THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. So I'm going to invite you, beloved of Christ, to open up your Bibles to the book of Deuteronomy, and we are going to be doing the corporate reading of Scripture together, as we always do, by God's grace. We have been doing this for over three years now.

We're going to continue this day by God's grace, and we are going to be reading together Deuteronomy chapter 12. We're going to be reading this chapter together. We are going to be given, I hope, a brief Christological overview of this chapter, encouraging our hearts, and then asking the Lord that he may bless our brother as he comes to preach the word of God. We continue, beloved of Christ, through this series of Bible studies, not Bible studies, a corporate reading of scripture through the book of Deuteronomy. And now we arrive to chapter 12.

Here, this book of Deuteronomy, as we have said now many times, beloved, is just all of these exhortations, all of these sermons, if you wish, that Moses is preaching to the people of Israel just before they are going to enter into the promised land. They have been taken, they have been liberated from the land of Egypt, from this bondage, and they have gone through the wilderness. And now they are about to cross the Jordan River and to enter into the Promised Land. And we have this book of Deuteronomy in which we have all of these instructions, different instructions and expectations of the Lord God of Israel for the people of Israel once they make it into the Promised Land. Different type of instructions we have read through these 11 chapters and the instruction or the expectation that we have in chapter 12, what we're about to read.

It's about God's desire for the worship of the people of Israel. That is the expectation of God that the people of Israel will worship the Lord God of Israel in a particular way. The Lord is very concerned about worship, so he's going to give them some instructions and some expectations. Two of them we're going to see here in Chapter 12. The first one is that the Lord expects that the people of Israel will destroy all the pagan gods.

all the pagans ways of religion that they will find on the other side of the Jordan River, that they will utterly destroy all of them, lest they will fall into those ways and worship those other gods. And the second important instruction that we're going to read here in Chapter 12 is that the Lord does not only expect that the people of Israel will destroy all of these other gods, but also the Lord is going to appoint a specific place in which he desires to be worshiped by the people of Israel. That is what we are going to be reading here together. So, beloved of Jesus Christ, paying attention to each one of the words that we are going to be reading together. And I hope that we may have clarity as we progress through that.

And then we give a brief overview of this chapter. I'm going to invite you to read together with me, In the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with much faith, chapter 12 of the book of Deuteronomy. This is the word of the Lord. May he bless the reading of it, the hearing of it, the preaching of it, and the receiving of it. Deuteronomy chapter 12.

These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. You shall surely 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. You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their ushering with fire. You shall chop down their carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, but you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there.

There you shall go, and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your fights, and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your free will offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you. You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes. For you have not as yet come to the rest as to the inheritance that the Lord your God has given you. But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God has given you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in safety, then to the place that the Lord your God will choose to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I commend you, your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your fights and the contributions that you present and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord.

And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levi that is within your town, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes. There you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I'm commanding you. However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer.

Only you shall not eat the blood. You shall pour it out on the earth like water. You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, or of your wine, or of your oil, or of the firstborn of your herd and of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings, or the contribution that you present, but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, and you your son, and your daughter, your male servant, and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your town. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.

When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He has promised you, and you say, I will eat meat because you crave meat. You may eat meat whenever you desire. If the place that the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you. And you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. Just as the gazelle or the deer, is eaten, so you may eat of it.

The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. You shall not eat it. You shall pour it out on the earth like water. You shall not eat it.

That all may go well with you and with your children after you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. but the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offerings you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose, and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. when the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not dismayed to follow them after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, How did this nation serve their gods, that I also might do the same?

You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burned their sons and their daughters in the fire to their guts. Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it." May the Lord Jesus Christ bless the reading, the preaching, and the hearing of his word. Beloved of Jesus Christ, brothers and sisters, from the very beginning of creation, after the moment of consummation of all things, All creatures that have been created by the Creator, God of this universe, are under the eternal duty of worshiping the Lord, God of this universe.

There's absolutely no one under heaven, no creature that has ever been created or will be created that is outside of the divine duty of worshiping the one who created the heavens, the earth, and everything that is in them. Psalm 148 speaks of the worship and the praises that are due to the Lord from the animals, the creatures, the birds. Every single creature is to worship the God of this universe. Why? Because he commended and they were created.

Many of those who will never bow their knees to worship the Lord, they will have to give an account because they ended up worshiping themselves or the gods that they made after their own image and according to their imaginations. In the same way, or in light of that universal worship that God demands of all creatures, there's a specific type of worship that the Lord demands. And that type of worship, beloved brother and sister, is the worship that God demands of His people. From the beginning also of redemptive history until the end of the consummation of all things, the people of God are required to worship God in a specific way. Under the dispensation of the old covenant and in the dispensation of the new covenant, God requires that the people of God manifested in the remnant of the people of Israel under the old covenant and the church of the Lord Jesus Christ bought by his blood will worship this Lord in a specific way.

God is the one who has defined under the old covenant and under the new covenant the way that he is to be worshiped. In the case of the Old Covenant, we can see clearly that he established the ceremonial system and the Levites so that worship to the Lord will be given through the means that he instituted. The worship of the Lord is regulated. We are not to to add to the words of the Lord when it comes to approaching the Lord God of the universe. And in the case of the Old Covenant, these requirements of worship were that were supposed to be done through the ceremonial system and the Levites and opposite and contrary to the way that the nations were worshiping their gods.

Then the Lord says to the people of Israel that when they make it into the Promised Land, they are to destroy all the pagan gods and all the systems of worship and all the gods that the Canaanites will have, lest they are taken captive by those things and decide to worship other gods or to worship the Lord God of Israel in the way that the Canaanites will do. the Lord brother and sister, was concerned that he will be worshipped according to the words that he instituted. And man was not supposed to add anything to that. If we are not able to approach this Lord, then the only way that we can come close to him to worship him is in the way that he says and that he instituted. And even adding to that under the old covenant, he has chosen a place, a place in which his manifested presence is going to be revealed to the people of Israel.

Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion, chosen from among the tribes of the people of Israel so that there the temple of God will be instituted and the manifested presence of God will be given to the people of Israel. So the instruction is that even when the Lord extends your territory and even if you live far away, You are to offer your vow offerings and your sacrifices and your burnt offerings and all of those systems of worship. You're to come to Jerusalem, to the place that God has chosen to worship the Lord according to the commandment that he has given you. You are to rejoice in the worship of the Lord. You are to eat with your household and you're to rejoice that you're the people of God, whatever you are.

But when it comes to offering sacrifices and worshiping the Lord, the people of Israel were supposed to follow the commandments and the instructions that the Lord had given them. This, of course, does not change under the New Covenant, beloved of Jesus Christ. Men cannot approach God in their own terms. We cannot approach God according to our own imaginations. We are not the ones who define how we're going to worship the Lord.

But under the New Covenant, The example of the Lord Jesus Christ, the example of the apostles and the clear ordinances that are given under the new covenant are the instructions that the people of the church of Jesus Christ are to follow so that we will worship the Lord according to his regulations and his commandments. Woe to those who under the old covenant will act from their imaginations and from their hearts how they were going to worship the Lord. That is what caused the division of the kingdom. Someone didn't want to send people to Jerusalem and they came with the idea of just creating a different system of religion. When the imaginations of men start to work, then we end up worship not God, but the God that we create in our own image, in our minds.

God has condescended to reveal himself in the person of Jesus Christ and it's through what he has said through his apostles and the example given to them that the church of the new covenant is to worship this Lord of ours. And beloved of Jesus Christ, one would have to accept and to acknowledge that all of these means of worship that he has defined under the old covenant and under the new covenant has to be fully respected. And one may fall into the mistake of thinking that genuine worship to the Lord God of our universe is reduced down only to these external manifestations. While we are required to follow the stipulations and the instructions that are given by the Lord, genuine worship is a matter, not of the external things that we do, even though they are very important and we are to follow the example of the Lord and the Apostle and the ordinances of the New Covenant. A genuine worship takes place in a deeper, deeper, deeper way, not only under the New Covenant, but also under the Old Covenant.

Come with me to 1 Kings 11 and I will show you the example with the mistake of the wisest man under the old covenant when it came to worshipping the Lord, namely Solomon. 1 Kings 11. Bear with me and read these words, beloved of Jesus Christ. This is the wisest man. This is a mighty king.

The one who was given the privilege of building the temple of the Lord to worship the Lord. The one who was given the privilege of being raised and instructed according to the ways of the Lord by a man who was walking according to the heart of the Lord. This is Solomon in first Kings chapter 11. Pay attention to this. Verse 1, Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their guts.

Solomon clung to these in love. He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned to weigh his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned to weigh his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Asherah, the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcam, the abomination of the Ammonites, So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Melech, the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem, the chosen place of the Lord.

And so he did for all his foreign wives. He made offerings and sacrifice to their God. Continue with me, please. And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods, that he did not keep what the Lord commanded. Therefore the Lord said to Solomon, Since this has been your practice, and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes that I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and I will give it to your servant.

Yet for the sake of David, your father, I will not do it in your days, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son. However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son. Why? For the sake of David, my servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem that I have chosen." The wisest man.

the one who had all the instructions to worship the Lord, the one whose eyes had seen the glory of the Lord coming in the dwelling place of the Lord manifested to the people of Israel, the one who was rich and powerful and mighty, yet taken captive by the desires of the flesh. taken captive by other gods, the gods of his wives and concubines. He gave himself to the pleasures of the flesh and not even the wisdom that was given to him, not even the manifestation of the glory of God, not even the temple that he had built, not even all the things that he had done could move him to worship the Lord as he had commanded. Because, beloved of Jesus Christ, true worship is not about the external things that we do, even though they are very important and we are to follow them. True worship happens in your heart.

True worship happens in the deep of your soul, in the depths of your being, there where no one sees other than God. the one who sees all things, the one that perceives all things, the one to whom ye cannot hide absolutely anything. He requires that if we are going to worship him, it's not in this place, on that mountain, on that place, but rather there's going to come a time in which those who worship the Lord will worship him in spirit and in truth. is a worship that happens in the heart. And worship, beloved of Jesus Christ, is a manifestation of the spiritual condition of your soul.

When we come together and we do things in a particular way, when we put our chairs and we partake of the table in a particular way, and we preach the words of God in a particular way, and we have a way in which we do church, which we are to follow and to respect and to submit ourselves to the scriptures and to the example of the apostles, all of it is so important. But if your heart is disconnected and it's not given to the Lord, then religion has taken place with the correct outward manifestations of it. The Lord has required from the beginning of redemptive history to the end of it, the heart, a heart that is taken by the beauty, by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, a heart that is not so concerned about offering the sacrifices, but rather to have a broken spirit and a contrite heart, because that is what God actually desires. A person that is not concerned ultimately with the external things, but with the heart. A person that is concerned to having a heart that is broken before the beauty of the Lord.

That is just as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, that even when the church is prophesying and speaking of the glories and the greatness and the majesty of the Lord, those who come and hear of those things will be pierced in their hearts. And by being peers in their hearts, they will worship the Lord and give glory to Him because of the things that He has done. Worship, singing, praising, coming together as brothers and sisters is supposed to be a manifestation of the condition of your hearts. And if we are not diligent, beloved of Jesus Christ, in seeking the Lord so that He will shape our hearts to do precisely that, We can very easily be taken captive by the emotions and the things that we do as a church. And then we find ourselves just preaching a sermon every Sunday just to tick a box because there's no one else who will do it.

brother and sister, even though we are doing this collectively here, each one of us is before the Lord completely naked. Our hearts are completely exposed to the one who sees all things. He has arranged this means providentially that we will come together. But in the end, he's the one that sees your heart. As I preach, as you hear, as we come together.

And when worship is really given from the heart, from a heart that is broken and contrite, then the sacrifices will be sacrifices of righteousness, as the psalmist says in Psalm 4, offering with the trust and with faith in the Lord, knowing that He is the one that receives our sacrifices, not because the sacrifices themselves, but because the sacrifice that He gave on our behalf, His name is Jesus Christ, that now empowers us to see the glory of this God of this universe, who is so a part and so away from us, but at the same time has condescended in His grace that He is with us and in us. And the chosen place is not, oh, daughter of Simon, Jerusalem, but is the heavenly Jerusalem, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the patrice and the foundation of the truth, through whom or through which, through her, is the wisdom of God be revealed to this world. And we are the temple of this God. And that temple is inside of us. And that is for the glory of Christ.

May he help us. Amen.