A Voice in the
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Re: the Rev Pastor Moses?

    "And now, Israel, what is Jehovah your God asking of you, but to fear Jehovah your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of Jehovah and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good. Behold, the heavens and the Heaven of the heavens, and also the earth with all that is in it, belong to Jehovah your God. Jehovah has longed for your fathers, to love them; and He chose their seed after them, you out of all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no more; for Jehovah your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great Mighty God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, to give him food and clothing. Therefore love the sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. You shall fear Jehovah your God; you shall serve Him, and cleave to Him, and you shall swear by His name. He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen. Your fathers went down to Egypt with seventy persons, and now Jehovah your God has made you as the stars of the heavens for multitude. (De10:12-22)
In the next of the past-mentioned preparations for the next study series, this past Thursday I read through Deuteronomy (aside from stretch/tea/soda/snack breaks) IN ONE SITTING. Of Moses, God sums up,
    "And since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face" (De34:10)
But you know... I seriously doubt that Moses would last every long in today's churches as a 'pastor'. He would preach about one or two sermons, and they would politick him out quicker than they could convene the ladies' coffee clutch. What would be the accusation?

Moses is just totally too "mean-spirited", and proclaims "hate speech". Fer-shur!! He has these "2 or 3 things" that he just harps on, over and over; and we don't need that sort of haranguing. He's always picking on the same ol' couple of topics. He never seems to be able to let by-gones be by-gones, but what he's always dredging up the past, continually reminding us how we failed in the past...as though it was some BIG DEAL! So, we had this little golden calf. So, our parents whined about water. They were afraid to confront some giants...after all, who wouldn't be afraid of giants. He expects us to fight. He says something about 'blessings' and a land flowing with "milk and honey"...but really now! Is it really 'fair' to -take- all this from the current residents? Just who does Moses think he is? Can't we just learn to "get along" with the people at Baal Peor, and intermarry with them and have a little 'unity in diversity'? So, they worship Baal, and we worship Jehovah. What's the big deal? Everybody has a right to their opinions and beliefs; as long as we agree on the 'essentials'. Right???

The first 11 chapters are Moses telling and repeating, over and over, the Law that God had given to Israel. Over and over the repeated exhortations to OBEY God and KEEP His commandments. Don't be like their parents who died off the past 40 years in the wilderness. This is the Law. KEEP it and DO it. God gave you these commandments. Don't be like those whom God judged, but KEEP and DO God's Law. Keep away from other gods and idols. On and on and on...over and over, the same thing. All right! All right! We heard you the first dozen times, already!!! Give it a rest!!

He then expands on some of the laws, and then closes with the Blessing and Curse.

    De30:15 Behold, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil;

    De32:39 See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver out of My hand.

And a whole other bunch of NEGATIVITY. Yeah yeah! We already heard that a couple dozenth time ago! Must you keep going on?? Man! So JUDGMENTAL!!

Moses is about to die, and God gives him a song to teach the people, and tells Moses that when Israel has entered the prosperous land that they will again turn away...

    "and they will have provoked Me and broken My covenant" (31:20)
And like we say regularly about the pretend/apostate church, that today's "spirit-fillings" are actually demon-possession...Israel's past, which foretells their future...
    "They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to new gods come lately, that your fathers had not feared." (32:17)
And Moses calls Israel stiffnecked and hard-hearted. And badgers into their collective consciousness how stubborn they have been, and will continue to be.
    29:22 so that your children of the generations to come, who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which Jehovah has laid upon it,

    29:26 for they went and served other gods and bowed down to them, gods that they had not known and that He had not apportioned to them.

    30:1 And it shall come to pass, when all these things come upon you, the... curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where Jehovah your God has thrust you away,

    30:17 But if your heart turns away so that you will not obey, and have drawn away, and bowed down to other gods and served them,
    18 I have declared to you today that you shall be exterminated to perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you are crossing over the Jordan to go in and possess.

    31:21 And it shall be, when many evils and troubles find them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten in the mouths of their seed, for I know the imagination of their works even today, even before I bring them into the land of which I have sworn to give to them.

    31:27 for I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. If today, while I am yet alive with you, you have been rebellious against Jehovah, then how much more after my death?

    32:5 They have corrupted themselves; they are not His children, because of their blemish: a perverse and crooked generation.

    32:23 I will heap evil upon them; I will use up My arrows upon them.

See what I mean? How does one leave 'church' all "pumped up" and feeling "blessed" and warm-n-fuzzy with such continual brow-beating? Who needs -THAT- kind of pastor!! Moses was not speaking "pleasant things" to them. (1Ki22:13) You keep telling them how 'bad' they are, and how they will fail... Well OF COURSE THEY WILL FAIL. Don't you know how to pump them up with self-esteem and self-worth; tell them that they are good people and are full of goodness. If you keep telling them about God's judgment, well OF COURSE they will fail. WHAT'S THE USE TRYING to be good if God is so vindictive and punishes, anyway???

What does God want from His people? Worship? The lifting up of the hands, raising the face upwards, and loud pontifications of "love"?

    "O man, He has declared to you what is good. And what does Jehovah require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." (Mic6:8)
As God was calling Ezekiel to ministry, a number of years had gone by since Moses, and true to God's prophecy, Israel continued being obstinate and hardhearted, and He says this...
    "Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me to this very day. For they are impudent and hardhearted children. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, Thus says the Lord Jehovah. As for them, whether they hear or whether they forbear; for they are a rebellious house; yet they will know that a prophet has been among them." (Ezk2:3-5)
Indeed, Ezkiel was a pre-eminent prophet. And Moses was the foremost prophet. But were Moses to show up in today's so-called "churches", he would not be received. Well...
    "I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My Words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him." (De18:18)
This was Jesus... and what did they do to Him?
    "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always oppose the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they, who received the Law by the command of angels and did not keep it, killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers. When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at [Stephen] with their teeth." (Ac7:51-54)
I happened upon one of Jay Leno's monologues last week, and he joked (as comedians do) about Sarah Palin's recent visit to Israel, putting (alleged) words in her mouth about her 'views' on how to work out peace between Israel and the Palestinians: if only they could just accept that "they each worship Jesus in their own way". (joking)

Thing is... Islam worships Allah (not Jesus). Israel worships...well... WHOM? If they truly believed in Yahweh as they claim, they would believe in Jesus, because Jesus came at the Father's sending of Him. Jesus was the fulfillment of the word to Moses for the prophet "like" Moses. As Jesus said to the rulers of His day...

    "For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me." (Jn5:46)
Israel did not believe Moses... nor would today's "church" if Moses were to walk up to the pulpit/s. And so, if they would reject Moses, what does that say about their claims to believe in Jesus? Do they really?
    "Anyone who rejected Moses’ Law dies without mercy before two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled on the Son of God, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of Grace? For we know Him who has said, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord. And again, The Lord will judge His people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb10:28-31)
Furthermore, just WHO does Moses think he is, anyway? ONE MAN taking on this self-presumed 'authority' over all of us!! We don't believe in "one-man congregations". We -all-, -each- of us have just as much authority as the next person.
    "Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men; and they rose up before Moses with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and Jehovah is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of Jehovah?" (Num16:1-3)
And by the time that incident was finished 14,700 died of a plague, fire flashing out from God consuming 250 of those with the censers, and the earth opened up and swallowed up alive some of them.

Or what about...

    "And [Miriam and Aaron] said, Has Jehovah indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also? And Jehovah heard it." (Num12:2)
And by the time that incident was finished, Miriam became a leper for a week.
    "And He said, Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, Jehovah, reveal Myself to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses! He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him mouth to mouth, even by appearance, and not in riddles; and he looks upon the form of Jehovah. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses?" (Num12:6-8)
Amen!