Laws for Proper Worship

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Deuteronomy chapter 12, Deuteronomy chapter 12.
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Before we open the Word of God together, let us ask the Lord to bless our time together. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again we confess our utter need of Your Spirit to work within our hearts that we might understand, that we might be profited by the study of Your Word, and that You would be honored and glorified in all that takes place.
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So we confess that need. We can do nothing of ourselves. May You bless Your Word amongst us during this hour we pray.
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We pray in Christ's name, Amen. Now as most of you know,
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I have been seeking, so far vainly, to win the most popular sermon title series on Sermon Audio as we have been studying the
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Holiness Code. For some reason, it just hasn't become the most popular series on Sermon Audio.
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For some, I don't understand it. I would think that a discussion of obscure passages in Leviticus would just have launched me right over the top.
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But instead, it has proven to be a bit of a challenge, obviously, as we have been working through what
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God's law says on so many issues. We've been looking at the background of these issues, the nature of the religious worship of the people around Israel.
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And for those of you who haven't been with us, the reason that we have been doing this over the course of,
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I'm not sure, about nine months, ten months, a year. I don't remember exactly when we began this, when
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I have the opportunity of preaching. But the reason is fairly obvious. We live in a day where the fundamental moral and ethical standards of Scripture are under full attack, not only within the
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Church, which is really nothing overly new, but it is a subject that if we seek to, as Christians, speak to God's truth in our culture, we will find that today there is a great deal of revisionism going on.
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There's a great deal of material out there on the internet that basically says that what we have believed about sexual ethics, morality, marriage, what we have believed about God's law has been incorrect.
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And so there are many revisionists and revisionist books that would assure us that certain texts in Leviticus are irrelevant, because, well, you
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Christians only pick and choose what you believe from that anyways. And that, therefore, the foundation of our interpretation of certain texts in the
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New Testament, whether it be Romans chapter 1 or 1 Corinthians chapter 6 or 1
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Timothy chapter 1, is likewise in error. And so what we've been attempting to do is to make sure that as we have opportunity in our culture today to engage with the people around us, that certainly one of the greatest desires that should be ours is that when we have opportunity to open the word of God, when we have opportunity to give witness for what we believe, that when we do so, that we do so appropriately.
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When we do so, we do so handling God's word aright, but fully recognizing that even if we are careful in what we say, careful in our handling of the scriptures, if we have carefully read the texts and are seeking to be very honest with our exegesis of the text, we recognize that a large portion of the people to whom we'll be speaking want absolutely nothing to do with our conclusions.
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We are not operating under any delusion that apart from the
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Spirit of God, someone is going to just look at what we have to say and look at the scripture and go, well, of course, there it is right there.
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I repent and believe. It requires a supernatural work of the
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Spirit of God to take out that heart of stone, to give a heart of flesh. And we, of course, recognize that in all of our witnessing, in all of our evangelism, in everything that we do, we are dependent upon the
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Spirit of God to work in that supernatural way. Now, we have pretty much finished looking at the relevant sections of the book of Leviticus.
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We gave a lot of background information there. But obviously, there are a number of texts in the
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Old Testament law that aren't specifically found in the book of Leviticus. There's been a number of times, even as we looked at Leviticus 18, 19, 20, so on and so forth, that we had to look at parallels that were found in numbers, but more probably in the book of Deuteronomy.
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And so we now take up looking at some of those key texts. We are not going to do what we did with Leviticus and look at everything.
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That would take too much time and take us too far afield. And please remember that I mentioned the last time
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I had the opportunity of speaking that especially the texts in Deuteronomy and Numbers that have to do with the subject of slavery, that I will be dealing with that in the
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Sunday school hour. I'm not sure exactly when that's going to be. Those of you who are members of the church here know that I sometimes have a very busy season of travel.
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And that starts Friday afternoon. I will be teaching in Zurich, Switzerland, and then in Kiev, Ukraine.
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I'll be gone for nearly three weeks teaching over in Europe. Your prayers for that time would be very appreciated, because not only am
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I teaching via translation, which is always a challenge. I don't know yet when
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I'm in Zurich whether it's going to be someone in the other room and headset type thing or whether it's going to be stop, start, stop, start.
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I'm not certain of that quite yet. But I know in Kiev, as long as the lights are on, we will have live translation from the other room.
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You may recall the last time I was there, they had a fire at a nuclear plant. And we posted some pictures of my teaching by candlelight, which was fine, though it was
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December. So it could get a little nippy in Kiev in December. But we'll just see what the
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Lord has in mind for this trip over there. Be that as it may, then in October, of course, are the trip to South Africa and the debates down there in mosques and so on and so forth.
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So I am not exactly certain when we're going to be able to do that particular study in the
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Sunday school hour in regards to the subject of slavery. So we won't be looking specifically at those texts as we work through Deuteronomy.
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But we want to dive in, and I felt that it would be good to sort of orient ourselves a little bit by beginning with chapter 12.
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But I do want to remind us, because at one point sometime last year,
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I did not look to see exactly when it was. We did look at Deuteronomy chapter 11.
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And if you will recall, in Deuteronomy chapter 11, specifically we talked about the issue of the relationship between the love that we are to have for God and our obedience to his law.
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And so that element is so vitally important in the repeated exhortations and warnings about idolatry.
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And it is one of those main things that you just simply have to recognize in speaking to the people of the world and addressing these texts.
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There's not going to be a connection there with them. The idea of loving God supremely. They may want
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God to love them supremely, but the reverse is not normally a part of the unregenerate person's mind and the unregenerate person's thinking.
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They're focused upon themselves. They're focused upon their happiness, their future, and what
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God can do for them. The idea of us living our lives in light of service and worship to God and being used in his service and worship, well, that's something that only the
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Spirit of God can bring into a person's heart through that work of regeneration. And so we looked at some of the texts.
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Notice, for example, Deuteronomy 11 .13. It should come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments, which
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I am commanding you today, to love Yahweh your God and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.
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Sounds a little bit like the greatest commandment here, the Shema, which we also have in Deuteronomy chapter 6.
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That he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil.
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He will give you grass and your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Beware that your hearts are not deceived, that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them, or the anger of the
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Lord will be kindled against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that there will be no rain, and the ground will not yield its fruit, and you will perish quickly from the good land which
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Yahweh is giving you. So once again, the blessings and the cursings, which you see in verse 26 of chapter 11.
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I set before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing, if you listen to the commandment of the Lord, your God, Yahweh your
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God, which I am commanding you. And the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of Yahweh your God, but turn aside from the way which
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I am commanding you today by following other gods that you have not known. The blessing and the cursing, what's that all wrapped up in?
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It's wrapped up in this concept of the fact that God is making these people his covenant people, and that there is to be a love relationship that exists.
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No one ever comes up with the idea that there is going to be true biblical obedience without a changed heart, because that idea of loving
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Yahweh your God is part and parcel of what is right there in the text.
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And it's sad that a lot of Christians are frequently the ones that don't get that element and fall into the trap of viewing
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God's law as this cold, heartless code. There is to be a passion all the way through.
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It's right there in the words of the text, and we spent some time looking at that at a preceding time together, looking at Deuteronomy chapter 11.
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So with that, let's read through Deuteronomy chapter 12. It's not a short chapter, but I'm going to only summarize some portions of it.
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But I want to read through the whole thing, because it is the background, then, of Deuteronomy 13, which
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I think a lot of you will find has some other rather interesting ramifications in regards to prophecy.
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We'll be looking at that as well. These are the statutes of the judgments which you shall carefully observe in the land which
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Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess as long as you live on the earth. Let me just mention, since we do have some visitors,
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I'm not making up some new word. But when you see the word L -O -R -D in all capitals, that's the divine name.
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It's called the Tetragrammaton in Hebrew, Yod -Heh -Wau -Heh, which we slaughter in our hymnology as Jehovah, but was undoubtedly not pronounced as Jehovah.
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The best estimate that we can come up with in regards to ancient
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Hebrew is that the divine name was pronounced as Yahweh. It is God's covenant name, and therefore,
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I utilize it in that way. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree.
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You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their asherim of fire, and you should cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.
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You shall not act like this toward Yahweh, your God, but you shall seek Yahweh at the place which
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Yahweh, your God, will choose from all your tribes. To establish his name, therefore, is dwelling, and there you shall come.
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There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.
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There also you and your household shall eat before Yahweh, your God, and rejoice in all your undertakings in which
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Yahweh, your God, has blessed you. You shall not do at all what we are doing here today, every man doing what is right in his own eyes, for you have not as yet come to the resting place and the inheritance which
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Yahweh, your God, is giving you. When you cross the Jordan and live in the land which Yahweh, your God, is giving you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security, then it shall come about that the place in which
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Yahweh, your God, will choose for his name to dwell, there you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the contribution of your hand, and all your choice votive offerings which you will vow to Yahweh.
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And you shall rejoice before Yahweh, your God, you and your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and Levite, who is then your gate, since he has no portion or inheritance with you.
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Be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every cultic place you see, but in the place which
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Yahweh chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.
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However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your gates, whatever you desire, according to the blessing of Yahweh, your
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God, which he has given you. The unclean, the clean may eat of it as of the gazelle and the deer.
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Only you shall not eat the blood. You are to pour it out on the ground like water. You are not allowed to eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, or new wine, or oil, or the firstborn of your herd or flock, or any of the votive offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings, or the contribution of your hand.
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But you shall eat them before Yahweh, your God, in the place which Yahweh, your God, will choose, you and your son and daughter, and your male and female servants, and the
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Levite who is within your gates. And you shall rejoice before Yahweh, your God, in all your undertakings. Be careful that you do not forsake the
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Levite as long as you live in your land. When Yahweh, your God, extends your border, as he has promised, and you say,
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I will eat meat because you desire to eat meat, then you may eat meat, whatever you desire. If the place which
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Yahweh, your God, chooses to put his name is too far from you, then you may slaughter your herd and flock, which Yahweh has given you, as I have commanded you.
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And you may eat within your gates whatever you desire. Just as a gazelle or a deer is eaten, so you will eat it.
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The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. Only be sure not to eat the blood, for the blood is life.
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And you shall not eat the life with the flesh. You shall not eat it. You shall pour it out on the ground like water.
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You shall not eat it so that it may be well with you and your sons after you, for you will be doing that which is right in the sight of Yahweh.
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Only your holy things, which you may have, and your votive offerings, you shall take and go to the place which
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Yahweh chooses. And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of Yahweh, your
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God. And the blood of your sacrifice shall be poured out on the altar of Yahweh, your God, and you shall eat the flesh.
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Be careful to listen to all these words which I command you, so that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever, for you will be doing what is right, good and right, in the sight of Yahweh, your
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God. When Yahweh, your God, cuts off before you the nations which you are going to end to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, beware that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, how do these nations serve their gods that I may do likewise?
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You shall not behave thus toward Yahweh, your God, for every abominable act which Yahweh hates, they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
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Whatever I command you, you should be careful to do. You shall not add or take away from it.
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Amen. So here we have the 12th chapter, and it's fairly easy to see the major divisions.
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Let me sort of lay aside some of the major portions so we can focus upon what I wanted us to really center our attention on in the time that we have together.
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What you have here are basic instructions before going into the land. And God is asserting his right to determine, once again, the nature of the worship that he is to be offered.
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Much of what you have here, again, when you think about the background, which we've talked about before, in regards to the worship of the
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Canaanite gods, the Assyrian gods, the gods of the people, when you think about what that kind of worship was like, you can see that much of this has, as its background, once again setting the people of God apart from the people around them so that they can very clearly proclaim their covenant relationship to Yahweh and the fact that he is the one and only
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God. He is holy. He is not to be worshipped as the people of the land have worshipped their gods.
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And so you have, for example, a good deal of discussion of the fact that God is going to choose a place, the tabernacle to dwell, which eventually becomes the temple, and that there is, in God's law, the bringing of certain things in specific worship to God that is only to take place in that place.
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And you'll notice that the very first commandment in verse 2 is, you shall utterly destroy all the places of the nations whom you shall dispossess, serve their gods in the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.
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You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their ashram with fire. And you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate their name from that place.
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You shall not act like this toward Yahweh your God. Now, obviously, today, that's a very politically incorrect set of verses.
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I mean, those, actually, might have some great cultural significance.
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And the high places might go back a long time into history.
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And this sounds so politically incorrect and so non -inclusive.
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Well, let's be honest with ourselves. If we read the Bible with any sense toward understanding its original context,
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Yahweh is not into inclusivity. Inclusivity is, it may be the big thing on college campuses today.
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It was not the big thing for God and the people of Israel by any stretch of the imagination.
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And what you have is the great concern, which is repeated later in the chapter, of being ensnared, being trapped, of the people of the land going,
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I wonder how the former inhabitants of this land used to worship their gods.
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I'd like to do that. And so there is a great warning that is given.
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And of course, there is an action that is to take place. And that is to cleanse the land of these high places, the groves of trees.
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We see this all through the Old Testament, the high places. It was part and parcel of the religious worship of that day to engage in this kind of sacrificial worship, the temple prostitution, the worship of Baal or whatever of the pantheon of gods that the
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Canaanites could offer to you. It would normally take place at the highest point in a particular area.
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So you would go up to worship. And so the land was filled with these places.
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And so part of the job of the people of Israel was not to preserve these places, not to board these places up, not to put signs out, say this is no trespassing.
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No, they are to destroy all of the evidence of this kind of worship.
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And as a result, God says, you're not going to be like these people.
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Because see, they made worship simple and easy. You could find a grove of trees.
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You could find the asherim, the high places, within a very easy walking distance.
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And so you didn't want to inconvenience anybody when it comes to worship. I mean, we want to be very seeker friendly.
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And I wouldn't doubt that they might have had a few Starbucks outside some of the high places, given some of the stuff that Starbucks is doing recently with Planned Parenthood.
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I think it would fit very well with the sacrifices to Mulloch. But they just wanted to make sure that people sort of got to, when you've got false gods, you've got to keep people happy.
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And you've got to fulfill their carnal desires. Because there's really nothing there other than that.
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Then you go away feeling better about yourself. You've sort of appeased the gods, or you've gotten their blessings upon your crops, or something along those lines.
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And so you've got to make it easy. And so the kind of worship that existed back then, you didn't just sort of choose how you wanted to do things.
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And you saw a lot of discussion, for example, of blood. In their type of worship, blood was very, very important in the sacrifices.
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And it had magical powers. And so it was considered very, very important.
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But what are the Israelites supposed to do? Pour it out on the ground like water. Pour it out on the ground. Yeah, the life's in the blood.
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But that doesn't make it something magical. Instead, you are simply to dispose of it, and not in any kind of cultic or ritual fashion.
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You pour it out on the ground. And once it's poured out on the ground, obviously it cannot therefore then be used for any kind of cultic or ritual activity either.
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And so they are to act in a way that's completely opposite to the context of the behaviors of the people that were in the land before them.
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Once again, setting themselves apart. And so God gets to determine where it is he's going to be worshiped.
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He gets to choose a place amongst the tribes. And that's where the tabernacle is going to be set up.
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And the specific offerings, and it was repeated three or four times in the course of the text.
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You've got your sacrificial offerings, and your grain offerings, and your votive offerings, and free will offerings, and all these other things.
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God says, you don't get to determine where that's going to happen. Because I have my priests, and I have my altar, and if you're going to engage in those offerings, you don't get to pay the local
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Levite to set up a competing altar over here. You don't get to determine how this is going to happen.
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I, God, determine how this is going to happen. Now, of course, all of this makes us think just a little bit about the great controversies that have existed down through the course of, even in church history, down through the course of church history, about how
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God is to be worshipped. And the fundamental reality that mankind is always seeking innovation when it comes to the worship of God.
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Always seeking innovation. And what do I mean by innovation? Well, fundamentally, even when there have been times where there has been a tremendous emphasis upon purity of worship, going, we want to know what
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God would have us to do, and a serious, sincere examination of the scriptures, and a very serious desire on the part of the people of God to do what would be pleasing in God's sight, even when there have been periods of time like that, almost inevitably, afterwards, in the generations after those time periods, you get people that, let's be honest, start getting a little bored.
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Start getting a little bored with true worship, because true worship is work. True worship is work.
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It's not entertaining. I mean, we are here today, and we want to worship God. How are we worshipping
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God? Well, we've sung hymns. We have prayed. We have read the word of God.
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We've read, well, actually, two and a half, or one and a half chapters so far, plus a little extra.
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And now, in the central act of worship, we are asking God, by his word, to minister to us.
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And by sitting, and listening, and desiring to learn from the word of God, we're saying we believe this is your word, and we believe that the word and the spirit together are the way that you conform us to the image of Christ.
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This is an act of worship. That's why I've said many times, it bugs me when I travel, and I'll speak in some place where someone will say, you know,
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I'm going to be the speaker that morning, and they'll say, well, as we finish up our worship time before the speaker comes, and there have been a couple times you know me,
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I've actually made a comment afterwards. Excuse me, but the worship is not yet over.
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In fact, in some ways, it's really now focusing upon where it needs to be. We are concerned about doing the work of worship, and hearing the word of God, and being open to the spirit of God, shining a light upon our lives as the word of God is ministered to us.
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But let's be honest. There are a lot of places you could have gone this morning where they would have had some amazing toe -tapping music.
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And even when they sang the hymns, they probably would have skipped the third and fourth verses. And there are some amazing musicians involved there.
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And you could have gone places where the speaker was not wearing a bow tie, and looked a whole lot better than I do, and probably is more polished, and maybe certainly wouldn't have been speaking out of the book of Deuteronomy and read the entire 12th chapter.
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I mean, you might have been able to get a real nice devotional thing about how you could be a better neighbor this week, or something like that.
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And it just would have been a lot different. But the point is, sometimes people get bored with the work of worship.
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And so innovation starts taking place. And instead of going, what has
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God revealed as to what is pleasing to Him in worship, the focus shifts from God, recognizing that worship is always focused upon Him, to me.
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And so in many, many churches today, the entire service is wrapped around wanting the person to walk out the back of the sanctuary
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Sunday morning feeling really good about themselves. Whether they should be feeling good about themselves, not so much the issue.
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And whether God was worshipped, whether His truth was put forward, whether our pride was crushed and we were brought to repentance, or whether there was an emphasis upon our being conformed the image of Christ, you're missing the point.
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The point is that it needs to be focused upon man, and making man feel good.
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And of course, we don't find anything in the New Testament presenting the worship of God in that way.
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And so as we look at what we have here in Deuteronomy chapter 12, one of the emphases that we see is
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God says, I'm going to choose a place, and I say that those votive offerings, and those free will offerings, and the sin offerings, and everything else, that's where it takes place in the way that I have determined it to take place.
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Ask Aaron's sons if he wasn't serious about this. And you don't get to set up your little local version.
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I mean, you may be in one of the tribes that it's a big deal for you to get down there to where God sets up the tabernacle.
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But God says, that's not the point. The point is that I determine how
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I'm going to be worshipped, and these specific offerings where you specifically have the issue of how
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I am dealing with my people Israel as a covenant people, in which we now know with New Testament eyes, so often were pictures of what was going to be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
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You don't get to just play with that. You don't get to go, well, I know the law says
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I'm sacrificed such and such kind of animal, but I just really like that kind of animal a lot.
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And I'm a member of the ancient version of PETA, and so I'm going to substitute something else.
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I think a pumpkin would do just as well, and it's not nearly as messy. And God knows my heart.
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And we can take that kind of an attitude and we can sort of look around and go, that's really had a massive impact on what's going on in quote, unquote, worship in our day, hasn't it?
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As long as the heart, as long as my heart's right, God says, no, I get to determine these things.
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I get to determine how I am worshipped, because what's pretty obvious is in the pagan religions of those days, in the religions of the people that they were dispossessing, they were driving out of the land, innovation was fine.
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That was OK. Everything goes. Really, everything goes.
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But God says, no, I get to determine these things, and you shall not act like this toward Yahweh your
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God. But you shall seek Yahweh at the place which Yahweh your God will choose from all your tribes to establish his name there for his dwelling, and there you shall come.
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There you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your land, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock.
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There also you and your household shall eat before Yahweh your God and rejoice in all your undertakings in which
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Yahweh your God has blessed you. So once again, it's so easy for us to hear law and automatically adopt the attitude of drudgery, duty.
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And yet, how does verse 7 end? And rejoice in all your undertakings in which
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Yahweh your God has blessed you. Because the people are to understand, if I have anything to bring, if I have anything to give to God, if I have anything to bring with me, even on that long trip to Jerusalem, where did it come from?
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The people are to understand that everything they have comes from the hand of God, and they are to rejoice in all their undertakings in which
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Yahweh your God has blessed you. Again, we cannot change someone's heart and mind to be able to read
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God's law in its proper context. But we certainly should be very, very careful that we as believers, as we read
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God's word, we read it in that context. And we see that, and we ask ourselves, rejoice in all your undertakings in which
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Yahweh your God has blessed you. How's that fulfilled in the New Testament? God loves a cheerful giver.
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It's not drudgery. And when we recognize that the duties that God has laid out for us are duties that are to reflect our love for God and reflect his blessings upon us, it changes the entirety of our attitude.
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So much of the world has a view of law and God's law that is just so dreary and drab.
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But you have to skip parts. You just have to wear lenses that sort of filter things like this out, because there is to be rejoicing.
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Just as there to be rejoicing that this section gives freedom to the people of God that, hey, when you're back at home, if you want to have a big old steak and rejoice in God's dealings with you, great.
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It's just not a part of the sacrifices. You don't get to play games and go, you know,
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I know I need to, you know, I really feel the need for offering to God a sacrifice, but I just don't want to go that far.
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And besides, the animal I want to sacrifice isn't the one prescribed by the law. What I want to do is I'm really looking forward to a big burger here.
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And so I'm going to change how things work. I'm going to, you know, God knows my heart.
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No, God says, this is the path that will lead you right down the road to where you're going to end up being one of those people that looks up there at the top of the hill and sees the ruins of one of the
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Asherim. And you can see sort of some of the rocks that are still lying around from it having been destroyed when
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Joshua and the people went into land. And you start going, man, that would be really convenient.
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Besides that, the last time I went down to Jerusalem, high priest didn't even acknowledge me.
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I passed him in the streets, and I said, hello, and he just walked right past me. I'm a little upset with those people down there.
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And so I'm going to come up with a new way. And you know what? I think God will justify me in that.
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Well, God's word says he won't do that. He won't do that. He gives you the freedom.
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He gives you the freedom to eat and to rejoice. But he says in verse 13, be careful that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every cultured place you see, but in the place which
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Yahweh chooses in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings. There is an exclusive nature to what
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God is saying here in Deuteronomy chapter 12. And that's part and parcel, then, of what
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I want to really focus upon. And that is the emphasis upon obedience in regards to the people of God.
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Verse 28, be careful to listen to all these words which I command you, so that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever.
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For you will be doing what is good and right in the sight of Yahweh your God. Aren't you glad that we can know what is good and right in the sight of our
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God? Have you thought about what a blessing that is? We often do confess that we are so thankful that we are not like those who grope about in the darkness.
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We have clear light of revelation from God in the Scriptures. It would be a horrible thing to be going from one man's opinion to another man's opinion to another man's opinion, and never really knowing.
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Because, well, this guy's got his arguments, that guy's got his arguments. I just don't know, because there's no objective revelation from God.
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Well, God says, be careful to listen to all these words which I command you. It sounds like a little bit more than just a passing, oh,
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OK. Unfortunately, I think very often we're like teenagers. We're all thinking back to our teen years now, unless you are a teenager.
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And if you're a parent especially, remember when you talk to your teens and you'd give them detailed instructions as to what you wanted them to get done that day.
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It's part of their chores, part of their duties, it's part of the family. I see some of the families smiling even now as I speak of this.
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Now, I'm a grandfather now, so I suppose my children can say, yeah, he's getting a little on the old side because we never did that.
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His memory is starting to get a little on the shaky side. That's a possibility, I guess. But I seem to remember a number of times where I thought
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I gave very explicit, clear, understandable instructions in the
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English language. I mean, I speak a few other languages, and so they might go, well, you broke into German.
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I didn't know. And yet, for some strange reason, not only did it only get half done, but there was some strange confusion in the communication process to the teenage brain, which somehow started throwing in pizza and video games somewhere into the instructions somehow.
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I'm not sure how that worked. Be careful to listen to all these words which
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I command. It sounds like there is to be contemplation. Sounds like there is to be a careful understanding and non -distraction.
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I mean, it's sort of like today. Let's be honest. We now live in a culture where I am offended when
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I'm trying to talk to somebody, and they're doing this number. Yeah, yeah, uh -huh, yeah. You know what
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I mean? Of course, it's the same thing when you're driving down the road and someone's doing that, and especially when
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I'm on the bike and they're coming up behind me. That's a really scary thing for me. But this is not the kind of listen carefully to.
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It is an undistracted turning of attention to the words of God. Listen to all these words which
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I command you, so that it may be well with you and your sons after you forever, for you'll be doing what is good and right in the sight of Yahweh your
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God. God says, I'm giving you a clear guidance.
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And if you don't do what's right in the sight of your God, it's because you chose not to, not because I was unclear in what
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I said. God has given us a clear revelation. And then you have the warning.
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When Yahweh your God cuts off before you the nations which you're going in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, beware that you are not ensnared to follow them after they are destroyed before you.
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You notice the almost insanity there? Why would you want to worship the gods who could not deliver the people whom you, or at least your forefathers, had destroyed?
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I mean, isn't this already a failed system? Idolatry is always a failed system.
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History is littered with the bodies of idolaters and idolatrous nations.
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So it's always a failed system. And yet, it still has its constant attraction.
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You want to see the effect of abiding sin? There it is. And that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, how these nations serve their gods that I also may do likewise.
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See, it's one thing to know what's wrong in false theology. I mean, I have never, you know, everybody who's members here knows what
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I do. I'm a Christian apologist. That's primarily what I do. I defend the faith.
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I have debated Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics, and of course, I do a lot of work these days with Islam.
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Well, half the time I'm out there on my bike, what am I listening to? I'm listening to Muslim authors,
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Muslim lecturers, listening to the Quran, reading the Hadith. That's not something that most
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Christians are called to do, and it's not something I would suggest for most Christians. There's a lot of times I've just got to turn that stuff off and go find something to cleanse the brain, something to build up the spirit, not break down the spirit.
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It's not, God doesn't call a lot of people to do that kind of stuff. But notice the intention of the heart of verse 30, that I also may do likewise.
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There is an, this individual is not satisfied in Yahweh.
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This individual is not filled with thanksgiving. This individual does not recognize the blessings of God in his life.
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This individual is not satisfied with the revelation that God has made of himself, and therefore is looking for something else.
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And I've said it many times before, but when I see people in the congregation, and they're always looking for something new, they're not satisfied with what is in scripture, they're always looking outside.
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That's a person that I'm really, really concerned about. Because I think that the spirit of God breeds contentment in the heart of his people.
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Not blasé apathy. There's a difference between contentment and apathy.
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There really is. And so this person is saying, I want to learn about these other gods.
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I want to do likewise. You shall not behave thus toward Yahweh your
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God. For every abominable act which
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Yahweh hates. You know, if you don't have a God that hates abominable acts, your
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God doesn't exist, and isn't worth being worshipped. I mean, the things that we have seen over the past few weeks, in the videos that have been released, of people picking through baby parts and going, oh, another boy.
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If you can't say with a clear conscience and clear conviction, God hates that, has your
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God really spoken? I mean, one of the greatest problems with the false gods, they weren't really personal.
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They couldn't speak, they couldn't hear, they couldn't act. Remember one of the big feast days when they'd carry the idol in and then they'd open his mouth so he could eat?
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If that's what you're saying, what's your God is like? Why is he worthy of worship? That's not what
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Yahweh is like. Yahweh finds things detestable, abominable, and he hates them.
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So it says, you shall not behave thus toward Yahweh your God for every abominable act which
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Yahweh hates, they have done for their gods. For they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods.
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There's Moloch again. There's the constant repetition. You want to see when a people is ready to be driven out of the land when they sacrifice their children.
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Think about that one for just a second, folks, in light of what's been going on in our nation.
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Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to nor take away from it.
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Think about what that means. You're gonna have to trust God to give you what you need. And in so many situations today, the whole issue with marriage and homosexuality, the gay
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Christian movement, fundamentally those people cannot believe in the sufficiency of scripture.
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They cannot, it's impossible. I'll be debating one of the leading proponents of that in South Africa in October.
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And I can guarantee you before the end of that evening, this issue will come up.
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The sufficiency of scripture. Has God actually spoken in such a way that we can know what is good and right in his eyes?
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I say that he has that position. Must fundamentally at the end say he has not, at least not in the written scriptures.
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They may want to opt for some kind of new revelation or something, but there's no other way around it. There's no other way around it.
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I don't know about you, but I am so thankful that God has given us his word and he's preserved it for us.
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And I believe it is the work of the spirit of God that when a heart is changed, when
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God changes a man's heart, he places in that heart a love for his word.
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That's why Jesus can say, my sheep hear my voice. We're not bibliolaters.
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We don't worship a book, but we do recognize that God has spoken and he has spoken with clarity.
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And we therefore must hear his warnings and heed them. Amen. Let's pray together.
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Gracious heavenly father, we do indeed thank you for your word. We thank you for its clarity. We thank you for its preservation.
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We would ask that as once again, we have sought to handle it aright that you would write upon our hearts your truth that we would remember your truth, nothing from men, but only that which is your truth.
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And Lord, if we have opportunity in speaking to others to explain to them why your law is just and good and righteous, may we do so as people who love your law and love the one who gave your law.
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We thank you for this day. We thank you for this opportunity, the comfort we've had to be able to open your word and the access to it.
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But may we go forth in this place ever more ready to be servants of our Lord and savior,