July 18, 2026 - Deuteronomy 18 & Psalm 139

We talk with Pastor Ben Blakey about why clarity on the Holy Spirit matters for students, especially when spiritual gifts feel confusing or intimidating. Then we connect Deuteronomy 18 and Psalm 139 to discernment, humility, and a practical prayer for Spirit-led growth.

For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compassbiblesv.org. Keep reading. Keep growing. God’s Word is a lamp to your feet, and a light to your path. 

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Date

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Welcome to the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Plan, where we are seeking to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, with God's word lighting the way. I'm Josiah Smith, joined by Tyler Sanborn. Today is Saturday, July 18th, 2026.

Deuteronomy 18 Read Aloud

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Listen intently to God's written word. Deuteronomy 18. The Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the Lord's food offerings as their inheritance. They shall have no inheritance among their brothers, the Lord is their inheritance, as he promised them. And this shall be the priest's due from the people, from those offering a sacrifice, whether an ox or a sheep, they shall give to the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the stomach, the first fruits of your grain, of your wine and of your oil, and the first fleet fleece of your sheep you shall give him. For the Lord your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand and minister in the name of the Lord, him and his sons for all time. And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives, and he may come when he desires, to the place that the Lord will choose, and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord, then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony. 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. There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a necromancer, or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nasen, which you are about to dispossess, listen to fortune tellers and to demoners, but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you to do this. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers, it is him you shall listen, just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see his great fire any more, lest I die. And the Lord said to me, They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words, that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die. And if you say in your heart, How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. The Prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid

Psalm 139 Read Aloud

SPEAKER_02 2:59

of him.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Psalm 139. O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up, you discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways, even before a word was on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in behind and before, and you'll and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your spirit? O where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me night, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God, how vast is the sum of them. If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God. O men of blood, depart from me. They speak against you with malicious intent. Your enemies take your name in vain. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Introducing Pastor Ben Blakey

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Well, joining us today, we have a special guest, some of you perhaps are familiar with, Pastor Ben Blakey of Compass Bible Church Treasure Valley. Pastor Ben, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

It is an honor to be on the Lamp and Light Podcast.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Now we are at NNU and we are kind of winding down, believe it or not. Ignite our 2026 summer camp for our students. Yep. And you are preaching the final session tonight, covering kind of rounding off our topics in our study of the Holy Spirit. So, Pastor Ben, tell us what are you going to be talking about tonight? What do you want the students to walk away with? How can we be praying uh for

Spiritual Gifts And Serving The Church

SPEAKER_02 6:10

you?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yeah, well, there's lots of things when we start talking about the Holy Spirit, and even in the American church, there's things that you hear, and you're just thinking to yourself, does that make sense? Like I it does not make any sense to me. Like it sounds good, and even some of it's biblical, like walk by the spirit. And that's right out of the Bible, but what does that actually mean and what does that look like? And so there's a lot of things we've really been trying to break down and help the students have a tangible idea of how is the Holy Spirit supposed to be working in my life. And so tonight we're gonna be talking about service and particularly the concept of spiritual gifts. Yeah. Another concept that there's all kinds of thoughts about, um, even some level of disagreement, I think, between strong Christians. Yeah. But we wanna tonight we're gonna work through some unhelpful ways to think about spiritual gifts, and then hopefully some helpful ways to approach spiritual gifts that will really, you know, uh demystify this subject, but then hopefully be motivating, empowering, and helpful and mobilizing to these students to go serve the local church and trust that the spirit is gonna be the one that helps you serve uh the local church. And there's gonna be times where it's hard and you don't like you feel like I don't feel gifted for this, but this is what you've got to do, and trust the spirit is gonna help me uh through this and how they can find the strongest ways they can serve the church. And so I'm hoping it really empowers um the next generation to build up and be a part of the most important institution in the world, the local church, with the help and empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Absolutely.

Why Teach The Holy Spirit Early

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Now, the whole theme of this week, we've talked on the podcast before in previous days, is about the Holy Spirit, empowered. Uh, and why do you, from your perspective, Pastor Ben, feel like speaking about the Holy Spirit in this kind of environment to this age group specifically is very important. Why why spend the time, why spend a week talking and focusing on the Holy Spirit? Why do you feel like that's important?

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Well, I think on the one hand, like we started, there's so much confusion on this topic. Right. Uh so I think that's if we can clear up the confusion before they get confused, um, that's a win. But then just I think through the four themes we've centered on uh salvation, scripture, sanctification, service. Uh, if these young people can really start off life being locked in on all of those things, like I understand the gospel, I understand I need to be born again, and yes, that's a work of the spirit, but God is calling me to repent and believe. And then if they can understand, well, like you said, the Holy Spirit is the sculptor, but the scripture is the chisel, yeah. Uh, and they are in the word and they're walking by the spirit, growing in sanctification, and then seeking to serve the church, that's the next generation that I'm very excited about. Yeah. So if they can really understand and live these things, they're gonna be on track to have a very fruitful life through the power of the Spirit for the glory of God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

Amen.

Praying For Lasting Fruit

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Well, the time of listening to this, the final session would have already passed, but still we would ask that you continue to pray, pray for lasting fruit from Pastor Ben's sermon on service and the Holy Spirit empowering service, pray for eternal fruit to be born for salvation, for sanctification, uh, for all the things that we've been talking about. And thank you, Pastor Ben, for joining us uh today on the Lamp and Light Bible Podcast. A pleasure to be here.

Testing Prophecy And Rejecting Errors

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Now, as we turn to our passage today in Deuteronomy 18, this actually pairs very well, Tyler, with some of the things that we've been talking about this week. Even thinking about the the QA that the pastors did uh where we were just fielding questions from some of the students. Some of the questions were centered on spiritual gifts. Uh speaking in tongues wasn't expressly asked about, but kind of in that ballpark. And prophecy, of course, is one of those sign gifts that often gets asked about is prophecy for today? Are there modern prophets? That kind of thing. And uh there's a lot of confusion out there as to what exactly prophecy is. And in fact, even in more recent days, there's been a whole category of what people call fallible prophecy, which is this new sort of concoction that essentially is that that people uh can err in their delivery of a prophecy. So the people that would hold to this position would say uh the download, so to speak, from God, of course, is inerrant. God does not err, he says what is true and accurate all of the time. Every word of God proves true, but the recipient of the download can corrupt the file, as it were, and in their delivery of the download, it can get lost in translation. So I just don't think, uh, I actually I feel very confidently that this is not a category that we see in scripture. And Deuteronomy 18 is one of those clear texts that gives us the the why for that. In fact, it basically asks the question how do we know? How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? So essentially they're asking, uh, how can we tell what is actually a prophecy? What's a word from the Lord, and how can we tell what's not? How do we know? I mean, what's the answer there in verse 22? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken. I mean, I don't know how much clearer you can get, Tyler. This is uh prophecy that's being talked about, prophets, and it says if someone says something and claims it from God, but it does not happen, that is not from the Lord. And so I think this is a helpful thing for us to think about as a church when it comes to that question of biblical prophecy and even modern-day prophets, if they exist, and what is prophecy, uh, what we can tell expressly from Deuteronomy 18 is that a prophet who speaks in the name of the Lord, if what he says is not true, if what he says does not come to pass, that has nothing to do with the Lord. The Lord didn't say it because God does not err, God does not miss. And that connects even, I talked about that weird story of this college student, this college freshman that had a gecko that was he was claiming was filled by the spirit, and that gecko made a prediction of who that guy was going to marry. Now, I know personally and intimately the gal uh that this guy supposedly was supposed to marry, and he did not. And so this would be an example of uh someone speaking in the name of the Lord with something that did not come to pass, and we see according to Deuteronomy 18, that is not from the Lord. That is not something that the Lord has spoken. And even it goes on and says, The prophet has spoken presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him. Don't worry about it. This is something that's not from the Lord, God doesn't say things that are untrue, and even those who speak on behalf of the Lord, they have this standard of even infallibility in that sense, of what they're saying, what they're proclaiming. If it truly is from the Lord, it will come to pass, it will be true. And so this category of errant prophecy uh is bunk. I mean, we don't we're not gonna see that in the New Testament, we don't see that here in the Old Testament. I mean, that's just something to kind of think about, even connecting to the theme of ignite uh of the Holy Spirit and the role of the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, uh, prophecy in the New Testament being one of those things that's often talked about and debated. So let's get rid of the category. If you're listening to this and that's something that you've kind of thought about, I want you to read Deuteronomy 18, want you to think about what's being said here. It's very clear. We don't see this repealed, we don't see this changed, we don't see an addendum to this in the New Testament. They continue in the same vein in the New Testament with their prophecies, they come to pass, it happens as they say. There is no example, not one example in Scripture of a prophet speaking errantly, unless they're just saying something that clearly is antithetical to what God has already revealed and what God has already spoken. That's a great encouragement.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

So be speak cautiously and uh hold hold your words in front of the Lord and and honor the Lord with them.

Psalm 139 And The Search-Me Prayer

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Uh speaking of the Lord, He knows all, He knows the hearts of man, and that's what our Psalm uh points us to today, one 139. Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit up, when I sit down, when I rise up, and you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my laying down and are acquainted with all my ways. The Lord knows your thoughts, the Lord knows your heart, and he and he knows what is going to happen, what you are going to say before you even say the words that you utter out of your mouth. And um can be kind of a scary thing if you think about it. Like, what what is there? There's there's nothing hidden, there's nothing uh that the Lord does not know, there's nothing that God has not seen or does not see, and um, that can give us great comfort at the same time. We uh are created in God's image, we are image bearers of God, and we can find rest and peace in that that the the Savior of the world, the spirit that dwells within us, has complete knowledge. There's nothing hidden, nothing foreign, nothing to be learned, nothing to be uh to be taught to God. There's no one like him, there's no one above him, there's no one beside him. And this psalm is a great encouragement. And uh as we think about the conclusion of this psalm uh with this fact of the omniscient God before us who created us, we can go to him in confidence and say, search me and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting. Lord, bring to mind the things that I need to uh to work on, the things that I need to confess to you, the things that I'm holding on to that are not pleasing and honoring to your name, and help me to walk in a way that would be pleasing to you, that is righteous, then that is in the way that that leads to life everlasting. And um that that's a great encouragement for us today as we think about the the attitude of our hearts as we think about the things that we even think God knows them, so we can go to God who is faithful, he's faithful to help us through the the Spirit to help us obey Him. So we could ask for the help of the Spirit, search my heart, search my mind, bring things to mind that I need to turn from. And I I just want to please you with my whole life.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Yeah, and as we seek to live lives led by the Spirit, as we want to walk in the Spirit, Psalm 139, 23 and 24 is a great prayer to pray. Search me, O God, know my heart, try me, know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Lord, help me to walk by the spirit so that I do not gratify the desires of the flesh. Help me, Lord, search me, reveal those those hidden sins even for myself in my heart that are certainly not hidden from the Lord. Teach me, lead me in the way of everlasting. And in so doing, we can live lives that are fruitful, that the Spirit is growing us, sanctifying us, molding us, conforming us greater into the image of Christ. That's our hope. Even thinking about ignite, that's our prayer for these students. That's our prayer for this church, Compass Bible Church South Valley. We want you to be conformed greater into the image of Christ. And so this is a great prayer to constantly pray. Search me, O Lord. Know my heart, try me, know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way of everlasting.

Closing And Where To Learn More

SPEAKER_02 17:42

Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the Lamp and Light Bible Reading Podcast. For more information about Compass Bible Church South Valley, visit compass Bible SV.org. Keep reading, keep growing. God's word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path.