Deuteronomy 12

The sermon of Pastor Mr. Randy Del Sandro.

Well, hello. Good to see you all again. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Last time I was here, I think, was December the 15th. Mary and I took a trip down to South Florida. We drove down to Fort Lauderdale. And if you're not familiar with the geography, Fort Lauderdale is kind of like a sister city to Miami, so it's a very southern tip of Florida. So it took us a full several days to get down there. Had a very nice cruise, very nice experience. For the most part, it was a little on the bittersweet side. We left the Great Port, Port Everglades, Florida, on a Sunday evening, about 5 o'clock.

And as we pulled out of our slip to start going into the Caribbean, Mary and I were on the very back of the ship, watching the sun set on Florida. The whole trip, temperatures were in the mid-70s to 80 degrees. Every day was sunny. Every day the sea was relatively calm. Just a very gorgeous ship that we were on, only about a 5-year-old ship. Everything was spectacular. The various places we stopped, various islands along the way. Princess Caye was a part of that island that was owned by the Princess Cruise Line. So we stopped there and anchored about a quarter mile offshore. They had these little shuttle boats. I said, you little, probably hold 30 or 40 people each. They would ferry you into the island. We spent the whole day snorkeling, enjoying ourselves.

You look at a scene like that and your eyes almost don't want to believe what you're enjoying. You've got this beautiful white ship about a quarter mile off the beach, just bobbing up and down. You've got bright blue sky, sunny. The water is different shades of blue. Very, very pretty. We left there. The next day, we traveled that evening all the next day, which was December 25th.

The day after that, early in December 26th, we made our next landfall, which was St. Martin's. It was 826 nautical miles. So that was the longest lake of our journey. St. Martin's is an interesting island. It's half owned by the French, half owned by the Dutch. We took a shuttle to the far side of the island, the French side, and went to a beautiful beach.

The beach basically was in three parts. The part that we were dropped off at is White Sandy Beach, turquoise water. It was just absolutely breathtaking. We enjoyed ourselves, decided to take a little bit of a stretch of the legs, went on to the one end of the island, or end of the beach, and saw all the people parasailing and scadilling and what have you.

Then Mary was a little tired by that point. We'd been out in the surf for quite a bit. We had rented an umbrella and a couple of lawn chairs, and we were just sitting there. She wanted to take a little bit of a break, and I said, I'm going to check out the other side of the beach.

I had to go around this outcropping of rock, and as soon as I did, I remembered, oh yeah, this is Oregon Beach.

Clothing is optional here.

There was quite a show there as you're walking around, as I was walking around, noticing the people who should really have been clothed.

Old, wrinkly folks. It was just awful.

So I turned around and went back to where I should be.

By that time, Mary and I had been pretty well baked. We got back on ship, went to our third island stop, which was St. Thomas. St. Thomas is just a beautiful, beautiful island. Saw Michael Jordan's home, various bays, inlets, beaches.

But since we were so well cooked, we just took a three-hour tour of the island. It was that evening we got back. That was our fourth day out that Mary and I got the flu. We had the flu the rest of the trip, a little less than half the trip. But by the time we got to our last port of call, which is Grand Turk, which is the main reason we took the cruise, Eastern Caribbean cruise, we were so sick we couldn't get out of bed. So we just stayed in the stateroom and didn't even see what the island looked like.

It was the next day I think I started with my cloth. That would have been, I think, December 27th. And I've had it and still have it. It's gotten better, but when I went to the doctor on Monday, he said, well, what you've got is post-virus cloth syndrome. That can go from four to eight weeks. So I'm four weeks into it. I asked the doctor several times, as you know how I do, checking things out. He said, well, you're not contagious. You've not really been contagious for a while. So if I'm not contagious, I'm going to go to church. And I'm going to preach. If I cough, you folks have seen people cough before. So I've got a pocket full of throat lozenges.

I've got all sorts of water up here. And we're going to go into the sermon today. I did want to make a couple of announcements. Mrs. Elmer, Lillian Elmer, was the woman who died this last Thursday evening. Mrs. Elmer has, I think in many ways, this has been merciful for her. She, over the last number of years, has seen her husband die. She has seen one of her children die. I forget all the different ones in her family, but she has seen a lot of death over the last couple of years. They didn't know that she had any kind of difficulty until just a week or so ago.

And by the time they got her into the hospital, they performed a surgery to remove a mass from her colon. The surgery went well, but things just went very badly, very quickly. And she died Thursday night, about 7.30. So, in the other little discussion is with Howard Hagan. Howard is a gentleman, probably, what, in his early 80s, something like that. Howard does dialysis several times a week.

Less is hard. He can go and do dialysis in the morning and make it to church in an afternoon, if we've got an afternoon church service someplace. He's a remarkable individual. Never complains about his lot in life, but he does need a heart valve replacement. With his background, some of the lesser procedures they wanted to perform on him. They said, Howard, we just don't know if you're going to survive these procedures. Much less having a valve put in. So now they've got this experimental surgery. It's only been done 150 times at the University of Michigan.

Of course, the University of Michigan is one of the best medical centers in the world. But one of the reasons they need to get the approval, and it's going to take two weeks to get this approval, is because it is an experimental operation. So, please keep Howard Hagan very much in your prayers. He very much would appreciate that. But Howard's ready. I mean, I've talked to Howard on a number of occasions.

He said, Mr. D, I've lived a good, long life. I've learned a lot of things. And if God is wanting to take me right now, that's fine. He said, I don't walk out of this hospital. I don't walk out of this hospital. So he's got a really balanced frame of mind. He's not wishing to die by any stretch, but he realizes he's totally in God's hands, and he just has a refined spirit. But please be praying for him.

I know it's very... when you're in those sorts of situations, it's very difficult, very challenging, especially when you've got to be waiting on various people to tell you whether you can have an experimental operation or not. So please be praying for Howard.

Okay, what we want to do today is go through Deuteronomy 12. We're not going to be going through all of it. I got to maybe about half of it over in Ann Arbor. So let's get turned over there. I'll be using the Preachers Outline and Sermon Bible Commentary, as well as the Bible Knowledge Commentary for the background for this section of Scripture. As I've related to you in the past, the book of Deuteronomy is a message preached by Moses as a series of sermons, three different sermons, covering most of the book.

The messages preached by Moses sought to prepare the people, the second generation of Israelites, to enter, conquer, and possess the Promised Land. It was written at the end of the 40 years of wilderness wanderings. They're sitting there on the Jordan River. They can look over the Jordan to the Holy Land. They see the city of Jericho, perhaps the oldest city in the world.

And they're ready to take and go across. Moses realizes he can't go with them, so he wants to prepare them. So there are a couple of major reasons that God has this book for us, and certainly when I look at these reasons, these are reasons I think we need as Christians to study the book today. Number one, Deuteronomy was written to teach us how to live victorious lives.

How to live victorious lives. It teaches the believer how to conquer all the enemies, trials, and temptations that confront them. Along those lines I was relating to the Ann Arbor church today, so I've had a lot of time to meditate on a lot of things over the last number of weeks.

Not next week. I will not be here next week. Unfortunately, we're having the talent show in Ann Arbor, and the times are both two o'clock over there, two thirty here, so I can only be in one place. So I won't be here next week. The week after, or sometime in the near future, I want to give a sermon. The basic concept of the sermon is, what do you do when you've just gone through the worst day in your life? What do you do when you've just gone through the worst month in your life, or the worst year in your life?

What do you do? How do you respond? I got to thinking a lot about that over the last number of weeks, for various reasons, for things I'm saying happened to the various ones in the two churches here that I pastor, things that have been on my mind from my past, things I know Mary has gone through in her past, in her life, 1999 was a very, very bad year, and my life, 2003, for the most part, was a very bad year.

There were some very good things in 2003 for me, but there were some very bad things that happened. What do you do when you've gone through a rough patch and some of the worst times you've ever experienced? We'll discuss that in the near future. Deuteronomy has written to tell people how to live a victorious life. Secondly, Deuteronomy has written to stir God's people to rededicate their lives to God, to rededicate their lives, to recommit their lives, to renew their love for God, because their parents did not do those things.

Their parents died in the wilderness because they weren't dedicated. They were not renewed. They were not doing the things that would make them successful, and they weren't trying to be successful with God.

Now, as I mentioned, the book of Deuteronomy is basically three messages, three sermons. We've already gone through the first sermon, which is the first five chapters. We're now toward the beginning, moving toward the middle of the second sermon. The second sermon goes from chapter 5 to chapter 26. And that's the theme for this whole sermon, is what God expects out of Israel. Now, the last two times we were together, we went through chapter 10 and 11 of Deuteronomy. And in those two chapters, we saw nine different things God wants from His people in terms of obedience. Obedience is required for God's people. It's not an elective. It's not something that is a nicety. It is a necessity. We can't say we claim Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and don't walk the way He walks. John is very clear on that in his epistle of 1 John. He said, If we are going to be Christ, we must walk as He walked. So there are things that God does demand from us. Now, that leads in its very good segue to chapter 12, if you want to go through part of it today. Chapter 12 of Deuteronomy, the theme for the chapter, is how to worship God in truth. How to worship God in truth.

Now, with that in mind, let's walk through this step by step. I've analyzed it and outlined it by verse. Verse 1 is its own section. This is the one verse. Verse 1 shows that we need to true worship obeys the laws of God. If you want to write it down, if you want to outline it, we'll go section by section. Verse 1 is its own section. True worship obeys the laws of God. Let's take a look at Deuteronomy 12. These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall be careful to observe in a land which the Lord your God gives your fathers, He's giving you to possess all the days that you live on the earth. The statutes and the judgments. Now, we know the law of God. We know the Ten Commandments. Those are hard and core to the life of a Christian. But also, it says we are to appreciate and understand and live by the statutes and the judgments. Now, what are the statutes that we have in the Scriptures? Well, an excellent example of the statutes would be the Holy Days. The Holy Days are statutes. They are laws just as binding as the Ten Commandments. The Holy Days are not something that are a kind of a nicety. They are a necessity. Much like we keep the weekly Sabbath, we need to be keeping the annual Holy Days. As the weekly Sabbath is a commanded assembly, it summons from God to get together and worship. The same is true for the Holy Days. Now, judgments are just that. Judgments are rulings. You know, when the people would come to the judges, they would come to various leaders in Israel, even God Himself. Judgments were made. As an example, you had situations where somebody might own an animal back in the days of the Old Testament here, and maybe a neighbor did something, and because what the neighbor did, the animal was killed. Maybe the neighbor dug a ditch for some reason, the animal stumbles into it and dies. Well, the judgment was made that the situation was not just an accident, but it was neglect on the one neighbor's part, and that the neighbor who dug the ditch didn't take precautions so other people's animals would fall in and hurt themselves, and so he was required to make restitution.

Those are principles that you and I would want to live by today as well. You do something, you back into a neighbor's shrub. You don't just say, well, buddy, I hope you've got insurance. Now, if you're going to be living by what God says, you'd walk over your neighbor's house, you knock on the door and say, well, you know, let me... find out what the shrub costs to replace, and I'll make it good. So that's how Christians live, and that's how we need to be living today. Now, does that mean that we need to go... like, there are some cases where you need to repay fourfold? No, but we do follow the principle with these judgments. Okay, so that's something that's very important for us to appreciate. Living by the laws of God. True worship obeys God's laws. And what you have, really, in verse 1 here, and it's very important to understand this, verse 1 is the introduction to a series of laws that we're going to be studying from chapter 12 here, all the way through chapter 26. A series of laws. And so this verse here, chapter 12, verse 1, is a introduction to that whole series. Now, when talking about how we are to worship God here, worship means that we bow down and prostrate ourselves to the great God. We give Him reverence, we give Him respect, we stand in awe of Him. And we see this concept starting here in the Old Testament, but it moves all the way through the Bible. All the way through the Bible. Put a marker here. Let's go over to Romans chapter 12. Let's see, Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1.

I want you to notice what an apostle says he views his role as. Romans chapter 1, verse 1. Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God, which he promised before through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures. But Paul here, as great a man as he was, writing so much of the New Testament, establishing all these various churches, all the things he did. But look how Paul describes himself, a bondservant of Jesus Christ.

Brethren, in less than two months, we will be observing the Passover. In less than two months. And this is something that each of us need to be considering very strongly. Are we a bondservant to Jesus Christ? Do we have the humility that we should have to be a bondservant? Only you can answer that in your mind and me in mine. Let's move on to 2 Peter chapter 1. We see what Paul said. Let's see if Peter says something different. 2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 1.

2 Peter chapter 1 and verse 1. Where it says, Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith of us, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So we see that not only Paul, but Peter refers to himself as a bondservant. It's a mark of humility. Here's a man who was one of the side-by-side with Jesus Christ through the teachings of Christ, the ministry of Jesus Christ. But Peter realizes, I'm nothing more than a bondservant, a bondslave. Paul said it. Peter said it. Let's look at the book of Jude right before the book of Revelation. The book of Jude. And verse 1. Jude being the half-brother of Jesus Christ.

Jude, verse 1. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ. So here we've got three, and all three of these men were apostles. All three. You've got Paul, you've got Peter, you've got Jude. They all describe themselves as servants, as bondslaves. So we go back now to chapter 12 of Deuteronomy. And one of the great lessons we learned right from the very get-go here in chapter 12 is how we need to love God, worship God, by obeying Him properly. And we obey Him by realizing we are bondservants. Okay, the next section is verses 2 through 4. You're taking note, you're making an outline here. Verses 2 through 4. True worship rejects all false worship. True worship rejects all false worship.

Now let's remember something. The children of Israel are camped just across a river, and if they look across the river, they see the Promised Land. They can see the citadel known as Jericho. And I'm sure they also saw probably a good many what they call high places. Places for idolatrous worship of the false gods.

These idol centers may have been very interesting, very colorful, probably dramatic, probably caught the eye. I'm sure the people there of the Israelites were intrigued by what they saw. And of course, Moses realized all that. God realized all that. And so there's a need here for Moses to say, look, if you're going to truly worship God, you've got to reject all the things you're going to be seeing in the Promised Land.

So let's take a look here, Chapter 12 of Deuteronomy, verse 2. It says, So the children of Israel were to destroy places of worship. They were to destroy symbols of false worship. And they were not to worship God as the peoples of the ancient world worshiped the false gods. Very, very clear. Very, very clear.

Now, of course, today you've got people in various denominations and churches and so forth. They will say, well, you know, we are new, covenant Christians. And as new covenant Christians, we're not bound by what it says in the Old Testament.

They'll use our reasoning such as, well, don't you celebrate your birthday? Well, if you can celebrate your birthday, can't you celebrate Jesus Christ's birthday?

That was actually used on me years ago. And I said to my friend who was saying, that's missing. Now, wait a minute. On January the 18th, my birthday, you don't have people all around the world saying, you know, it's Randy Delosandro's birthday. Let's give gifts. Let's go visit Aunt Sally down there in Peoria. You know, that just doesn't happen. But there is something for us here in these three verses, verses 2, 3, and 4. And that is, for us today as Christians, we have to ask ourselves, what is it in our lives that we might be idolizing? What is it in our lives that might be pushing God out of the picture? What is it in our lives where we don't serve God the way we should, and our conscience nags at us because we realize, you know, I really need to be doing X, Y, or Z, but we're not doing X, Y, or Z. Well, whatever is nudging that out of your life is an idol. Could be too much TV viewing. It could be any number of things. It could be spending too much... God tells you to love your family, but maybe you're spending so much time with your physical family, you spend no time with God. Maybe you're spending so much time watching TV, you don't spend time with God. What is it in our lives that is pushing God out of our life, pushing God out of our calendar? Those are idols, and it could be any number of things. And as we approach Passover in a couple of months, you and I need to be examining ourselves and asking us, what is it? And probably with every one of us in this room, there's something that we need to be destroying. You know, they were told to destroy these Canaanite places of worship. Well, there's probably something in our hearts and minds that we need to be destroying. We need to take a sledgehammer to it. We need to make sure that these things are taken out root and branch. And maybe activities. You know, they had to destroy the altars, but they also had to destroy symbols. Maybe there's something symbolic in your life in terms of the way you think, in terms of the attitudes, in terms of our motivations that really need to be fine-tuned and God in line with what God would have us to do. Put a marker here again. Let's turn to John 4. John 4. And in verse 23, John 4.23.

But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. You know, we can be doing a lot of physical things in thinking that that's what God wants when we're not doing the spiritual things. We're not making sure that the spirit is being properly fed. How many people have you known over the years, and I've known more than my share, they come to services, they go to the Holy Days, they send their tithe check. Those can be considered physical things. Not that we shouldn't be doing those things. But if all we're doing is things mechanically, and we're not making sure that we worship God in spirit at a spiritual level, and that's perhaps something that would be a sermon all to itself, what does our worship consist of? Does it consist of a lot of, I've got to do, do, do, and again, that's part of it. But are we feeding the Spirit? God's Spirit in us. Are we feeding that? Are we worshiping God truly? Or even though we've got the best intentions, are we worshiping God in a false way? We're kidding ourselves. We're not really getting into a true worship of the true God. We're going through motions. We're being robotic. We're being mechanical. Those are questions we need to ask and answer for ourselves. Mark 7. You know, Christ said that we should tithe, but He said, you know, you're omitting the weightier matters of the law. So don't misunderstand when I say that we're just doing physical things. We need to be doing certain, during the days of our living bread, we need to de-leaven our homes. That's a physical thing. We need to do that. But the spiritual aspect of that is looking at our lives. Are we de-leavening ourselves spiritually, or are we just going through the physical motions of getting bread out? Getting the leavening out. Maybe that would be a better example. Here in Mark 7, verse 6, He answered and said to them, Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you, Hippocrates said as written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Brother, today I ask all of us, including myself, where is our hearts? Where are our hearts? And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines and commandments of men. Now, you and I don't do that. We don't teach as doctrines and commandments of men. But let's look at the whole verse. Can it be that you and I, as Sabbath keepers, as holy day observers, as tithe payers, as people who watch what we eat, can you and I be worshipping God in vain?

The answer to that is yes. If we're not worshipping Him in spirit and in truth. Verse 8, For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups and many other things such as you do. He said to them, All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own traditions. So again, brother, I ask, and I say this to myself, we all need to dig deep. Where are we spiritually? Now, something I referred to a moment ago. Let's turn to 1 John 2. 1 John 2.

1 John 2. Verse 6. He who says he abides in him, we say we're Christians, ought himself also to walk just as Christ walked. Christ did the physical things, of course He did. He kept the Sabbath, the Holy Days, tithing, this and that and the other. Those things we need to do. But Christ worshipped God in spirit and in truth. He made sure that He had a relationship with God with His prayers. He made sure that He studied deeply into the Scriptures. He made it a point that He looked at the principles that were there, to apply them and to teach them.

That's how Christ walked. And we need to walk the same way. Okay, let's go back to Deuteronomy 12. I think we see that this book, this book of Deuteronomy, is so important for the Christian of today. The next section is verses 5-7. 5-7. And that is a true worship. Worship where God tells you to worship. True worship tells you where you were to worship God. Anyway, you want to phrase that. And that really flies in the face of a lot of what's popular Christianity today. Worship in the church of your choice.

Well, is that what God says? Does God tell you to worship in the church of your choice? Or does God tell us that we should worship in a church of His choice? That we need to go where He places His name, not where He places our name. That we need to do what God wants us to do, not what we want to do. The world has it backward. And God is teaching the Israelites these lessons through what He is now going to be telling them to do. You know, in their wanderings, the children of Israel didn't have a lot of structure to their worship.

Now, as they are going to cross over to the Holy Land, they are going to have a temple. There is going to be a central place of worship. The laws are going to be given in a very succinct way so they understand. There is a lot more structure that is going to be coming at these people. So let's take a look at that as we start with verse 5 here, verses 5, 6, and 7. But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses.

Notice where the Lord your God chooses. Years and years ago, when God began to open my mind for the truth, I didn't want to just find a church someplace to worship. I wanted to find where God had placed His name, where God said, this is a church. The people there are not perfect. And they may not even understand all of my doctrines perfectly. But it's where I place my name because I am working through that group of people, as imperfect as they are. I am working through that group of people.

The Lord has placed His name there. Out of all your tribes to put His name for His dwelling place. And there you shall go where God has put His name. There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, your heave offerings in your hand, your vow offerings, your free will offerings, and the first born of your herds and flocks.

So worship is going to revolve around this central location. No, you're not going to just do it in your backyard. You know, again, this flies in the face of what a lot of people in our church culture do. I'm just going to sit home. I'm going to get a CD. I'm going to be by myself, me and my CD. Well, is that what God says that He wants us to do? No, God says we are a family. God says as a family, He summons us to come together with people of like mind.

Back in these days, there was one central place of worship. Now today, it's decentralized, but God still says, you know, Christ said, I built a church. The gates of hell will not prevail against that church.

And it's up to everyone in this room to find out where is that church. Again, we're not looking for perfect people. We're not even looking for perfect, every document is going to be in place, because God's church grows.

But we are looking for a place where you can tell that God is working. He's working powerfully. Verse 7, there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all of which you have put your hand, you and your household in which the Lord has blessed you. So here we see, you know, they are to approach God through their sacrifices, through their offerings, through their tithes. And it's a central place of worship. Now, why is God doing this? Well, for me, as I was thinking about this, there's a number of lessons to be learned here.

This whole idea of oneness. There's one true living God. And by worshipping in this one place, God says, you know, we're not going to go to this idol over here, like in Egypt, and that idol over there, all these various gods, these pantheon gods. One God, there's one true worship, there's one way to approach God.

We can't just approach God any old way we want to. We must approach God the way God tells us to. And God also says that unity is important. Our getting together, common goals, common aspirations of what the Scriptures have to say. Moses knew this. This is one of the reasons why he made such a big point about this.

John 14.

John 14.

John 14, verse 6. Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Except through me. Not some other way. There's only one acceptable way to approach God. That's through Jesus the Christ. Now, we were talking a few moments ago about the true church of God. I believe in all my heart that God has a true church on this planet today.

Maybe I said some things that were confusing to you, so I said something to the effect that, well, we won't necessarily have every doctrine right in place. But over the years, I've been in the church. I've been in the church since the mid-60s. We've come to a better understanding about Pentecost. We've come to a better understanding about divorce and marriage and a number of items. So we are growing as a body.

But you can, and I can prove, where Christ has placed His name. Jesus Christ kept the seventh-day Sabbath. A church that is Christ's church is going to be a Sabbath-keeping church. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. A church of Jesus Christ is going to be, as we read there in 1 John 2.6, is going to be a church that does what Christ did. It's going to keep the holy days. It's going to be a tithe-paying church. More than one tithe, it's going to be a church that watches what it eats, and so on and so forth. So yes, there are signs of where the true church is. And by the time you start, okay, you take the Sabbath-keeping church, and you exclude all those who don't keep the Sabbath, well, you're excluding a lot of churches. And you go down this checklist, and you start narrowing down to a church culture, which you and I are a part of.

Okay, we go back to Deuteronomy 12.

Verses 8-14. Now remember, this is a sermon, and in a sermon you repeat for emphasis. And here, Moses is going to repeat some of the same thoughts we just saw in verses 5-7. He's going to repeat some of those same concepts in verses 8-14.

Verses 8-14. True worship doesn't worship as everyone sees fit, but as God dictates. And God will dictate proper worship.

We say it all the time. There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything. God is going to show us what the right way is to worship Him. We don't worship God as we please. We worship God as He pleases.

So, let's take a look at this, starting here in verse 8. You shall not at all do as we are doing here today, every man doing what is right in his own eyes. For as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God has given you. Now that may be a little bit of a murky translation, verses 8 and 9. Basically, verse 8, when we say every man is doing what is right in their own eyes. This is referring to when they were in the wilderness wandering. There wasn't a lot of structure to their worship. So even people who truly wanted to worship God properly, there weren't a lot of guidelines. But now God says, I'm going to give you more structure, more in the way of guidelines, so you can have a more detailed view as to what I want from you. So you'll have a better life, a more clear understanding of what you need to be doing. So it will be better for you spiritually. You're not going to be everybody doing what is right in their own eyes, even if you're trying to do the right thing. Verse 9, for as yet you have not come to the rest. To the rest is referring to the Promised Land, a place of rest. They've not crossed over, but Moses is saying, look, once you cross over, God is going to give you a lot of structure. A lot more structure. And that structure is going to be for your safety spiritually. It's going to be for your safety physically. It's going to be there as a safety net for you, so you can thrive in the life that God wants to bless you in. Talk about the rest and the inheritance which the Lord your God has given you. So that rest and that inheritance is talking about the Promised Land.

Verse 10, but when you cross over, they adjoin to dwell in the land which the Lord your God has given you to inherit. And He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so you dwell in safety. So again, reiterating the point, God is going to be there for them. He's going to take care of their enemies. And they're going to live successfully if they obey God.

Then there will be the place where the Lord your God chooses to make His name abide.

Now there's going to be one place eventually where there's going to be a temple.

God believed very strongly at this point in time for there to be a central focus. He wanted the people to have a fine-tuned focus. There you shall bring all that I command you, your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes. Notice He doesn't say tithes. Your tithes.

Heave offerings of your hand, all at your choice offerings which you bow to the Lord. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants. The Levi who is within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. So God says, you know, this is for everybody, the whole family. It's a family-centered worship.

Verse 13, take heed to yourselves that you do not offer burnt offerings of every place that you see.

Don't just think you can do your own thing. But in the place which the Lord chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, there you should do what I command you.

So again, the overall, the overarching point for these verses is you worship God as God tells us, not as we see fit. Just one verse I want to use here. I quote this every year when I give a sermon on the last great day. Acts 4, verse 12. Let's take a look at that for a moment. Acts 4, verse 12. Acts 4, verse 12. Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven. There is no other name under heaven, given among men by which we might be saved.

God says, Christ said, I am the door, I am the gate. You only get to the kingdom through me. And here we're basically seeing the same idea. So there's not a lot of different ways. There's a narrow gate, and God is going to delineate for us where that gate is, and how you and I go through that gate, and how to properly conduct ourselves as we're going through that gate.

Go back to chapter 12.

Chapter 12, we're now going to touch base on a couple of very important items. The blood, which is a key item in the Scriptures, and tithing. We're going to take a look at a second tithe. God has a multiple tithe system.

We're going to touch on that here right now. But verses 15-18, true worship properly honors the blood and the tithe. True worship properly honors the blood and the tithe.

Verse 15, However, when you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires according to the blessing of the Lord your God, which He has given you, the unclean and the clean may eat of it of the gazelle and the deer alike.

So the basic idea here is, and this is when the Bible, before I forget, when it's talking about the unclean and the clean, it's not talking about animals, people being allowed to eat clean and unclean animals. Because in chapter 14, God is going to delineate what should be eaten, not eaten. So we're not going to have God here say, eat whatever you want to. And then two chapters later say, no, there's guidelines. Basically, He's talking about clean and unclean people. There were times when people in Israel would be defiled. They would touch a dead body or something. But that didn't mean they couldn't eat. So basically, we've got this idea here that you may slaughter, you may eat these things. And of course, later on, as we get more into this chapter, back in the wilderness wanderings, when people would offer their sacrifices, they had to make sure they went into the tabernacle, they would give their offering, and then they themselves were allowed to take and eat part of the meat. Well, now, with a central place of worship, Jerusalem, if you're living in Dan or Beersheba, you can't just go to Jerusalem and make an offering and have your meat there and take it way back to Dan or Beersheba. So basically, God's saying, I'm going to give you some guidelines here about what you do on a typical day. Verse 16, only you shall not eat the blood, you shall pour it out on the earth like water. So the blood who is dealt with in a very special way.

It's interesting, most of you don't know this because you don't help with preparing the Passover. But when we're done, every year at Passover, we go through the whole ceremony, all the scriptures, the foot washing, the unleavened bread, the wine. At the very end, we sing a song. We don't conclude with a prayer because we didn't see that happening in the New Testament. So we try as much as we can to do the same things Christ did with his men. We don't have a meal. But at the very end, we have a concluding song, and we tell everyone, okay, please go quietly to your homes, and that concludes their service.

But we have, virtually always, unleavened bread that's left over. We have wine that is left over. What do we do with that? Well, for years and years and years, we would take it to this day, we would take the wine, and we would take it outside and pour it on the ground. Take the blood and pour it on the earth like water. We do that to this day. We discard the bread. We discard the wine.

Now, we don't always have to pour it on the ground. We can pour it down a sink. But the important thing is, we don't take the unused, unleavened bread and wine that was used in the ceremony, that was prayed over. We don't consume that for any other purpose. That can't be consumed. It has to be destroyed. And there's a lesson to be learned in all of that.

We'll draw some lessons in a few moments. But let's take a look at chapters 12 here, verses 17 and 18, because here we've got a discussion about a different tithe. A different tithe. Verse 17, You are not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain, or your new wine, or your oil, or the first-born of your herd, your flock, or any of the offerings which you vow, of your free will offerings, of the heave offerings of your hand.

But you must eat them before the Lord your God in a place which the Lord your God chooses. You and your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite who is within your gates, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all, to which you put your hands. Now, as you are well aware, there was a tithe given to the Levites to do the work of God.

There is a tithe given to the ministry today to do the work of God. You are not to take of that tithe and use it for your own purposes. That's for the Levite in Old Testament times, or the New Testament ministry. That tithe does not belong to. That's God's tithe. And we give it to God's representatives. But here we've got a tithe that's different.

Here you've got a tithe that says, you may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your wine. But notice, we are to eat. The tithe payer here does consume this tithe. A full ten percent. But they are not to consume it where they live.

God says, you know, you're going to go someplace and you're going to keep a feast of tabernacles. And it's going to be expensive to go there. But I'm going to provide you a way of funding that trip. You're going to have a full ten percent of your annual income. But it says, you must eat it where God places His name. Has God placed His name here in Detroit? For us to have a feast of tabernacles in Detroit? No. But God has placed His name in places like Wisconsin Delves, other places around the world. And we go to those places and then we do just what it says here.

We eat of this time. So, notice several key points. The tithe is not to be eaten at home. The second key point, the tithe bear is to partake of this tithe. The third key point, the tithe bear is to participate where God places His name. Not just anywhere, but where God places His name. Now, put a marker here. Let's just go to chapter 14. Deuteronomy 14, verse 22. You shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain that the field produces year by year.

Now, you can look at various scholars and they would gross, they would laugh at the idea of a multiple tithe system. And yet, here you see very distinctly, here's a tithe that the tithe bear is to consume. And it's not just one year in three, or a third and a six year in a cycle of seven, it's year by year.

Okay? Verse 23. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in a place which He chooses to make His name abide. Again, notice not just anywhere, but where God says, The tithe that you may eat, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, of the firstborn of your herds, of your flocks, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

Now, the end of verse 23 is very key to what we've been discussing throughout today. Yes, we go physically to the Feast of Tamarindacles. There are physical things we do. We go to church, we sing hymns, we listen to sermons. We do a lot of things. But the bottom line is we want to worship God in spirit and truth. We can sit in, like the one guy said, we can sit in church. It doesn't make us a Christian no more than sitting at McDonald's makes us a hamburger.

But when we go to the Feast and we've prepared our minds, notice the end of verse 23. That you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

That's the essence of worshiping God in spirit and in truth. We go to the Feast. God loves it that we have a nice time. But the main reason we go to the Feast is to learn the fear of the Lord our God.

Notice verse 24. But if the journey is too long for you, so that you're not able to carry the tie, or if the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, when the Lord your God has blessed you, now notice something. It's not always real convenient to go to the Feast. If you're living in Danar Beer Sheba and the Feast is in Jerusalem, it's not always the most convenient. So God understands that. God says, you know, the journey might be really long. He doesn't say you shouldn't go. Verse 25. Then you shall exchange it for money, you know, all your herbs and things that you might eat at the Feast. Exchange for money. We do that, don't we? We take our second tithe and form of trav and you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires. For autumn, or sheep, for wine, or similar drink. For whatever your heart desires, you shall eat there before the Lord your God. You shall rejoice, you and your household. Now, there's a reason, you know, people say, isn't God being wasteful here? We're going to take 10% of our annual income and we're going to spend it in eight days? Isn't that wasteful? God is an ultimate teacher. God says, these days represent something. These days represent the wonderful world tomorrow. These days represent the kingdom of God on earth. It represents the millennium. The Feast of Tabernacles represents the millennium. What is the millennium? The millennium is a time of peace, prosperity, and plenty. And so, when we go to the feast, God wants us to have an abundance. He wants us to enjoy the better things. Things you might not be able to enjoy all year long. He wants us to enjoy those things at the feast because the picture is a time of plenty. And there are lessons there for us to learn. Now, I know some people are on fixed income. I know some people are out of work. We'll set that aside for a moment. But for those of us who are not out of work, we're not on a fixed income. When you and I, when we go to the feast, God wants us to really enjoy that kind of experience because it teaches us lessons about the world tomorrow. It's a physical thing we do that helps us learn a spiritual lesson about what we look forward to spiritually.

Verse 27, You shall not forsake the lead by those within your gates, for he has no partner inheritance with you. There's other things we can discuss here, but we're not going to get into it.

But when you're taking a look at all of this, as we were reading through the various sections here, you saw that we need to be taking our families.

Be caring for our families. The feast is a family-oriented affair.

And God certainly wants us to enjoy the feast with our families. And God talked about taking your sermons.

God understands there are poor people. God understands not everybody has a lot of money. That's why in ancient Israel, the people who own land, who own a fairly good portion of land, were told, okay, now when you harpst your crops, don't harvest everything. Leave the edges be so the poor people can come and they can glean and they can have something not only to eat, but so they can have something for the feast.

God is very concerned about the poor.

We have a multi-tied system. God is a tie for those who can't help themselves.

A third tithe. Now that's for people who can afford to do that. In our society today, because of Uncle Sam, because of the tax structure, there are many things taken out of your check before you get your check that go to help people who have need. And we've made a ruling many, many years ago because Uncle Sam is doing that, that you're always welcome to tithe a third tithe. We believe in that, and people do that. A number of people do that. Three full tithes in the third and sixth year in a cycle of seven. It's a whole other discussion. I don't want to get into it right here. But that tithe, that third tithe is for the poor.

And those of you who contribute locally, we've got funds available so that every year at feast time, if you are maybe on fixed income or you've lost your job or what have you, you can make application. I will look at the application. And we will make a ruling whether we can help you with the funds we have available. And generally speaking, we're able to help people go to the feast.

So the idea here is that God wants us to worship where He says to worship, to learn who He is and to truly understand who He is. And He's put together a tithe system, first, second, and third tithe, to make sure His plan moves forward.

Now in the last few minutes that I've got here, my voice is starting to show its wear and tear.

We may mention when we're talking about the blood there in chapter 12, the import of the blood. Christ, in the Old Testament, the Old Testament and the New Testament work hand in glove. They're not fighting one another. They're not battling one another. They're working hand in glove. True worship appreciates the beauty of blood. Let's take a look at Revelation 1 and verse 5.

Revelation 1 and verse 5.

Revelation 1 and 5. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the year, to Him, who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.

Why is it important to understand the preciousness of blood? Because our sins are washed with Christ's own blood, His shed blood. We are brought into a relationship with God the Father and our elder brother Jesus Christ through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. This happens on an individual basis. You're not just some cog in a large machine. You are an individual. God knows you individually. You are individually His son or His daughter. He loves you very, very much.

But, having said that, all of that being true, let's also look at Acts chapter 20. Acts chapter 20, verse 28. Acts 20-28. Therefore, take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Paul is talking to a group of elders here. To shepherd the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood. A couple of points. Christ's shed blood doesn't purchase every church. Christ's shed blood purchases the people of the true church of God. It's important that we know where that church is, how to find that church. But also notice that, as we talked about earlier, Christ forgives us as individuals. Christ also forgives us collectively as a family. Over and over we see this theme in the Scriptures. We are family. The church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. The whole of the church. Individuals, yes. Whole of the church as well. And there's a third major element, and I'm sure there's many, many more. Which is some things that came to my mind as I was putting my thoughts together. Over here in Hebrews 9, the Scripture we read every year at Passover time. Hebrews 9, we see where the blood of Jesus Christ helps us to move forward in life. It forgives us individually, it forgives us collectively, and it helps us to move forward in the walk that God would have us to walk. Hebrews 9, verse 14. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? So this blood cleanses our conscience and allows us to move forward. The dead works have been forgiven. They are put behind us, and now we want to serve the living God with living works, and we do that through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Excuse me. One final Scripture for today, over here in Malachi chapter 3. Last book of the Old Testament, toward the end of that last book, Malachi chapter 3. In that last section there in Deuteronomy, we talked about the preciousness of the blood, the guy there's lessons God wanted us to learn. But we also talked about tithing. And there's a principle here. We typically turn to this section, and you know what section I'm going to read to you. And we typically think about first tithe. But I would tell you that this refers to God's tithing system. The principle here refers to all of God's tithes. Malachi chapter 3 and verse 8. Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me, but you say, in what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. Brethren, if we've got titheable offerings, and some of us don't have titheable income. I understand that. But if we've got titheable income, we need to be tithing, including second tithe. We need to be tithing. We miss out on so many important spiritual issues. I've known people over the years. They've got a decent enough income. They don't tithe for the fees. They don't tithe second tithe. They wait until maybe the last month before the fees, and I'll save a couple of paychecks. We miss out on so many spiritual principles. We shortchange. We rob God. We're robbing ourselves.

And tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse. For you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Brethren, that could be said about second tithe as well as first tithe. If we're not tithing the way God says, we are robbing ourselves. We're robbing from God.

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse. There might be food in my house, and try me now in this. This is the Lord of hosts. It will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing. But then it will mean that room to receive it. And so people come to me and they say, oh, Mr. D., I don't make very much money. I said, basically, I don't care how much you make. I mean, I hope that your income will escalate. I hope things go well for you, that you can have promotions and this and that and the other. But, Mr. Del Centro, I really don't make enough money. I can't tithe.

Hey, look, I don't care if you make $10,000 a year. $1,000 goes for first tithe. $1,000 goes for second tithe.

That's a law of God. I believe that in all my heart.

And if you say, why, I can't afford to tithe. I'm not making enough money. Well, if we have that attitude, you'll never be able to afford to tithe. And God can't bless you.

But if you get in there and start obeying God, it's like, you know, we just say that there are so many things in our life.

I can't afford to obey God right now, because if I do, I'll lose my wife, I'll lose my husband, I'll lose my kids. No, when God opens your mind to understand something, He has opened up the door.

He is the one who's made a decision. You know, you can do this, because I've opened up your mind to see it.

And so at that point, the only option for us is to say, well, okay, Father, I don't know how this is going to happen, how this is going to work out. But you're going to make it possible for me to do this.

And that's what we call living by faith. Living by faith.

Well, brethren, it's been six weeks since I preached to you last. My voice is starting to give out, I can feel it. I don't want to strip the gears here too much. That's basically where I ended in Ann Arbor anyway. So, again, unfortunately, just the luck of the draw, I will not be able to be here next week, but I'll be here the week after, and hopefully we will continue to outrun the sickness and move forward. So, take care.