THROUGH THE BIBLE - Deuteron..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Beloved of Jesus Christ, so as I said, we continue with our corporate reading of the scripture, and we are now going to be reading Deuteronomy chapter 16. So I'm going to invite you to open up your Bibles there.

We're going to be reading this chapter, and perhaps as you have your headings there, we're going to be addressing... There are two topics here in Chapter 16. Primarily, we're going to be addressing the topic of these pilgrimage feasts, or the Feast of the Lord. We have the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles, or the Feast of Booths. The male of Israel were required, once they will make it into the Promised Land, every year, three times per year, to do a pilgrimage to the temple, to the place where the Lord was going to be and dwell.

They were supposed to do that three times per year to celebrate these three feasts that we have here, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Goods. We are going to be reading this together, brothers and sisters, to get the details of that. And I hope that the Holy Spirit might guide us as we speak and as we hear. This is Deuteronomy chapter 16, and this is the word of the Lord. Observe the month of Abiph and keep the Passover to the Lord your God.

For in the month of Abiph, the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God from the flock or the herd at the place that the Lord will choose to make his name dwell there. You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread. the bread of affliction, for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.

No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you have sacrificed in the evening or the first day remain all night until morning. You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God has given you, But at the place that the Lord your God will choose to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice in the evening at sunset at the time you came out of Egypt. And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning, you shall turn and go to your tents. For six days, you shall eat unleavened bread.

And on the seventh day, there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it. You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to standing grain. Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a free will offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.

And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your tongues, the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow who are among you at the place that the Lord your God will choose. to make his name dwell there. You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes. Verse 13, you shall keep the feast of booths seven days when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.

For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce, in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful. Three times a year, all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Wheats, and at the Feast of Boots. They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment.

You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. Justice and only justice you shall follow. that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not plant any trees and asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make.

And you shall not set up a pillar which the Lord your God hates. Amen. This is the reading of the word of the Lord. May he bless the preaching of it and the hearing of it. And as I said, beloved brother, sister, dear soul, what we are going to be addressing here.

As you can see, we have two topics. We can break that into two things. The first part of this chapter speaks of these three feasts of the Lord that are summarized there in verse 16, in which we are told that once the people of Israel make it into the promised land, they're going to be scattered all throughout this land. And the Lord requires that the male of Israel will come to the place that he has chosen in which he's going to dwell three times per year. This is the mail from Israel.

They are to present themselves three times per year, and these three times is to celebrate the Passover or the Unleavened Bread. This is a festival that starts with the Passover but gets into Unleavened Bread that goes for a week. and also the Feast of Weeks and also the Feast of Booths. You may remember that the Lord Jesus Christ celebrated the Passover with his disciples before he died, or you may even remember the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost if you want in Acts chapter 2, and of course you will remember the Feast of Booths or Tabernacle that our brother preached through in John chapter 7, and then there in the end of that chapter we have that very A proverbial section speaking about justice, even if you pay attention there, at least to me it sounded like a proverb more than the law of Moses there in verse 19, speaking of the justice that the people of Israel were supposed to do and have in the land. It says in verse 19, you shall not pervert justice, you shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bride.

And then he says beautifully in these words, For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. My intention, beloved brother and sister, is not to point your attention so much to that last section in which is about justice. We know that justice is about doing the righteous commandments of the Lord, but rather to point your attention to the three feasts that we have there, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Booths. As we know, here we have the people of Israel that are about to enter into the Promised Land. And something that perhaps we have not mentioned about the context of this Book of Deuteronomy is not only that the people of Israel are about to enter into the Promised Land, but Moses is about to die.

The one who has been with the people of Israel for this many years, he's about to die. And he knows that he will not make it into the promised land. And he knows that he will not be with the people of Israel once they make it into the promised land. And the last experience, at least, that we know that when Moses departed from the people of Israel is that the people of Israel gave themselves unto wicked practices. Remember, Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the covenant from the Lord.

And that time when Moses led them on their own, the people of Israel gave themselves into unrighteousness and wickedness. I am not sure if this was the burden or the heart that Moses had, but perhaps he had in his heart that these people are going to be on their own in the promised land. And last time that that happened, they gave themselves unto unrighteousness. He is used then by the Holy Spirit, by the Lord God of Israel to give commandments and commandments and instructions and instructions to the people of Israel of all the things that they were supposed to do and to follow once they make it into the promised land. And as we progress, not only through the book of Deuteronomy, but through the Torah or through these first five books of the Bible, brother and sister, we may make the mistake of thinking sometimes that the instructions that the Lord gave to the people of Israel are just simply a list of do's and do's and do's and don'ts and don'ts and don'ts and don'ts, as if the Lord was only addressing the external behavior of the people of Israel once they were going to make it into the promised land.

There is a sense in which, yes, the Lord is concerned with the list of do's and the list of don'ts of the people of Israel once they make it into the Promised Land. But I'm going to submit to you that it's very important for us to understand the purpose of the commandments of the Lord, not only as they were given to the people of Israel, but as they have been given throughout redemptive history. If we take a step back from the Bible and we see how the Lord gives commandments to humans and to his people, we will realize that every time that the Lord God of this universe gives an instruction or a command to a human is always the result, not only of his condition of God, notice only that I am God and you are supposed to do whatever I say because I'm God. But every time that he gives a command, is the result of what that God, this God of ours, the God of the universe, has done for them. He is not the result only of who he is as God, but more importantly, the result of what God has done.

Think about creation. God created the heavens and the earth in six days, and on the seventh day, he entered into rest. And when he created everything and he provided for men everything, he took men and he put them into the garden. And once he had provided everything, and once he had completed the work of creation, according to Hebrew chapter four, once he had completed everything on behalf and for the people, Then he gave the commandment not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I have brought these words to completion.

I have created the heavens and the earth and I have provided everything that you need. And as the result, not only of the fact that I am God, but that I have done this for you, then you are to follow these command that I have given you. Same thing happens with the people of Israel. The commandments that the Lord God of Israel gave to the people of Israel are the result primarily and foundationally of what the Lord did for the people of Israel. The commandment did not come first.

What it came first was redemption. The Lord God of Israel came down from heaven to visit the complaint and the cry of the people of Israel who were in bondage in Egypt. And after this glorious and mighty redemption and liberation is when he enters into a covenant, giving them the commandments that they were supposed to obey. The commandment was never the substance of the relationship between God and the person, but rather what God did in His grace and His mercy was meant to be the substance of the commandment of the instruction given to the people. In that sense, the person of Israel and every single person on earth, every time that we see that which we are supposed to do before God are not so much to think about the commandment as dos and don'ts, but rather who is this one that is giving me this commandment and what has this God done for me?

That's why every time that we go through the Book of Jeremy, we read the word, remember and remember and remember that you were brought out of the land of Egypt, that you were in a slavery, that you were in bondage to the people of Egypt and you were rescued. And because of that, you are to obey the instruction and to the commandments. And these commandments were given to the people of Israel in many, many ways. Laws to regulate the relationships of one Israelite with the other. Laws to regulate the life of the nation.

Laws to regulate the ceremonies and the religious activity of the people of Israel. And even instructions for festivities, a feast, national feast. Everything about Israel was religious. It's not like in Australia or in Colombia or in South America or whatever, where, you know, there's a disconnection between religion and the things that happen in society. Everything that happened in Israel was religious in nature.

And here we have a manifestation of that. We have three feasts, an instruction given to the male of Israel to when you make it into the promised land, you are to come to the place where God dwells to celebrate these feasts. And these feasts were not only obedience, once again, these feasts were supposed to remind the people of Israel of what God had done for them, taking them out of the land of Egypt. Passover, God did not judge the people of Israel. The judgment of God passed over the people of Israel.

The judgment of God came upon the people of Egypt. The mercy and the grace of the Lord set them apart to consecrate them unto themselves and providing a substitutionary atonement in the land so that the visitation of God to the unrighteous people of Egypt the Israelites were also deserving of judgment, will pass over the people of Israel. And by setting them apart, he was consecrating not only the male, but the people of Israel to reminding them, remember, I passed over. Every time that the people of Israel will come together to celebrate the Passover, they were supposed to remember, not only that they were supposed to obey the commandments of the Lord, but that the Lord rescued them and the judgment did not come upon them, but that He passed them over. Remember, tell this story to your children, put it in your mind, in the doors, but remember and remember and remember.

when it comes to the Feast of Weeks, 50 days after this celebration that started during the first month of Aviv. This was reminding the people of Israel of the glorious provision of the Lord. Everything that the people of Israel will have and the abundance of the harvest and the abundance of all the things that the people of Israel will have, not only through the wilderness, but more importantly in the land, was the result of the provision of God for these people. And not so much the external provision and the physical material provision, but more importantly, the provision of himself. because God came down from heaven to dwell among a sinful people that even gave them His law at Mount Sinai, then proclaiming not only the statutes of God, but providing Himself and His presence among them, so that they will be able even to celebrate six months after the Passover of the Unleavened Bread, this Feast of Boots or Tabernacles that will again, will remind them of their pilgrimage through the wilderness and how they were supposed to abide in temporary booths or tabernacles with a God that was dwelling with them.

Temporary pilgrimage as they will go and make it into the promised land. From the pilgrimage into the promise, into the consummation, the presence of the Lord was with them. This was the purpose of all of these commandments, to remind the people of Israel not so much of you have to do and do and do, but more importantly, the things that the Lord had done on behalf of these people. But there in verse 16, we're told something very important about the nature of these three feasts and about these three pilgrimages that the people or the men were supposed to do. If you pay your attention there, you put your eyes in verse 16, let me just show you something about these commandments or these instructions.

Verse 16 says, three times a year, all your males, that is those who were consecrated, those who were passed over, because remember, that deny that the people of Israel were liberated from Egypt, the one that was passed over was the firstborn, remember, the male firstborn. And in that passing over is the representation of the mercy of God for the people of Israel. So three times a year, your male shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose. And that is at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is the Passover, at the Feast of Weeks, which is Pentecost, and at the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles. Three times they were supposed to come, and then they say, they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.

Every man shall give as he is able according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. The obedience to this instruction by the male of Israel was not only the obedience to a particular commandment in the celebration of this feast, but it was also a manifestation of the fellowship that Israel had with God. once they make it into the promised land, the manifested presence of God was going to dwell, we know ultimately in Jerusalem, in the temple, and all male representing Israel were supposed to come to the dwelling place of God and to offer the sacrifices. And we're told something very important, beloved. They're in verse 16.

They shall not appear before the Lord empty handed. that they were supposed to bring according to what the Lord had blessed them. The presence of this male representing the people of Israel before in the temple or in the tabernacle before the presence of the Lord was contingent upon the male bringing, not coming empty handed, but bringing out of the blessing that the Lord had given them in the earth or in the land. And as we read many, many, many times, brother, sister, and dear friend, the blessing of the Lord under the old covenant was completely contingent upon full and perfect obedience to the terms and to the instructions that the covenant require of the people of Israel. The blessing of having external things and being blessed and having so much that you can lend to other and you could provide for others was the result only of the entire and full obedience of the people of Israel to the commandments and to the instructions of the covenant.

So that when the male will come three times per year to present themselves either at the tabernacle in Shiloh or then at the temple in Jerusalem, when they will come and present themselves with their offerings, that which they had in their hands was a manifestation of their ultimate and final obedience to the commandments of the Lord. Whatever they were able to bring in their hands, whatever amount they had in their hands was a testimony of how close and how perfectly they were fulfilling the requirements of the Lord. Because the promise was that if you indeed strictly fulfill all the requirements of this covenant, there will not be poor among you. You will be so blessed that your hands will be filled with all the riches of this land and you will be able to provide for the poor or for other nations and that means that when they will come to the temple, to their tabernacle, their hands will be full to offer to the Lord that had saved them initially." What a terrifying piece of text we have here, brothers and sisters, because when we continue our reading and our studies of the history of the people of Israel, we will realize that many times this land that was meant to be rich, and that was meant to be fruitful, and that was meant to have milk and honey flowing, that was meant to be green and blessed and fruitful in all ways, that many times this land that the Lord had blessed is going to be empty.

There's going to be droughts. There's going to be poverty. There's going to be lack. There's going to be, at times, no rain at all. There's going to be times in which women are going to be eating their children because there's no food.

There's going to be times in which people are going to be fighting with each other because they don't have what to provide one for the other. There is going to be times even that the wickedness of the people of Israel will build unto themselves temples to offer sacrifices to other gods. And even there will be times in which these people who were supposed to be blessed and offered these sacrifices unto the Lord and to participate in these glorious feasts will made for themselves feasts to celebrate unto other gods. And even more, sorrow add to that and even more sadness add to that, there is going to be a time in which these people who will make it into this promised land is going to be no more. There's going to be a time in which these people is going to be, they are going to be removed from the land and there's going to be years after years in which these feasts are not going to be celebrated.

And blessings are not going to be manifested in the offering brought to the temple because there's going to be a time in which there's not even going to be a temple to offer those offerings and those sacrifices. A testimony, my dear brother and sister, a testimony of the nature of your covenant that required of people perfect obedience, that they were supposed to submit themselves entirely to the letter of the covenant. And the result of the blessing of that covenant was only if they fulfill each one of the requirements. Fellowship with God was fully contingent upon obedience. This is what he says, male are supposed to come three times per year to the place of the Lord to offer the abundance of the sacrifices according to the blessing of the Lord.

The fellowship of the people of Israel was contingent upon keeping the commandments. As I said to you, brother and sister, we will never understand the nature of obedience if we only put our eyes in the things that are supposed to be done and the things that are not supposed to be done. Because many times, like the people of Israel, we tend to be and see the things that we are supposed to do and the things that we are supposed not to do just in that external way. Obedience is not only about the command, but obedience is about genuine fellowship with the God of the covenant. Just as the sacrifice and the offering under the old covenant only will have validity, empowered and will be for the praises of God.

If they had genuine fellowship with the God of the covenant, Then it comes a better covenant in the person of Jesus Christ, in which our obedience is rooted ultimately and primarily in our fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Under the old covenant, the blessings of the covenant were contingent upon perfect obedience. Under the new covenant, our blessings are contingent upon union. with the person of Jesus Christ. It is our Lord, it is our Savior, the one that empowers and strengthens the member of the new covenant to every time come before the Lord to offer sacrifices of righteousness, putting our trust in the Lord.

Dear brother, dear sister, were easily tempted to come before the Lord and to offer from our own hands and to offer from our own sacrifices and to present ourselves and to go through motions and to go through time and task and do and do and do and do, disconnecting completely our hearts from genuine fellowship with the Lord. while the only thing that the Lord accepts is the heart that is contrite, the heart that is broken, the heart that is in genuine union with the person of Jesus Christ. That is the sacrifice that the Lord accepts. That's why every time that we come together as a church and we are not to celebrate the Passover, but we are about, but when we are about to celebrate the Lord's table, that which fulfills the Passover of the Old Testament, We're not only remembering what the Lord did, but more importantly, we're proclaiming to the church and we're proclaiming to ourselves our union with Christ in our intake, you know, partaking of his body and his blood, because apart from that fellowship in the heart with the Lord Jesus Christ, all external obedience is completely empty and powerless. They will come to sacrifice the lamb year by year by year, doing it in an external way, without any fellowship in the heart with the Lord of the covenant.

Praise be to God that in Jesus Christ, those who belong to the new covenant have been given not the blessing of only coming together as a covenant people, but having Jesus Christ in our hearts. So when we partake of this table and we partake of the element, we are not only remembering, but we are also proclaiming. And more importantly, we are having assurance before God and before the church and our own consciences that when we partake of the bread and when we partake of the cup, we are absolutely certain and sure that we are united in fellowship with Jesus Christ and with God. Because, brother and sister, religion kills and religion sends to hell. Empty traditions that are just done for the sake of doing things and doing a peace in our conscience externally, that kills and that sends people to hell.

The only thing that is able to save our souls eternally is genuine, relationship with a person of Jesus Christ that is manifested, not only when we come to church and we do particular things, but that is manifested in your life daily and continually. And that is the temptation that we have as people in the flesh to forget and then just to focus ourselves in the commandment, forgetting brother and sister, that everything is about know what it is in your hands, know what is in your mind and your mind of the things that you do. More importantly, and please hear this, what abides in your hearts? Because under the New Commandment, under the New Covenant, the Lord Jesus says, if you love me, you keep my commandments. External obedience, a manifestation of genuine love in the heart for the Savior.

How easy it is to put labels of religion and labels of works and deeds, and labels of things that are supposed to be done, even if those labels are correct and according to the scriptures. And how easy it is many times to be tempted to deviate ourselves in our hearts from the person that is the only one who can empower obedience and make it acceptable before the Father, and that is the person of Jesus Christ. How easy, brother and sister, is to depart from the secret place, How easy, my dear brother and sister, is to depart from the Scriptures and to focus yourself on external matters. How easy it is, my dear brother and sister, to be part of love in your heart. How easy it is to treasure up in your heart bitterness and gossip and thoughts against your brother or sister.

How easy it is, brother and sister, to lack faith in your heart. How easy it is just to give yourself to the things of the world and other things that are above. and slowly hardening yourself in a point in which you don't realize. And then you become like the males of Jerusalem or the Israel coming every year three times to offer sacrifices, many times coming with hands that were empty because the land was poor. Many times coming with hands that were very poor because the blessing of the Lord was not upon them.

Many times just convincing themselves that whatever they were bringing in their hands was enough and sufficient. And many times bringing those offerings to other temples and to other gods. Slowly departing from the Lord in the heart to ultimately pleasing themselves into religion of men. How easy it is for our hearts to depart from the one who is the fountain of eternal life. His name is Christ.

And as I speak, some of you might not even be paying attention to what I say. But if any one of you is paying attention to this, the most important thing for your heart, my dear brother and sister, is not these things that we do as a church because they are important. It's not the religious practices that we do during the week of opening our Bible or doing this or that. It's what happens in your heart. is what happens in my heart.

The test of the Lord for his people is not about the sacrifices that are offered externally. The test of the Lord for his people, Jeremy chapter 13, is to the heart and to see how much we love the Lord. You want to be concerned about something? Be concerned that your heart is filled with love for the one who loves you and gave his life for you. Do you want to be concerned about the future?

Be concerned that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming and is coming to conquer. Do you want to be concerned about the situation of this world? Be concerned that there's one who holds all things in his hand. And even though we may not understand the things that are happening, he has a glorious plan in which in the end, he's going to be seated in his throne, ruling the nations. And at the right hand of the father, the church is going to be in him.

There's going to be a concern in your heart. Be concerned to follow the one who loves you, and gave his life for you. Amen.