What Did They Know?

The title is, What Did They Know? Before I go into that, I'd like to tell you about a man named Lakeson Kariah. Anybody heard of Lakeson Kariah? No. Well, he was born in extreme poverty in Malawi, Africa. And if you know, Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the entire world and has been for a very long time, as it was back there. At a very young age, some people inspired Lakeson to somehow make it to America, somehow find some help, as they, also other people, volunteered to help him. If he could ever get there, he could ever find a way. At age 16, Lakeson left his village with nothing but his Bible, a copy of Pilgrim's Progress, which is a book for many of you know, and some corn maize. Or, I guess it's redundant, maize, and very little money. And he decided to walk all the way across Africa to hopefully find a way to come to America and make some contacts. With but one change of clothes, it took him two years to walk across Africa, only on a boat that crossed a river. The rest was on foot. And Lakeson walked, and by the time he was 18, he had reached the coast, at which time he found people who were willing to help him. And he found someone in America, Skagit College, that said, if you can get here, we'll be open with the recommendations you've had. We'll be open to accept you as a student. And he found those recommendations, as he told everyone his story. And he made it to America with other people's help in the year 1960. He went to that small college, got a scholarship to another college, and eventually went to another college. He is now a, or has been, a scholar, an author, and a professor. Because he said that this land that he had heard of was a dream. He couldn't believe that it existed. But he was willing to go out and try to find it, looking for a dream. And he came to America, and it became his dream. I do that because some people, they do not think America is great today. Some people, even in America, that have come from other countries, would like to change America. They don't think it is what it should be. I'd like to look at that today because, as we look at this country and look at it celebrating its 250 years, did the founding fathers, 250 years ago, know where to find an outline to create, to develop this country? They were having to plant a new country. Many were well-read and educated, like John Adams, who had a BA and an MA from Harvard University. He spoke four to five languages, very educated. And yet, he and the other men that surrounded him as they were trying to put together a government for this country put their trust in a man who had led them through the Revolutionary War. He put that trust in George Washington, a man who, at eleven years old, ended his education. So he had a sixth-grade education. But he was fearless. On his own, he would read at night after his job because his father died when he was eleven. He had to go out and get a job and support his entire family. So he would work 10 to 12 hours a day and then come back by light and try to read to educate himself.

I find it interesting because so many of the founding fathers of America turn to a book you are familiar with. It is this one, How to Build a Nation. According to political scientists and researcher Donald Lutz, 34% of all citations and quotes from the founding fathers came from the Bible. Almost all of those quotes came from the book that a young man in front of me is speaking, Deuteronomy. He authored J.G. McConville, who wrote Dictionary of the Old Testament. Pentateuch calls Deuteronomy the Constitution of Israel, as it laid aside all those various things that we had to learn. I bring up Deuteronomy today because I think we need to see. What is laid out before us. For those that do not know, the book of Deuteronomy started from a series of sermons, actually three to four sermons. There's debate over whether it was in three Sabbaths or four Sabbaths, that he actually gave the book of Deuteronomy orally and after he had written it down. This was the last month of Moses' life. It was the 40th year since he had left Egypt. It was the 11th month and it was the first day of that month when he delivered his first message. These words that were written in Deuteronomy 1 were written in Deuteronomy 2. The thing that Moses did was recap his 40-year journey and then gave God's marching orders and commands to the future occupiers of a promised land. He had promised them. God had promised them. But to them it was only a what? A promise. Only a promise. And to those people he was talking to at that time, it was only a promise to their fathers and mothers. A promise they did not believe in. And yet here were the children of the children of Israel standing on a land just outside of the promised land. Moses gave a complete detailed structure through the inspired word of God as God had him deliver this, you might say, his last will and testament, his last words to those people that he had gone through so much trouble.

And it is a law and structure in the book of Deuteronomy It's a law given for civil people to build a new nation. Sometimes we just read it as, well, it's one of the first five books of the Bible. It was more than that. As a matter of fact, many references in the other books of the Bible referenced the law. And yet many people later realized that the law was the book of Deuteronomy. And I want to talk about that today and how it relates to us and to this nation because it is an outline for nation building.

But it was an outline for this nation as we know our founding fathers started reading it. They wanted to build something that had not been built before. They actually went and studied every form of government through their time in history to find one that would first give you freedom. Give you freedom to live, freedom to worship, and freedom to prosper because many governments of this world even today are not set up that way. Ours is unique, very unique. Is it perfect? Far from it as you can watch the news and see all the arguments and debates that go down about it. But for this nation, the 250 years shows that we can have a government by God, instructed by God, kept by a people who actually believe in a God. Now, many people today, we have those who can test the Bible and say, you shouldn't force your religion on us. Well, that's the beauty of the Bill of Rights. No religion can be forced on you. Your choice. You can do what you want. You can worship the way you want to worship. You can do what you want to do when you want to do it. As a matter of fact, in this country, it's one of the few. You can create your own religion. Diane can create the Church of Diane if she wants to next week.

And Maria can say, no, come to the Church of Maria. That is the beauty of the United States of America. We now have 50 states. We started with 13, and we are now 50. The wonderful part about the United States is each state has independence. And each state can make some of their own rules, most of their own rules and laws. And the wonderful thing is, if your state does not want something, or wants to rule by certain laws, they can enact those laws. And if you don't like one of the 50 states in which you're living in, you can move to another one and they'll be different. That is also the beauty of it. But first, Moses gave a history lesson. Let me rephrase that. He didn't give a history lesson. He gave a history lecture to all the people about to enter into the Promised Land.

When you think about it, are we not today? Are we not today? Preparing for a Promised Land that God has instructed us that it's going to happen. And all the people in the world will come to worship God, as the book of Isaiah says. It's going to happen. It's not now. But it's with that vision that people have thought about things.

And we look at the history, and we see Moses teaching, lecturing from 120 years of experience. At this time, he was 120 years old. And yet, his vigor, as it says, he was as strong, competent as he was when he was 20 years old. Boy, don't we all wish we had appeal like that.

Well, that didn't come from appeal. It came from God. And it would be great. And we wouldn't be talking about a prayer list, would we, John, if we all had something. Will we see something like that in the future? Why not? With Jesus Christ in charge. Moses stood before these people for either three or four Sabbaths. And he was telling them this story that is the book of Deuteronomy.

He told that to inspire those people who we know was somewhere between a million and three million people. There are listed 601,000 men alone. So you can imagine all those other ones. But he lectured to this huge group. He had no mic. You wonder how he did it. We sometimes look at the church and we come in and there's 30, 40 people. Can you imagine coming in and seeing 300 or 400,000 people? And then later on more people came because they were Jamaicans and they always show up late. In case you were watching from Fort Lauderdale after this morning.

But I love our people, Jamaica. He wanted to tell these people. He told these people, and he's telling us today, as we hopefully understand, but he was telling them about one thing. And that was, you need to build a relationship with God. You need a relationship with God. And as he pointed, he wouldn't always be there. There wouldn't always be some leader to guide them.

They needed to create this relationship. You might say Moses gave them law and order. And I'm not talking about the TV show. But God through Moses gave them rules to live by in the book of Deuteronomy. As a matter of fact, he gave them rules to rule by. The foundation, the foundation of a civilization is this. He knew that. He stressed that. God knows we need... So I was talking to somebody last night, I think it was someone had called about the question biblical question.

And I asked him if they had ever been bowling. And she said, yes, been bowling. She said, I like bowling. And I said, well, you remember how you throw the ball down the center and you knock over the pins. But if you're a young kid, these walls come up on the side. Right? You ever seen those? Oh, are they guards? Bumpers. Okay. See, you've played you bold since I have.

I never use those. Thankfully. But I've seen them. And those bumpers are really nice, aren't they, for young people starting out because it gives you confidence and teaches you how to roll down the middle. There's your bumper. These are your bumpers. They keep you so you go down the middle. They keep you so your life goes down the road in the middle, so it's not so hard. You don't experience some of the hard lives. Our laws in the United States, the very first of it from John Jay and from the first Supreme Court, based on these, if you go to the Capitol, you'll see these things written at the Capitol.

Our founding fathers believed in the Bible. They believed in the rule of law. And they believed that this book would help a nation reach their destiny. I find it interesting because in Deuteronomy, you know this. The Ten Commandments are given in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. Why? Well, because we need two witnesses, right? But Deuteronomy is the one that's quoted the most. You'll find it interesting that in Exodus, in the New King James Version, Exodus 20, the whole Ten Commandments are put together with 305 words.

In Deuteronomy 5, there's more words. There's 20% more words. Do you know the difference? Do you know the difference? 365 words are in Deuteronomy 5, telling the Ten Commandments. 20% more words. That 20% was given by Moses, given by God, to instruct these people at an even deeper level than their parents, because it didn't work with their parents. And so he's hoping it will work with them so they can fulfill their destiny.

So Moses gave them not only Ten Commandments, not only the laws of God, but he gave them a core in Deuteronomy, the core, the backbone of God's relationship with his people. Because he says something in Deuteronomy after he had given the Ten Commandments, which they knew. They knew after 40 years in the wilderness and watching people die off and die and die.

They knew the Ten Commandments, but he was giving them a little broader look at it. Maybe more things to think about. But he told them what was important in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5. Just a chapter later, he told them what was important. He said, you shall love the Lord with all your heart, your soul, and your strength. You say, well, wait a minute. Isn't that really what the Ten Commandments were about?

Let's go there. Deuteronomy 5. Deuteronomy 5. Deuteronomy 5.

Verse 6. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt. Verse 7. You shall have no other God. You shall make no— Do you see it? There's no love in there. There's no words you shall love the Lord your God. But there is in Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, isn't there? See, it's like he gave them, this is the law. And then in Deuteronomy 6.5, he goes, and this is the reason for the law. This is what's at the core. This is what they're about. And isn't it interesting when Christ is asked, well, God on earth walking in flesh, they ask him, which is the greatest commandment? Did he quote Deuteronomy 5? No. He quoted Deuteronomy 6. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, and your being. Why did he do that? Because he wrote those. He put those together. He knew he was the author of it all. Very, very powerful. Why did God and Moses know this was the right thing? He knew it had to be more than head knowledge. It had to be more than just putting it up here. It has to be here. So, like Christ said, a new covenant will be where I will write my what? In where? And where? Yes. He knew that. He knew that. Has to be more. It's just like being married. There's a covenant involved in getting married. And you may find people who say, I have a good marriage. She cooks a good breakfast. Oh, or he mows the yard for me. Is that going to be the foundation for a good marriage? Oh, yeah, we both like the same TV show. And both of us listen to country music. So, there it is. There's our marriage. No, we know. It's got to be about this. You have to love them more than yourself. I'm counseling two young people now I did this week. I had to get married around the feast time. That's what I explore. I have to make sure that it's just not up here. It has to be here because there comes a time in every marriage where this won't work. Any of you are married know exactly what I'm talking about. When it's not an easy road. And it's not only up and down. It's up and down. And you have to see it. And you're going, this can't be the person I married. But no, it is when it's here, because they can look at you and say, well, you're not the person I married either. But you grow in love. Just like you grow in your conversion. You don't have everything at first. But things begin to fall in line. They fall in place. You're reading a book. You go, oh! Now it makes sense. Oh! That is the beautiful thing. And the thing I love is, yes, is Deuteronomy about obedience. Yes. About keeping the bumpers up. Absolutely. 21 times is obey or obedience mentioned in Deuteronomy. Love is mentioned 16 times. 16 times! Does Moses write love? Love. Love. Love. Love. Because it's so important. And his major theme is love and obedience in Deuteronomy. He says everybody, well, the do's and the don'ts. They don't know what Deuteronomy stands for. There's some of those. But he's trying to get these people to build a country and put laws there for government so that they can rule. But he wants them not to lose touch with two things. Him and their fellow man. What are the Ten Commandments about? Love towards God and love towards the foundation of those commandments.

Brethren, we are blessed that this country was founded with that in mind. We don't have Sharia law. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of glad. There are other types of government. There's other types of structure. I don't want it. I've been to many countries. I've been to where there's a democracy. We're not a democracy. We're a republic. A democracy is where mob rules. Whatever the majority of people want, that's what you get. And you don't like it tough. But our founding fathers saw that. They wanted to make us say you had choices. So you could do things. So I ask you today, do you love this country? I hope you do. I hope you see it. Warts and all.

Because there are warts. We've had, boy, did we have some valleys. In the founding of this country in 250 years. That's the beautiful thing I'll touch on just a few minutes before I close. We should love it.

We have so much to love here. I went in Costco yesterday. I also went in Publix.

There's 20 different ketchup. Clive, you were injured. My God, I've been there many times. Go in the store, there's one diet. You don't like it? You're tough. You leave because somebody else will buy that ketchup. I've been in Haiti where there is no ketchup. There's bread if you can get it. And you don't have a choice. Oh, well, wait a minute. Do I want whole wheat today? No, you don't get it. You get what's there. It's white, it's cheap, and it's terrible. No, it's not fresh. But you like it and you eat it because that's all you're going to get. That is not America. Look around and see all this stuff. And there's one thing we must always remember. There's a lot of bloodshed so that we can have and live life abundantly. This is what they had to understand later. They may have not seen it when he stood on that little mountain crest and was talking to that millions of people and telling them what the promised land is going to be like and what they should do and how they should live and how they should govern. But you and I can do one thing. We can read in Joshua. We can read in Judges. Read in Samuel. Read in the Kings. Read in the Chronicles. And it shows us exactly what was good and what was not good. How they lived their life. As Joshua, everybody did what was right in their own eyes. They weren't following God. But we do the same. The struggle and the bloodshed to form an imperfect nation. Two nations, actually. Judah and Israel. They had the perfect law for its time. You may say, well, yeah, but there was slavery, there was killing, there was this. God knew all this. He knew what was going to happen before it happened. He knew the nations they would run into. He knew the slavery was going to exist. He knew that they would be taken in slavery. He knew they would have slaves. He knew way before anything else. So how do you put together a law that is righteous for unrighteous people?

There's nothing wrong with the law. It was what was wrong with the people. You take the Ten Commandments. You find anything wrong with one? Andre, you're newly married. About to have the baby. Which of those Ten Commandments do you want your wife not to keep? Not to keep? Yeah, if you could just like, oh, well, I like nine out of ten. Which one would you like her to break?

To me, they're perfect. They're perfect for a marriage, aren't they? Well, no, I don't mind. My wife lies to me. Nobody wants that. So they're perfect. They can create an atmosphere of love in a marriage. Keep those. You're never going to have you're never going to have marital problems, are you? No, both of you do. Because you're going to love your God and you love your God, you're going to be praying for when you don't agree on something, that God would bless that marriage.

This is a wonderful thing that God has given. Yet, you had a chance when it went off the rails with Rehoboam after Solomon. It was a chance that God told the leader of the new nation of Israel, I'll give you more than Solomon ever had. I'll bless you beyond compare.

Just follow me. And look what happened. Not one righteous king out of 21. 19, excuse me. 19, no righteous, not one. The whole nation had to be overthrown. Think about that. You ever thought about that? That incredible thing is that... Let's look at time, why I still have a little bit. The only time we cannot keep track of in the Bible, and that's why we don't know the exact time.

And our good friend Frank Donovan did a lot of study on this. And I've got his papers, mine, and he got it down to about five to seven years of just using the Bible, pulling everything out. But the only thing we really could not find is the time of the judges. It's the only time we can't because they overlap. The judges overlap each other. And you really have to find because it's not like many of the others that he died at this age or whatever.

So you had to find that out. But the time of the judges that they ruled was between 300 and 350 years. Most say it's about 325 years. That that nation, if you could say, existed where everybody did what was right in their own eyes. And then you come down to the time of the southern kingdom, Judah. From the time of the split, does anyone know how many years their kingdom, before they were overthrown by a battle on?

Anybody have any ideas? How many years? 344. 344. It's the most. Hey, it's a good guess. You care to guess on the southern, the northern kingdom? On Israel? No? Very good. You show off. 209 years. That's it. 209 years. And you get to read about every year in the Bible.

And where are we? 250 years from our independence. It makes you think. Makes you think, doesn't it? What we can do? Let's wrap this up. Well, now I have 10 minutes. So we won't wrap it up. We'll turn to Deuteronomy 30. Deuteronomy 30. Deuteronomy 30. I'm going to do verse 11, and I'm just going to read this.

I'll read from the New King James Version. I'm just reading about nine verses. But this is what he wanted to get across. As you can tell, this is like the last sermon, the last week before Moses is to go to sleep. And God takes his body by some angels and goes and hides it, as we find out later. But let's read this. So this is the same. He's given all the history. He's given the law.

Now he's just speaking from his heart straight to the people. He said, For this commandment, which I command you today, is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven that you should say, Who will ascend into heaven for you and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?

Nor is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it? So he's saying, It's not up there. It's not out there. You have it. You have no excuse, because I just gave it to you. But the Word is very near you. It's in your mouth and in your heart that you may what? You may what? Do it! At least Nike stole that probably. Do it! You need to go do it!

See, I have set before you today life and good, and we all want that. I've also set death and evil in that I command you today to love. There's one of those 16 times. Love who? The Lord. Love the Lord your God to walk in His ways to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments that you may live and multiply. And the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.

There's the promise. There's the covenant. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear and are drawn away and worship other gods to serve them, I announce to you today that it's no big deal.

No. I announce to you today that you shall surely perish. You shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth absolutely everything that exists today against you as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life that both you and your descendants may live. That you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice.

And then I love this one. It's hardly anywhere else in the Bible. That you may cling. Cling. Go back and look at the Hebrew word for that. Cling. To the Lord your God. You know what it references in the word picture in Hebrew? A mother and her baby on her breast.

That close where she is feeding her baby. Cling. Can we cling? Can we cling to God? He's telling them that's what you do. For He is your life and the length of your days that you may dwell in the land which the Lord has promised you. So that not only fits them, it fits us because we said, God we you are God. And we came here and started this country so that we could worship you. You. That this book is the book we will follow. You, God. Now we must appreciate because we're not always agree with everything that happened in the U.S. There are things that are wicked people who have lived. We paid the price. Big time price. We paid that price for slavery. We enslaved the people for 75 years from the time of the founding to the time when the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was actually put through and agreed upon in 1864 in January. And 550,000 men, mostly white men, lost their lives. More men than what? Than all the other wars that we fought combined. It was a penalty. In my view, I've always said that that was a penalty we had to pay for what we had done. And we paid it. Think about it. Think about it.

Study our history. Some people say, I don't like history. History is not Mary's favorite thing. You say, I can take a little bit of it. Just don't overwear me out with it because I can sit there and talk and read history for hours. And as I said this morning, we go to a museum, and it's a historic museum. I have to read everything. I got to read every little plaque. I got to read every little thing. I love that. And history is good for us, and it's good for this country because you need to know what was done before us. Oh, boy. You have to know what was done.

Because we cannot appreciate where we are until we know where we've come from. That's why people like to look at genealogy, and you look and say, wow, that's where this and that's this and that's this. Huh. Because the people who came before us, your grandfather, your great, great grandfather, your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, had so much tougher life. But they did things so that we would be able to one day have what we have. Everyone envisioned their children and their children's children having a better life than them, and they were willing to suffer. So, so, think about it. We have AC, air-conditioned. Oh, never even thought about 60 years ago. I didn't have it in my house 50 years ago. When I grew up, we had fans and trees. That's it. You gotta, we can go and flip a switch, and we have, we have lights. You don't have to have coal lamps and turn them on and light them and carry them. Isn't that amazing? I mean, isn't something? You go to a water faucet and you turn it on, and water comes out? There's not this. There's not this. We're pulling up a, this is America, the most prosperous country in the world. Now, you may say, well, wait a minute. There's better standards of living. Not with 300 million people there is not. There's only two countries our size if you want to have 300 million or more. And I don't want to live in India, and I don't want to live in China. I'll take this any day of the week and on every Sunday. It's a, it's, it's beautiful. Pave roads? Oh my. I've been to Haiti. I've seen, might be a paved road and there might not be any road. There are many. To cherish our freedoms, we must see and experience the past and the founders of the past. It's why Kings and Chronicles were written so that we could study that history and that they could know where it came from. You know, for us, the old west, you have wagon trains. There was nothing good about a wagon train, except they took you where no one had gone before or a few people had gone before. You had to worry about water. You had to worry about Indians. You had to worry about death. You had to worry all the time. And people went by the thousands across deserts because they were looking for a greater, better world for them and for their children. The Civil War, which I talked about, we fought.

550,000 men. World War I, war to end all wars. Hmm, didn't did it, but we fought. We fought not on our soul. World War II, we fought to free, to help free the world. We lost a lot of men on somebody else's land.

I wrap this up today because I want us to understand it's so important to know where you came from, know what you experienced. I have two books I recommend. I really recommend them. I've read this one two or three times and I'll probably read it again two or three times before I die. It's called The Frontiersman. It's actually true history of this country. It's given by reports from people who were there and actual written reports of the time from eyewitnesses. It's brutal. It sometimes makes you stop because you don't know if you could read it. But it's brutally honest. It tells both sides how bad we were and how bad the Indians were. It tells the wickedness of mankind. But it also, in its pages, tells you when the good was there, how the nation prospered, how the nation expanded, and how people worked together. It's called The Frontiersman by Alan Eckert. He also wrote the book The Wilderness War, which is also something else by Alan. A-L-L-A-N Eckert. Incredible books. I'll never give them up. I'll make sure I always have them because it's thick and it gives you a history. It's 700 and something pages. You'll know when you read it, it makes you feel like you're there. It's not sanitized, as so many of our things are today, but neither is a Bible. It's 250 years. We've come to this, and we all benefit from every drop of blood, every bit of sweat, every tough trial in those 250 years. I want to leave you with the words of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln said, I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go. I hope we can say that very thing as we work our way through. Abraham Lincoln said, I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of this world is communicated to us through this book. And finally, as a duty of nations, as well as the men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history that those nations only are blessed, whose God is the Lord. Abraham Lincoln, when he became president, he was handed a Bible, a Bible he had never read, a book he had never read, and someone gave him one and said, this is what you're going to need to rule such great people. And in his own words, he became obsessed with knowing how God wants him to rule and how God wants us, brethren, to live.