Deuteronomy 4:12: “And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire,  you heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, only you heard a voice.”

 

In the early 16th Century the church was one of the most powerful forces in the world.  Kings and princes bowed to the church.  Well, not so much because they were spreading the truth of God as that the people believed in God but they could not read and even if they could there were no Bibles to read.  All Bibles had to be handwritten as there was no printing presses.  Thus, they could only depend upon their local priest to tell them what the Word of God said and the local priest depended upon the bishop to tell him what he was to believe who depended upon the Arch Bishop to tell him what the truth of God’s Word was and so on and so on. Unfortunately, the higher up you got the more corrupt the leaders became.  They were sitting on a gold mine.  People looked to these supreme church leaders to tell them what to do to avoid going to hell.  If these leaders said pick up sword, join a crusade and if you die in the process you will automatically get heaven.  They said it, the people believed it, and many where hoodwinked.

 

Along comes a monk named Martin Luther who had access to a Bible and could read the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew and what he found just did not jive with what the church leaders were teaching.  Martin Luther suggested, “You know, it would be a pretty good idea to get the Bible in the hands of ordinary people, teach them to read it and let them decide for themselves what it means.”  Bad trip man, bad trip.  Old Luther almost got his head lopped off not to mention the start of a reformation.  Well, it wasn’t just Luther.  You see the reformation really started many years prior to this by a flea. A flea that jumped on board a ship carrying rats that had a plague.  The fleas bit the rat and then once arriving in Europe they jumped ship and bit people and in a little more than 7 years almost 100 million people 60% of the population died from the plague.

 

The people naturally turned to the church for answers, for healing, for deliverance.  They trusted their church leaders, they believed their church leaders heard from God and their church leaders stood helpless and millions died and they themselves died from the plague.  It took 150 years for Europe to recover, the church never recovered. People began to question the leadership of the church and when Martin Luther came they were ready to abandon the church for something else.  Martin Luther stood before the Holy Roman Emperor and declared that he could not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted one another. His conscience was captive to the Word of God and to go against conscience was neither right nor safe.

 

I believe the church is standing at the same crossroads.  I hear from many Christians who read my books and blog who love God with all their hearts but they cannot attend church.  The church has made many promises of healings, prosperity, restoration, breakthroughs and vindication.  Every year prophets predict that this is the year of your breakthrough, but the year ends with only another promise of a breakthrough.  Greece and Puerto Rico defaults on their loans suddenly there is a panic, the bank’s collapse, people’s savings are wiped out.  What will Christians do? They will do the same thing they did seven hundred years ago when the plague hit, they will turn to the church and they may find the teachings of the church has no answers.  But we have one advantage today that the people did not have seven hundred years ago, we have Bibles, millions of Bibles and we are literate and we can read them and through the revelation of the Holy Spirit in each one of us we can find the answer that God has for each one of us personally.  No two answers may be the same, but it will be right for each individual who has a personal relationship with God.

 

We clearly speak of depending upon the Holy Spirit to reveal all truth to us, yet rather than dig into the Word of God ourselves, spend time in meditation and prayer on the Word of God we go to a human teacher or pastor to tell us what the truth is as they did in the 16th century. We look to our teachers and pastors as dictators rather than guides. To feed us rather than be shepherds and lead us to green pastures. It is not the fault of the pastors or teachers, it is our fault for putting this burden on them. I believe many pastors long and pray that their congregation would study of the Word of God themselves so they can just guide and lead like they were called to do.

 

We have the passage: “And the Lord spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire.” The word in Hebrew for fire is ha’ash. This is the standard word for fire and a Bible translator will never give it a second thought.  But ancient Jewish rabbis see more.  You see ha’ash can also be an interrogative or an adverb.  Ok now I know the English syntax would not call for an interrogative or an adverb and my former Hebrew professors would throw salt in the air over such a suggestion, but I met some good orthodox rabbis who would wink and say: “Go for it.”

 

“And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of what is it?”   Or I could say: “And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of there is or there exist.”   I know it sounds awkward in English, but it is really very poetic in Hebrew.   Let’s put this in context with the rest of the verse.”  “You heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude,  only your heard a voice.”   There are a couple interesting things here in the Hebrew.  First the word similitude is mavan which means form or fashion.  Actually it is specifically speaking of something substantial, natural, something that you can see, feel, hear, taste and touch.’   Take a closer look at this phrase: the voice of the words or the qol of the devar.  Qol can be a voice or a sound and devar is a reference to words of  God’s heart.   Then the passage says  something very strange: only you heard a voice.  The word for hear is the word ra’ah Resh Aleph Hei  which is the word for seeing.  How can you see a sound?   This word ra’ah can also mean a spiritual sight, like a dream or vision.

 

Look at this word devar is in an imperfect form and should be rendered: “The Words from the heart of God is continually flowing but you cannot see it, feel it, touch it, taste it or hear it, but you know it is the Word of God.”

 

Forgive me for not walking in lock step with standard Christianity, but this verse means nothing to me from the way it is normally rendered as I have never heard a voice from the midst of fire nor have I met any other Christian who has.   Yet, every Christian I met will say that they have experienced the voice of God.  It was mavan or had no substance that you could  experience  with your five senses, but yet, you knew it was the voice of God because He demonstrated it..   That I can relate to.  God speaks no different to us today than He did back in the days of Israel.

 

Yet, like the people of Israel, God was ready to speak to them personally, but they said: “Moses you go and tell us what God says.”  We always want someone else to tell us what God says, we do not want to find out for ourselves. Look, don’t abandon you churches, pastors and teachers, just let them do the job they were called to do, to help you and guide you in your own personal discovery of your relationship with God through His Word. Reformation does not come by leaving the church it is to take responsibility for your own relationship with God, seek and search for Him with all your own hearts and He will speak to you personally.  Yet we must have our pastors, teachers and Christians friends to support us and confirm it for us. If the people of Israel only said; “Moses, we will go with you to hear the voice of God” rather than  “You go hear and tell us.” We just might be reading a different story, a more victorious story.

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