Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Handle Change | Torah | Deuteronomy 18

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

Are you entering new territory in life? Are you going through a big change? Does the culture around you impact you? Or do you impact the culture around you? In today’s episode, Tanya discusses Deuteronomy 18, when Moses prepares Israel to enter the promised land. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Deuteronomy 18

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. And the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. When you go to a new place, what's the first thing you do? Do you look for someone you know? Do you try to find a spot where you feel safe? When Braden went to college this year, he was the one going to a new place, but I was in a new place mentally, so I did what I tend to do in that situation. Ask a lot of questions.

I asked some guys already in college what they thought about the frats and living in the frat houses. And one of them said, if he influences the fraternity, he'll be great. If the fraternity influences him, that's what I'd be worried about. What about you? Do you affect the culture where you live and work? Or does it affect you? Now, this is really what Moses was put into the Israelites in Deuteronomy 18. He's saying, you're going to listen to something, and it's either going to be the culture you're going into and it's false gods or the true God who goes with you into the culture.

And Moses is telling them why it's better to listen to God. Deuteronomy 18, 9, when you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. And he goes on to list what those abominable practices are. Many guesses? Well, in this case, it's child sacrifice, divination, fortune-telling, sorcery, talking to the dead. These things might have sounded far off like something the Israelites weren't even tempted by, but hear what he said. You shall not learn to follow these things.

It wouldn't happen suddenly. It would be a slow acclamation to the thinking and practice of the pagan nations to fit in, to assimilate, to attract business. where they were looking to sorcery and witchcraft for divine revelation, Israel was strictly commanded to listen only to God's word. This was a good boundary, a loving boundary God set for them. Moses describes in verse 13, You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to diviners. But as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to.

to do this. Now, blameless didn't mean they were going to live us in this life, but they should have a heart completely devoted to the Lord. See, like our own life for the pagan nations was hard. It was difficult, it was demanding, it was uncertain. And they looked for comfort, guidance, and affirmation in the wrong places because they didn't know the Lord and they didn't know his word. So they used substitutes to help them. They worshipped false gods and dead idols. And Moses is telling Israel the same thing we need to hear. You know the Lord. You have heard him proclaimed.

You have seen him deliver you. You have his word written on your hearts. And this, this is what you're going to listen to when you're confused and afraid. This is what you're going to let guide you when there's tension about what's right and wrong. Good and bad. For you, your family, your community. He says, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. from your brothers, it is to him you shall listen.

God was going to send a better prophet from this scraggly group of Israelites. He was going to come from their own genealogy, and his name would be Jesus. Jesus would do everything that Moses couldn't do and would do it perfectly. He will be the Messiah. He is the Messiah. So Jesus, our better prophet is the way we know God's word is true. We don't have to come up with substitutes like the pagan nations. Jesus isn't an intermediary, but He's God in the flesh.

They were eyewitnesses to his sinlessness and resurrection. And when he ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to believers. And the Holy Spirit confirms within us the truth and presence of God. So you're not going to make things up. You're not going to look within to sort out your life. You don't have to look anywhere else because you get to look at God and His Word. Now, in some places, I mean, do you ever just make it up as you go like, fake it until you make it.

The practices of the Canaanites were like an experiment with religion. They were faking it until they made it. They were in the dark. So they made stuff up. Someone felt tense or unsettled. So they turned to something familiar to them. And they started making that thing acceptable. And then they started making it worshipful.

And then it became the only way, the thing to do. And then other people followed along. Is this the way we want to live on the whims and tailwinds of something a human made up and said was good? I don't want my future dependent on that. There's always going to be a temptation to listen to other things. The author of Hebrews says to its listeners in Hebrews too, therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we've heard,

lest we drift away from it. It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to His will. Now, Hebrews was written to Jewish Christians going through a tough time, and the writer was warning them to keep God and what he had done in front of them and at the center of their thinking and their decision-making.

They needed to train their spiraling thoughts and doubts to re-center on what they knew to be true about God. And the book of Hebrews was written for us, too. There's a part of each of us that tends to be drawn to things lesser than Jesus. Think about those for a second. Do any of those things that take your devotion or time or money or affection give what they promise? Or do you just need more of them? If you think about a raft in the ocean, there are lots of things that can cause it to drift.

Gravity, waves, weather, weight. We have the same pools. We have busyness, suffering, opposition. It's usually a slow process, but we find ourselves somewhere we didn't expect to be and we need help getting back. In God's mercy, he's given us a much better prophet than Moses. He hasn't just given us someone who can tell us what to do. He gave us a rescuer. Jesus rescues us from our unreleaf, from our drifting,

from anything that pulls us away from God. Our culture is ever-changing and shifting, and we're often going to find ourselves in a position where we have to navigate new territory. We're going to have to fight against evolving temptations. I want to be relevant with you for a minute. Now, I could just share the biblical truth that the Spirit lives in you and he confirms the truth in you and he's the reason you can say it as well with your soul. But I want to explain why and what that means.

So I'll briefly tell you about why this matters to me. I started something new this fall. And in this thing, I'm an outlier. So I knew when everyone in the group got together that my credentials and my experience weren't going to stack up with the rest. I knew that if I rooted my identity in any kind of puffed-up credentials in an attempt to impress my classmates or prove my acceptance, I would be uncovered as a fraud and not taken seriously. But if I could know what is true of me and reflect that, if I can know what is true of all time and reflect that, that's where I would have the most security and the most influence. So for all of you going into new territory, for all of you working in a place where what you believe is the exception, for all of you surrounded by distraction and cultural noise, Jesus is the one that makes you like a tree planted by the water.

If you know this rescuer, you are safe in his promises. You are safe to stand in his truth. If you have drifted, he shows you the way back. Hold tight to his word and his promises, for they are the anchor for your heart and soul. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.