someone chose to drink a little wine each day for his health.

On the other hand, if this is a liberty issue, then I can also choose not to drink alcohol in any form. It might hurt my influence with the students I am trying to teach. It might. It might be that my family tends to have major problems with alcoholism and I am afraid that I could be predisposed to become addicted to alcohol. It might be that I chose carefully when and where to drink alcohol. I might choose to have a glass of wine at home with my wife, but refuse to drink with a bunch of people getting drunk at some party.

Thus, this article deals more with why I choose to take any kind of drug or not. The sad truth is that many times someone will drink or pop pills or smoke marijuana for the wrong reasons. They do so to drown out their worries, to relieve their stress, to mix with a certain social group, to deal with depression and fear, etc. If so, then those are not good reasons. That’s where our faith should be what we rely on, not drugs or alcohol. But the truth is, taking a pill or a drink is what we do in bad times. Read the Psalms as David fled from Saul for 10 years in the wilderness. A very difficult, stressful time for him, constantly on the edge of being killed by Saul., surrounded by Philistine enemies trying to mix with them, surrounded by those who would turn him in to Saul, trying to provide for 400 loyal men who are on the run with him, pretending to be mad so he would not be killed by the Philistines, dealing with guilt when he felt that he caused the death of 85 priests because Ahimelech had given him bread, etc. He would have spent 10 years without a permanent home, on the run like the old movie The Fugitive. Again, read the psalms and see how David finds the strength and peace of mind to make it through all that. For example, Psalm 63

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You ^[b]earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh ^[c]yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
² Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
³ Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
⁴ So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
⁵ My soul is satisfied as with ^[d]marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

⁶ When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches,
⁷ For You have been my help,
And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings ^[e]to You;
Your right hand upholds me.

⁹ But those who seek my ^[f]life to destroy it,
Will go into the ^[g]depths of the earth.
^10 [h]They will be ^[i]delivered over to the power of the sword;
They will be a ^[j]prey for foxes.
¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by Him will glory,
For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped.

I should mention that there are a lot of things, in addition to faith, that will help someone deal with trouble, pain, and stress. Exercise, yoga, diet, etc. So don’t forget to use those non-drug things. But above, turn it over to God and trust that He will do what’s best. If he doesn’t remove the problem, He will give you the strength to handle the problem. Remember how much he cares for you.

You know the story. David committed adultery with Bathsheeba. He had her husband Uriah and several other men killed by telling Joab to put them in the front lines of battle and withdraw, leaving them stranded to be killed by the enemy. He married Bathsheeba and hid his sin till the child was born. Nathan confronted him and David repented. Unbelievable, God forgave David even though he was due several capital death sentences. But he was given two punishments.

1) The baby died. David fasted and lay on the ground for 7 days while the child was dying, begging God to spare the child. When he found out that the child had died, he washed, changed his clothes, and ate. His servants thought his behavior strange, but ²² He said, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me, that the child may live.’ ²³ But now he has died; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:22-23). He “moved on from that punishment”, accepting God’s “no” answer to his prayers. No doubt he would live in guilt over the child’s death for the rest of his life. Many parents can’t move on after the death of a child if they feel responsible. One sad story of a man who backed over his child whom he didn’t see behind his car. The book and movie “The Shack” is a similar sad story. Mac could not move on till Papa showed him that his little girl was happy playing in the meadows in the afterlife somewhere.

2) God would raise up evil from David’s own household. This one would stay with David till he died. He never got to move on from this one. His son Amnon raped his half sister Tamar. His son Absalom killed Amnon. Absalom tried to take the throne and kingdom from David, causing him to flee Jerusalem. Absalom was also the son who lay with David’s concubine on the roof in plain view of those watching in order to show his defiance of David (2 Samuel 16:21,22). David still grieved over Absalom’s death after Joab killed him while he hung from a tree by his long hair. His son Adonijah tried to take the throne as David was dying even though David had decreed that his son Solomon would take his place as king. David had Solomon kill Adonijah after he died. David had 8 wives and 19 sons total, but these three are the ones who caused David much grief. These 3 fulfilled God’s predicted punishment on David. I wonder if his guilty coscience over his sin with Bathsheeba played a role in how he dealt with his children? He did not punish Amnon for raping his sister, but instead exiled Absalom for 2 years for killing Amnon. He mourned the death of Absalom, even though, as Joab reminded him, many had suffered and died perhaps trying to defend David from Absalom trying to kill him. He spoiled Adonijah: ⁶ His father had never ^[c]crossed him at any time by asking, “Why have you done so?” (1 Kings 1:6) which contributed to Adonijah rebelling against his father when he was dying. We see an example of a father who just could not practice “tough love” on rebellious children.

The tragedy of this story is that it all started because of one act of adultery with Bathsheeba. David apparently didn’t go up on his roof with the intent of watching Bathsheeba bathing. But when he saw her, he should have turned away and prayed for God to help him not be filled with lust over what he saw. James 1 says that sin is like a birth: the conception, the gestation period, and then the act which brings death. David should have aborted that lust he had when he saw her, but he didn’t. Jesus said, ¹⁹ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, ^[i]fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders (Matthew 15:19). His heart was full of lust and eventually that led to the act of adultery. You have heard, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Well a pornographic picture will stay in a man’s mind for many years. I do believe there is a link between porn and sex crimes. One report said in 80% of sex crimes that porn was found at the scene or in the home of the perpetrator. Yet some say porn is harmless for adults, even a safety valve to keep men from committing sex crimes. Porn is perhaps the main issue to deal with, even among Christian men. Surveys have shown that about a third of men in church on Sunday morning had viewed porn within the last month. Even a third of the ministers admitted struggling with watching porn. Porn is not just on a paid TV show in a cheap hotel. It is on TV and movies, all around us.

David’s lust led him to adultery, covering his sin for a year, and murder. He was forgiven, but he paid dearly for his sin. If he could have just looked into the future in a crystal ball and seen what his little, exciting sex affair was going to do to his family and life, do you think he would have had sex with Bathsheeba? Don’t you think he would have restrained his lust? He might have struggled with his lust, but he might not have acted upon it. I think that is the key for Christian men struggling with lust today. They might struggle their whole lives with lust, and maybe even pictures or image in their head or on paper, but can they restrain from acting on their lust? I know Jesus said: “You heard it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman/wife in order to covet her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27,28)”. But to commit the act of adultery is far worse in consequences. The effects adultery has on the children is devastating. The example it sets for them. It destroys their perception of what marrital commitment should be. Surely grown children know that most, if not all, fathers were guilty of lust over years because the male children would struggle with it also. But it is awesome to know that his/her dad never committed adultery in 40 or 50 or 60 or more years of marriage. In the meantime, we Christian husbands struggle with how to get those pictures out of our heads and hearts. Paul had a great suggestion: ⁸ Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is ^[e]lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, ^[f]dwell on these things (Philippians 4:9,10). It’s almost impossible to be thinking of two different things at the same time. If I can picture something in my mind, it blocks out other pictures. If I can picture Jesus hanging on the cross, bleeding, suffering, then tha picture blocks out some lustful picture I was struggling with. Try it. And don’t just let your mind picture that good image, but let your mind dwell on it. Or, picture how your child would react if he/she walked in to your bedroom while you were having an affair, committing adultery and being unfaithful to his/her mother, your wife. Wow, that’s a pretty bold picture, huh? Whatever it takes, come up with a picture that will help you remove the lustful picture or image. Then pray for God to forgive you and for the Spirit to help you in your struggle. We must struggle to cope with lust. We can’t just let it become a habit in our lives that we do regularly, hoping that grace will cover it. Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? ² May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Colossians 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Job 31:1 “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? Proverbs 6:25 Do not desire her beauty in your heart, and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; 1 Peter 2:11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Galatians 5:14 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Psalm 101:3 I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.

Psalm 127 Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman keeps awake in vain.
² It is vain for you to rise up early,
To ^[cz]retire late,
To eat the bread of ^[da]painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.

³ Behold, children are a ^[db]gift of the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
⁴ Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
⁵ How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

Is it always a blessing to have a quiver full of children? What about those children who turn out bad, rebellious, a shame to the family? What about Eli’s 2 sons, Hophni and Phinehas (1 Samuel 1-5)? They were “worthless”, keeping a forbidden part of the offerings of the people for themselves. They had sex with the women who came to offer sacrifices. Eli did rebuke them verbally, but that is all he did. They would not listen. He should have taken them before the elders as rebellious sons to be stoned to death. God rebuked Eli for not being firm enough in the discipline of his sons. He said that Eli “honored his sons more than he did God”. By allowing his sons to get away with abusing the sacrifices offered to God, he was placing more value on his sons than’s God’s offerings. God told Eli that the priesthood would be taken from his family and all his offspring would die early in life. God told Samuel of this punishment of Eli and his house: 1 Samuel 3:13 ¹³ For I have told him (Eli) that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. ¹⁸ So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, “It is the Lord; let Him do what seems good to Him.” Eli accepted his fate and punishment.

A battle followed with the Philistines, and Israel was defeated. They decided that God would give them victory if they took the ark of the covenant with them into battle. 1 Samuel 4:4 ⁴ So the people sent to Shiloh, and from there they carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts who sits above the cherubim; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. At first this scared the Philistines and excited the Israelites, but Israel was defeated again and the ark was captured and Eli’s 2 sons were killed. A man from the battled came to tell Eli of the battle. 1 Samuel 4:13 ¹³ When he came, behold, Eli was sitting on his seat ^[e]by the road eagerly watching, because his heart was trembling for the ark of God. Eli asked him how the battle went: 1 Samuel 4:17-18 “How did things go, my son?” ¹⁷ Then the one who brought the news replied, “Israel has fled before the Philistines and there has also been a great slaughter among the people, and your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God has been taken.” ¹⁸ When he mentioned the ark of God, ^[f]Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for ^[g]he was old and heavy. Eli was 98 at the time.

What a sad story, but one that has been probably repeated hundreds of thousands of times over the course of history. What makes it sadder, as is often the case, is that Eli seems like a godly man. He revered the ark and it sounds like it was the news that the ark had been captured that caused him to fall backwards, not the news that his 2 sons had died. He tried, as many good parents have done, to rebuke his sons. He just didn’t do the “tough love” that was called for in their case. How many parents have done that? How many parents have bailed their children out of trouble over and over when maybe they should have used tough love? I say that realizing how hard it must be to use tough love. What does a parent do when his/her child is in deep pain or trouble because of his bad choices? Do you just let them suffer endlessly without intervening? Do you try one more time to help them break an addiction or a life of crime? Do you just write them off until they come to their senses and repent? I would never judge a parent who just could not apply that tough love because I can’t imagine what they have gone through with their children. All I can we do is pray for them to have the wisdom in dealing with their children. And pray for their children.

It is interesting that this story of Eli’s sons follows one of the best stories of motherhood in the Bible. ! Samuel 1-3 tells the story of Hannah. She was barren. Elkanah her husband had 2 wives: Hannah and Peninnah. To make it worse, ⁶ Her rival, however, would provoke her bitterly to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb (1 Samuel 1:6). Elkanah tried to make up for Hannah’s grief. He would give a double portion of the sacrifices he offered (some sacrifices could be shared with the offerers) to Hannah, but that did not help. 1 Samuel 1:6-8 so she wept and would not eat. ⁸ Then Elkanah her husband said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?” Hannah went to the tabernacle (there was no temple yet) and prayed for a son. 1 Samuel 1:10 ¹⁰ She, ^[a]greatly distressed, prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. She made a vow to God, that if He would give her a son, that she would give him to the Lord all the days of his life.

Her prayer must have been very intense. Eli noticed that her lips were moving but her voice was not heard, and she was weeping bitterly while she prayed. He thought she was drunk, and rebuked her. Hannah told him that she was not drunk, but was “pouring out her soul before the Lord”. Have you ever been at that point in your life, where you are so desperate and sad that you fall on your face, weeping, praying incoherently? Not just weeping, but weeping bitterly, maybe because of some tragic events or unfulfilled expectations (things don’t go as you hoped but go terribly astray)? I remember doing that a few times, almost a nervous breakdown, panic attacks, etc. When she explained her situation to Eli, he said: 1 Samuel 1:17 ¹⁷ Then Eli answered and said, “Go in peace; and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have asked of Him.” ¹⁸ She said, “Let your maidservant find favor in your sight.” So the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad. Apparently she became pregnant soon after that and bore a son, Samuel. She kept him home until he was weaned (maybe even 3 years old) and then she brought him to Eli to spend the rest of his childhood ministering to Eli in the tabernacle at Shiloh. Over the years they would visit Samuel each year and bring him a little white robe to wear. Eli asked the Lord to reward her with more children, and God blessed her with 3 sons and 2 daughters in addition to Samuel. Samuel would go on to be the last judge and the first great prophet. God would use him to anoint the first king, Saul, and go through difficult times with God’s rejection of Saul as king due to his bad heart and disobedience. He would then anoint the 2nd king, David.

What a contrast in child rearing! The thing that always impressed me about Hannah was her conviction that, if she was blessed with a child, she would give him back to serve the Lord. Shouldn’t that be the mind set of every parent. We are only given the task and responsibility of raising our children for a few years (even if 18 or so years, still relatively few. We enjoy watching them grow from toddler to teen. We fill our scrapbooks and phones with hundreds of pictures of them growing up. We celebrate their accomplishments and special times in life: when they started school, when they first rode a bike, when they started cheerleading, when they played sports, when they dressed up and went to the prom, when they won a state championship, when they graduated high school, when they went off to college, when they graduated college, when they got married, etc. Sure, they might have gone through some bad “attitude” times, even a little rebellious, but overall they turned out pretty good. But did we train them to be mature Christians? Paul puts the leadership of parenting on the fathers: Ephesians 6:4 ⁴ Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.What if we spent the same amount of time, energy, and money on training our children in spiritual disciplines as we do sports, cheerleading, academics, etc.? Those things are not wrong in and of themselves, but they should not be the main priorities in raising our children.

But what about when one or more of our children turn out to be like Eli’s sons. Proverbs 22:6 says, ⁶ Train up a child in the way he should go,^[a]And when he is old he will not depart from it. Is that a false promise? No. It is however, a general rule, just like many of the other proverbs. Yes, there can be exceptions. Also, there can be other factors involved in addition to the parenting of the parents. God Himself trained Israel and yet they rebelled as His children. Was God to blame for being a bad Father to them? Ezekiel 18 gives the example of a righteous parent who has an unrighteous child, and then an example of an unrighteous parent who has a righteous child. He says that each parent and child will be held responsible for his/her own sins, not the sins of his/her parent or child. I’m sure the righteous parent in that example was not a perfect parent, but was overall doing what is right. Only God is the perfect Father who gives the proper training and discipline, as the Hebrews writer points out: Hebrews 12:9 ⁹ Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? So parents who tried to raise their children in the Lord should not feel guilty if any of their children turn out “bad”. Sure, they made mistakes and they could have done a better job but good children will not hold that against them, and nor will God. Each child will have to make his/her own choices and be responsible for those choices.

I have been preaching, teaching Bible, involved in Christian schools, and doing mission work overseas for about 45 years now. You might think that, with that track record, my faith was stronger than ever. I am ashamed to admit that I struggle with faith at times. Not just the faith to do great things, but just to believe that God really exists.

I was driving to school the other day and praying. But then I looked out at the bright sun shiny morning and thought, do I really believe there is a God who is a spirit who fills the universe who is listening to my prayer. Not some elderly, white haired Father figure that I picture up in the sky, but a spirit of some sort. Yes, the Bible does give us a picture of God as seated on His throne, the Ancient of Days, with cherubim all around and 4 living creatures (Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4), but then Jesus said that the Father is a spirit who exists everywhere. Now, with the Hubble, we know there are thousands of galaxies out there in an unlimited, continually expanding universe. So God is a spirit who fills that infinite space?

But my mind keeps wandering. I personally believe that the Bible claims that the earth is only about 6,000 years old (my blog article on the age of the earth). Other believers in God (and most atheists) believe the earth is about 5 billion years old. For the sake of argument, let’s say it is 5 billion. But as they say, our God is outside time. He existed in eternity before the creation of the earth 5 billion years ago (or 6,000 in my mind). The Bible claims that we can have great security knowing that: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms….” (Deuteronomy 33:27). But wait a minute. You mean to tell me that God existed “backwards” in eternity before He ever created the universe as we know it 5 billion (or 6,000) years ago? What was He doing all that time? Just to tell me that He is outside of time doesn’t help. He existed forever before the “beginning” (Genesis 1-3), before the creation of time as we know it, before the creation of the universe.

So when did He create all those angels who are constantly around Him worshiping Him? How long before the creation of the earth was it when He created them? They are created beings, right? So did God get bored with angels worshiping Him? The angels had freedom of choice, didn’t they? I mean Satan was probably a fallen angel, along with his cohorts. We have no direct teaching on this, but several verses allude to Satan being lifted up in pride in the Garden, a rebellion of angels, and a war in heaven with the bad angels being cast out. Ezekiel 28:16: ¹⁶ “By the abundance of your trading
You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. Isaiah 14:1 ¹² “How you are fallen from heaven, O ^[a]Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! Revelation 12:7-9: ⁷ And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, ⁸ but they ^[a]did not prevail, nor was a place found for ^[b]them in heaven any longer. ⁹ So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Did that rebellion of angels cause God to decide to create men instead of more angels and start this great experiment of humans with the ability to choose good or evil?

All I can hear right now is the voice of a Christian sister at my house one night during our small group study. Someone asked a question that asked questions like I am asking, and she had one comment, “That is foolish speculation”. That ended the discussion right there! No one dared to “foolishly speculate” after that! But bear with me. Actually, Paul is my example here. 2 Corinthians 11:16-19 ¹⁶ I say again, let no one think me a fool. If otherwise, at least receive me as a fool, that I also may boast a little. ¹⁷ What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. ¹⁸ Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast. ¹⁹ For you put up with fools gladly, since you yourselves are wise! Paul is telling them that they put up with a lot of foolish teaching from the false teachers among them, so at least let him speak “foolishly” to make some points!

Why did God decide at some point in eternity to create this vast universe with humans on only one planet. I know many think there is life other than on the earth, but there is absolutely no proof of that. Some even believe that there was a race of humans before Genesis 1 who were destroyed, along with a previous earth, plants, and animals, but there is no proof of that either. So did God just decide that he wanted to try free will with humans instead of just angels? When asked why God created humans, I always respond with “why did my wife and I have children?” Did we not know that some or all of them might turn against us and what we believe, might become rebellious or drug addicts, might hate us, might blame us for all their faults? Sure we did. But we saw the potential of children choosing to love us, so we took the risk! BTW, it turned out pretty good so far! We are blessed with 3 godly children, mostly due to my wife, not me. So God wanted to love on some humans with the hope they would return His love. Is that it?

But just the idea that He existed in eternity and decided to create man at some point 5 billion (or 6,000) years ago blows my mind. Do I really believe that? And He knew that He would give them freedom of choice, free will, and good or bad choices to choose from! And He knew they would choose the bad. And He knew He was a just God who would have to punish them when they chose bad. So He gave them this idyllic, perfect Garden with a tree in it that they were not allowed to eat from. But He knew they would eat from it, and that He would have to kick them out of the Garden. He knew that all their descendants after them would sin also. Romans 5:12 ¹² Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. But He created man anyway, and set them up for the fall. Of course, the only other option would be to create robots with no freedom of choice, and apparently He didn’t want that. Did anyone besides me watch the movies, The Stepford Wives (1972) and The Stepford Children (1987)? Husbands have this secret process of transforming their imperfect wives into perfect robot like replicas, and in the follow up movie, the parents transform their children into perfect robot like replicas. God could have done that! If you are bored, read the Wikipedia summary of the plots of those 2 movies. As weird as all that sounds, did Hitler not try to do that with his “master Aryan race”, breeding a superior race and eliminating all weak or inferior races or imperfect humans? Of course, Darwin actually proposed this as a result of his conclusions about the evolution of man. He observed in The Descent of Man that “the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world”. To him, the natural and logical conclusion of his survival of the strong would and should be the extermination of the weak. He considered the Negro race to be inferior. He also considered women to be inferior to men intellectually, although he didn’t suggest exterminating women, thank goodness! Are we headed that way also? Did you read the article about Iceland proudly boasting that they had eliminated all Down Syndrome children being born? “Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.” I guess if you think abortion is ok, and I don’t, then you might think this is perfectly ok. My son and his wife just adopted a sweet, 3 year old Down Syndrome girl who has been a blessing to them and their 4 “normal” boys. I’m glad the child’s mother wasn’t one of the Iceland mothers who would have aborted her!

Wow, I think I got off track! God didn’t want to create perfect robots. The fall left us with a cursed earth with disease, deformed babies, tornadoes, etc. It even left us with evil men and women making evil choices that hurt others. But out of all that, God knew that good could come from evil and suffering, so He allowed evil and suffering. And if it just doesn’t seem as if any good can possibly come from evil and suffering, He prepared an eternal place of bliss for His children where an entire life of suffering on earth will seem but a brief moment of pain. Paul said, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 ¹⁶ Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, ¹⁸ while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Anticipating the fall of man, God had to plan on what to do after man would fall. Would He just doom them all to extermination, as He was about to do with the flood before He saw the righteousness of one man, Noah? Would he give mankind a chance, but then if they got too evil, just exterminate the human race? Would He come up with a system of works where if you did more good than evil that He would give you eternal life? Apparently the just nature of God would not allow Him to do that even if He wanted to. Assuming God loves his created humans, what plan can He come up with that would allow Him to be both just and merciful and would enable Him to receive fallen sinners into eternal bliss with Him? Now read what Peter wrote about that: 1 Peter 1:18-20 ¹⁸ knowing that you were not redeemed with ^[a]corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. ²⁰ He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was ^[b]manifest in these last times for you. Peter tells us that God decided that He would become flesh in a God-man called His Son in the distant future, and that He would allow evil men to kill His Son in order to redeem and forgive fallen sinners if they would put their trust in His Son. They would not have to earn salvation but instead would be saved by grace even though salvation was conditional and would require active, working faith. They would not be required to be obey every command perfectly or have some net good works over bad works record. Now why would the death of His Son satisfy His requirement that would allow Him to be just and the justifier of those who have faith? Romans 3:26 ²⁶ to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. I can’t answer that. It’s not like we met with God and came up a plan that would satisfy both parties, us and God. God had to come up with a plan that would satisfy Him and His wrath. 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 ¹⁸ Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, ¹⁹ that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not ^[d]imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. To think that God came up with this plan to save fallen man before He even created the earth and man is amazing.

So now we have the belief in a God who fills the universe but who also comes up with this amazing plan to save fallen man before He even creates man! If I struggled with belief in the existence of God, am I going to struggle even more with this plan? Back to our original question on the existence of God. Here are my final thoughts on my doubt. The alternative to believing in God is far less believable than believing in God. Paul said in Romans 1:20 ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and ^[g]Godhead, so that they are without excuse. I look at His creation and see order and design that is simply not possible by random chance as the atheists claim. The “Intelligent Design” advocates will point to many examples of design, but my favorite example is the periodic table. That example has stuck with me more than any other. Every one of the 100+ successive element in the table increases the number of protons in its nucleus by +1 (with an equal number of electrons in the outer shells). Then based on the number of electrons in the outer shells, the elements can be arranged in rows and columns with very specific common properties. Now, if the universe began with an explosion of a few elements only (scientists still debate which elements that think that was), then how in the world by random chance would the periodic table evolve into the design I have pointed out? There must be an intelligence that designed that periodic table. I might not want to believe there is a God, but the periodic table itself forces me to believe there is an intelligence that designed the universe. That example alone would force me to believe in an intelligence that created the universe. I don’t know if Paul in Romans 1:20 had the periodic table in mind since the periodic table was not discovered till the 18th century, but the example surely applies to what Paul said. We could give many more examples of intelligent design.

I recommend you watch Lee Strobel’s DVD “Case for a Creator”. He points out dozens of laws of nature and formulas, such as the “Universal Gravitational Constant”, that must all be present exactly as they are on earth for life to exist on earth. They can’t vary at all and life still exist. They must all be present and not just most of them. When you look at the formulas for those laws, it blows your mind that there is a formula that dictates the laws, and that there are these “constants” (i.e. specific numbers, not variable) that are built into these laws by God. We finally got smart enough to discover a lot of them during the “scientific revolution”, and continue to discover new ones. Then it blows your mind that dozens of these laws could all come together on one planet in the universe, allowing life to exist. The odds of that happening by chance are staggering. It is more credible to believe in a designer of the universe than to believe these laws came together by chance. Why are there mathematical and scientific laws and formulas that govern the universe if it is all by random chance? Again, I am forced to believe that God exists because the alternative is so unbelievable. So much so that now many scientists have come up with the idea of multiple universes created by nature in a “universe generator”. The thought is that would help reduce the odds of it happening by chance! Seriously?

My next example would be the design of the human body and the principle of “irreducible complexity”. Behe gives the following definition of irreducible complexity: By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning (Darwin’s Black Box: The Biological Challenge to Evolution, p. 39). A car must have all the parts of the engine for the engine to work smoothly. The human body must have all the parts of the different systems (nervous, muscular, endocrine, respiratory, etc.) working together for the human body to function. When God made the first. man, He built his body with all these systems and parts, full grown. Before each human is born, he/she already has the DNA and RNA to form all the unique parts in each person, and then over the 9 months of pregnancy the parts are formed. Psalm 130:15,16 ¹⁵ My ^[h]frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. If atheistic macro-evolution happened (which would include evolution of a species to another species and not just minor changes within a species), then you would never have a few parts of the body evolve on a partially formed but inoperative body that would live long enough to allow more parts to be added when it takes all the parts at one time for the human body to live! If that makes sense! It’s either all the parts added at one time or not at all! God did put them all in the first man! So the design of the human body would another example of intelligent design.

Ok, this article is already long! I struggle to believe in a spirit God who fills the universe, but I see no plausible alternative. Maybe that is why some atheists are suggesting that aliens might have created everything (Richard Dawkins suggested this possibility although he said that the idea of a God creating everything was impossible). Wow! So where did the aliens come from? Who created them or were they eternal? An interesting cult is the Raelians. Raëlians believe that life on earth—as well as many religions of the world—was the work of extraterrestrial influence. They believe these were scientists and that ancient people saw them as “gods” and gave the name “Elohim”. Supposedly the aliens landed and invited the cult founder Claude Rael into their spaceship. They explained to him that it was them, the aliens, who cloned Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden, and that they have directed the history of man all along by sending more clones. The aliens told him they thought man was now able to communicate with them since we are starting to clone. So they want Rael to raise money and build a building for them to come back in a few years and meet with our scientists. Read Wikipedia for more of their beliefs and practices. Can you believe there are about 40,000 members worldwide? They do believe in intelligent design, but that the aliens are the designers! Reminds you of thre old staying, “if you don’t believe in something, you will believe in anything”.

So I close this article with the saying, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Hebrews 11:6 ⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. I do believe “that He is” even though I struggle. I hope and do believe that He will accept my imperfect, struggling, weak faith. I think a loving Father would do that. Jesus talked about the faith of a mustard seed would move mountains. I hope that is true since it seems that all I have is a tiny bit of faith compared to some of the great giants of faith, like Abraham. I truly hope this article resonates with some of you who struggle as I do. Or that it gives you some material to use when you are teaching others. Pray for me that I can speak boldly about my faith in God instead of talking about my struggles to believe in God.

Fo

Moses delivered Israel from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. They spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness of Sinai because of their unbelief and rebellion. After that 40 years, the new generation heads via the east side of the Jordan River through the plains of Moab (look at a map). Moses is not allowed to enter the Promised Land because of his sin of hitting the rock and speaking rashly. God will bury him on Mt Nebo, but before he dies he gives a few “sermons” to Israel. These are found in the last book of the Pentateuch, the book of Deuteronomy. The name of the book means “2nd law”, which comes from Moses repeating the 10 commandments to the new generation, most of whom were not born 40 years earlier when Israel received the 10 commandments at Mt. Sinai.

So what would Moses tell Israel in his sermons right before he died? What warnings would He give them? What laws would he emphasize for them to keep? Let’s study the book looking at the answers to these questions. Certainly a main theme is the shema: “Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is one” (6:4). Monotheism (the belief in one God) is unique to 3 world religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This belief would be key to Israel coming out of Egypt, having observed the many gods (polytheism) of the Egyptians, even worshiping those gods at times. Stephen says they worshiped the gods Moloch and Rompha in the wilderness (Acts 7:42,43). God continually sent prophets over the next 1500 years rebuking Israel from violating the 1st 2 commandments: No other gods and not worshiping images. They repeatedly worshiped the gods of the Canaanites (Baal, Ashtoreth, Molech, etc.). It was only after God sent Judah into captivity for 70 years in Babylon that the sin of idolatry was eliminated.

Moses commands them to teach their children the laws of God (6:5-9). Parents are to teach their children when they get up, when they lie down, in their homes, as they walk around, etc. Parents often leave the responsibility of teaching their children to churches, youth groups, Bible teaches, etc. It is the parents’ responsibility to teach the word of God to their children. That means teaching them the Bible stories to increase their faith in God. My mom and wife wore out several Bible stories books while teaching their children. Children need to believe that God defeated the gods of the Egyptians in the plagues. They need to believe that God made the walls of Jericho fall. On and on we could go. In just daily life with your children, how often did you parents mention God, His creation, His working, trusting in God when problems arise? An interesting command is that a rebellious son should be stoned to death (21:18-21).

God has several warnings to the people as a nation. He tells them that God chose them to be His chosen people, but that they should not be puffed up with pride because of that (7:6-11). If they disobey Him, they will be rejected as His chosen people (8:11-20). He reminded them of how God had tested them for 40 years in the wilderness to see if they would trust him for the daily manna (8:1-10). He warned them to not imitate the detestable practices of the Canaanites, such as offering their children to their gods, divination, witchcraft, mediums contacting the dead, etc. (18:9-14). He told them that a very special prophet like Moses would arise in the future whom they better listen to (18:15-22). Peter said that Prophet was Jesus (Acts 3:23). He gave them very special laws on marriage, premarital sex, rape, etc. (Ch 22) that would make them different from the nations around them with all their sexual immorality. He told them they would be given many physical blessings if they would obey God, such as fruitful crops and fruitful wombs, no diseases or sickness, protection and defeat of their enemies, etc. (7:12-16). The blessings of the old covenant made with Israel were primarily physical blessings such as these. The new covenant that replaced the old covenant would be primarily spiritual blessings, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. He reminds them to celebrate the 3 main feasts: Passover, Pentecost, and Feast of Booths (Ch 16). This was important to each year remember how God had delivered them from Egypt and to bring their first fruits of their crops to show their gratitude. He commanded them to support the priests, Levites, and the poor with their tithes (14:22ff).

One of the greatest lessons Moses taught is found in 10:12-22. It begins, “Now Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you?” Moses gives all these other laws, but how would he sum up the essence of the main thing that God required of Israel? Was it the animal sacrifices? Was it observing the feasts? Was it not eating unclean meats? Now read this section and see what Moses says that God required of Israel. Fear God, walk in His ways, love Him, serve Him, keep His commands, circumcise your heart, show love for orphans, widows, and strangers, cling to Him, and praise Him. These are the main things God requires instead of animal sacrifices, etc. These are the main things God requires of us today as His chosen people, are they not? Moses concludes His sermons with a simple choice for them to make (30:15-20). “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants” (30:19). God has always allowed free will choices of man. How would diehard Calvinists deal with this passage? They believe in
unconditional election”: i.e. God predestines certain ones to be lost or saved not dependent whatsoever on their free will choices. Moses obviously believes that Israel is free to choose life or death, and the consequences that go along with each choice. It’s that simple. We can choose life or death. Just be prepared to accept the consequences, eternal life or eternal damnation. The book ends with Moses dying on Mt. Nebo and God burying him. Joshua will take his place and lead Israel into the promised land.