Deuteronomy 27

I really enjoyed the sermonette today. Wayne did a very, very good job with his material, and it kind of reminds me of what I want to cover with you today in some respects. Now, I'm using the preacher's outline in the sermon Bible commentary for the sermon today.

It's been a long time, but we're going to go back to an old favorite of ours, and that's the Book of Deuteronomy. We have not been in Deuteronomy since last November. It's been a long time. I've actually asked both you here in Rosenan Harbor, well, should I just go to my next project? My next project is, I think, is to go through the Book of Daniel verse by verse. No one's fighting me on that. When I ask, should I just drop Deuteronomy since we have not had it in a while, and we're almost done anyway, I said, no, no.

We don't ever drop anything, Mr. D. We finish everything we start. So I was duly corrected with that, and we will continue to go forward with the Book of Deuteronomy. I'm not going to cover every chapter. Last time we were together, I covered chapter 24, which meant I skipped chapter 23. If you take a look, we're not going to look now, but if you take a look, chapter 23 has very little to do with today's life in the Church of God.

It's mostly physical things. It's, you know, who you're going to forever banish and never be with or kill all of these people. You know, we just don't think that way in the Church of God today. I'm also going to skip the next couple of chapters, 25 and 26. A lot of that is things, principles we've already covered, but I do want to go to chapter 27. Deuteronomy chapter 27. So we want to be turning over there. Let me give you a little bit of background again to the book. It's been so long since we've been there.

The Book of Deuteronomy, and the reason I selected this, and it's a large project we started some time ago, the Book of Deuteronomy is a series of messages preached by Moses as he saw to prepare the second generation of Israelites to enter, to conquer, and to possess the Promised Land. The Book of Deuteronomy was written at the end of the 40 years of wilderness wanderings, right before Israel was to go into the Promised Land. Of course, brethren, what's on my mind is you and I are about to enter the kingdom of God. Now, we don't know whether that's going to be in our lifetime, but we would think it would be relatively near future.

Perhaps it's not our life, maybe it's our children's lifetime. It's hard to see this world going on much longer the way that it is. But there is a lot of duality there in terms of what they were doing to prepare to go into the Promised Land and what we need to do to prepare to go into the kingdom of God. The Book of Deuteronomy had an historical purpose to it. Moses wanted to write to show the mistakes of the prior generation, all of whom died in the wilderness, with the exception of the young people. We certainly can learn from that.

But also there are a couple of profound spiritual purposes to the Book. One was to teach God's people how to live victorious lives. And you and I as Christians, we need to know how to live victorious lives under Christ. And a second major purpose for the Book of Deuteronomy was to stir God's people to rededicate themselves. And chapter 27 today is a chapter that deals almost entirely with that concept of dedicating ourselves to the great God.

The Book of Deuteronomy is basically broken down into three major portions. Three major sermons, if you will. The first sermon covers the first five chapters. And the subject of that first five chapters was what God has done for Israel. The second sermon, the lengthier part of the Book, goes from chapter 5 through chapter 26. That section dealt with what God expects from Israel.

Now starting today, we're going into the very last sermon that Moses is going to present to the people of Israel. And the theme here is what God will do for Israel, what he'll do for Israel. So remember, Moses understands something. He understands he can cross the River Jordan with God's people. He understands that he's actually going to die in a not too distant future. And so he's got, he preaches with great effectiveness by the power of God what the people of Israel need to do to be successful as they go into the Promised Land. And certainly, brethren, those things are things that you and I need to be aware of as well.

So chapter 27 starts this whole section, talking about how we rededicate ourselves to the great God. So let's turn over there to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 27.

Today, I'm not even going to cover all 26 verses with you, because the last half of the chapter deals with a lot of curses. I think those are relatively self-explanatory. As a matter of fact, I probably will be skipping chapter 28. That's the blessing and curses chapter. That's relatively self-explanatory as well. But there is something that I want to cover with you, starting at the very beginning of Deuteronomy, chapter 27. These first eight verses is a challenge, a challenge by God, talked to, through Moses, to the people of Israel. Let's take a look at the challenge. Verse 1, Now Moses, with the elders of Israel, commanded people, saying, Keep all the commandments which I command you today. Now in prior times, Moses just would be speaking on his own. But now we see there's an additional element here, Moses with the elders of Israel. And there's a reason why these elders are being discussed. As I said, Moses realizes his life is shortly going to come to an end. He realizes he can't go into the promised land with God's people. And so in one sense, he's helping a transition here. He's helping the people transition. Transitions are never easy. I recall almost 18 years ago, when I came here as your new pastor, and the transition I had coming here was not an easy one at all. You remember what you were going through 18 years ago. I was one of two men. This was back in the infancy of the United Church of God. I was one of two men who had to audition for the job here in Detroit. I had to come over here in July of 1997, give two sermons, and then the leadership of the Detroit church voted whether they want good old Mr. D or not, and it was not unanimous.

Now, we don't do that anymore. We shouldn't have done it back in that day, but that was the lay of the land back in the day. Back in the day, brethren, as most of you remember, this church was 120 strong. Toledo was 120 strong. That was the circuit. Detroit and Toledo. 240 people. It was one of the largest circuits in the region. But by the time they said, well, Randy, why don't you go there and see if you can do some help, do some good. By the time I got here in 1997, it was down to 60 people. Three-quarters of the people had left because of my predecessor. So transitions can be tricky, right? Transitions can be tricky. So Moses is there with the elders. They're making a combined statement about what needs to be done. Now, in God's mind, the reason for this was quite simple. God wants us people to look to good, solid leadership. Good, solid leadership. And secondly, God wanted the leaders.

The people need to look to the leaders, but the leaders, the second portion of the leaders themselves, need to realize they've got a great responsibility to lead God's people. A great responsibility for the welfare of God's people, to be conscientious, to be committed, to be dedicated, to make sure their lives reflect what we see in the scriptures, that touchstone, if you will.

And so here we have a discussion now where you've got Moses and the elders talking to Israel about keeping God's law. Verse 2 through verse 4 is an interesting section. To me, it's all interesting, but let's look at this as piece by piece here.

And it shall be on that day when you cross over the river Jordan, to take the land which the Lord your God has given you, that you shall set up for yourselves large stones and whitewash them with lime. So here they're going into the Holy Land, okay? You shall write on them all the words of this law, the book of the covenant, when you have crossed over, that you may enter the land which the Lord your God has given you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord God of your fathers promised you. Therefore shall be when you have crossed over the Jordan that on Mount Ebal you shall set up these stones which I command you today, and you shall whitewash them with lime. Now, if you're not one as much into history of thinking, what in the world is going on here? A wall of rock, boulders, and rock is being put together here, and they're going to put, they're going to encase this rock with this white substance. I'm sure that in the sun it was something quite brilliant and quite beautiful. They had a wall, what we would call today a wall of remembrance. Now, do we have anything like that in this country today? If you take a look, there's walls that are dedicated to our soldiers, our doughboys of World War I. We've got various walls that are dedicated to our soldiers of World War II, of Korea, of Vietnam. We've got a wall, whether you know this or not, we've got a wall dedicated to our soldiers who gave their lives in Iran and Afghanistan. You can probably go to a number of local municipalities and see walls or monuments to local police officers who may have given their lives in line of duty, firefighters, and so forth. So the idea of having a wall of remembrance is something that is very, very old and helps put things in people's minds. Now, these stones were to be put together at Mount Ebel. Does that ring a bell when you study the scriptures? Is Mount Ebel? So what? Is Mount Ebel? Or does that name ring a bell somewhere in your mind? Let's turn and put a marker here. Let's turn over to Justice 12.

Because to the Israelites, brethren, this meant a great deal. As a matter of fact, when they were told to do this, there may have been some who had their tears in their eyes. They may have had moist eyes when they realized where they were going to go and what they were going to do. Genesis 12, starting in verse 6. A brown pass through the land to the place of Shechem. Shechem, a city, where Shechem is at the foot of Mount Ebel. So here you've got Abram, whose name is going to be changed to Abraham. Notice what he does here. And the brown pass through the land to the place of Shechem as far as the Terabith tree of Moray and the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your descendants, I will give this land.

Hundreds of years later, they're going to cross the Jordan, and they're going to set up those white walls right where God promised Abram his people would come. So he had a real sense of history here. A real sense of history. Verse 7, and there he built an altar to the Lord, who appeared to him. So hundreds and hundreds of years prior to the children of Israel crossing the Jordan over to Shechem, Mount Ebel, you've got God promising the promised land to his posterity.

They're coming home. After generations of slavery and what have you in Egypt, they're now coming home. When Israel, brethren, left Egypt, did they dig somebody up? Bring them with them? Who did they dig up and bring with them? Joseph.

Do you know where Joseph was buried? Shechem, base of Mount Ebel.

So here you've got something. Abraham was blessed there. Joseph was buried there. Something else, so far as the land that you may or may not remember or know, that Shechem here, by Mount Ebel, is in the tribal region of Ephraim, just across the border from Manasseh. Now does that kind of stir some thought in your mind as to what God's doing? Who is Ephraim and Manasseh today? You know? Shechem became a city of refuge. Now think about the spiritual connotations of this. Shechem became, you know, there at the base of Mount Ebel, became a city of refuge. He became a Levitical city, where the people of God worked and labored, where people who were being hunted down can come for refuge. In the land of Ephraim, right next to Manasseh, where Joseph was buried and Abraham was blessed. So this is, you know, our Father is a tremendous teacher, isn't he? No one out does, no one out teaches God. No one out teaches God. I think all of us can remember years gone by, people we would consider our favorite teachers. I can name off several of my high school teachers. I can't remember my own middle name sometimes, but I can remember my high school teachers. You know, you think about the great teaching ability that God has, and we're going to see it here tremendously. I was remarking to the morning congregation over in Ann Arbor, how when I was a young kid growing up, I used to enjoy my mother's brothers coming over. Darryl and Bruce, and my Uncle Bruce, he was a salesman by trade. He owned his own tool and die business for a number of years. Got out of that in the early 1960s, was one of the very first to buy a Bonanza restaurant franchise here in the Detroit area over there in St. Clair Shores. And just an interesting guy, and he would come and sit down, have coffee with my mom, and Uncle Bruce would start telling his tales. And I was, as a little kid, I was all ears, because, man, he could tell a story. Now, I don't know how much of that stuff was true, but boy, he knew how to tell it. And I was just spellbound by the way he could just, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes, the theatrics that he was able to use. And I thought, boy, that guy, I want to be just like him when I grow up. And, you know, all of us, any of us, any teacher, we're nothing compared to the great God when it comes to teaching. Let's watch that as this whole story unfolds here in Deuteronomy chapter 27. So now to verse 5, and you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones, you shall not, you shall not use an iron tool on them. You shall build with the whole stones, you shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God, and offer burnt offerings to the Lord your God. You shall offer peace offerings, and shall eat there, and rejoice before the Lord your God. And you shall write very plainly on the stones all the words of this law.

Why is God doing this? Why is God doing it? What do you and I learn from what God has for us here? It's just some history that's thousands of years old, and we should just get onto the salvation issues. Or is this a salvation issue that we're seeing here? We see here in verse 5, you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones, you shall not use iron tools on them. Now, brother, the reason God did this is he wanted the altar here to not be in any way fashioned by man.

When we worship God, we worship God the way God tells us to worship Him. We don't worship God by fashioning our own ideas, fashioning our own doctrines. Back in the old days, fashioning our own idols. No, God said, you take the big boulders, you take the big rocks out of the field, you set those up, but you are not the chisel on anything. These are going to be totally natural, because these things are made by the hand of God. The way you're going to worship Me is from the very hand of God. The worship had to be totally free of man, free of man's thoughts, free of man's efforts to shape things. No, brother, only God is the one who shapes the way we are to worship Him. We're not to worship God with a tradition that is not found in the Bible. We're to worship God the way in spirit and truth, as God says. And what is truth? God's Word is truth. Anything else is a defilement. Put a marker here. Let's go over to Proverbs chapter 3. Proverbs chapter 3.

Starting here in verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your past. He shall direct. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from evil. So here, this is standard theology, correct, 100% righteous theology from the Scriptures. We don't fashion our own way to worship God. And yet, brethren, how many people in the world, how many millions and billions of people who have ever lived, have done just that? They fashioned their own gods, their own way of worshiping gods. When God says, no, you do what the Bible says. Chapter 14, same book, Proverbs 14 verse 12.

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

So God doesn't want us to be, well, what do you think? Let's worship at the church of our choice. Now, we have an opportunity to do that. We're Americans. We're free. We can worship at the church of our choice. But is that what does God want us to just pick and choose, how we worship them? Or is there a right way and a wrong way? Last Scripture I want to go to, and I'll continue on with the thoughts there in Deuteronomy. Let's go to this case, Deuteronomy chapter 5, where we have the second giving of the Ten Commandments, Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 32. Now, this is in Deuteronomy. This is the Old Testament. But, brethren, this is a eternal principle we see here. This is not just something that, well, it's in the Old Testament we don't need. We throw it away. No, this is an eternal principle here. Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 32. Therefore, you shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.

Now, in the book of Revelation, which is in the New Testament, occurs as pronounced on anybody who adds to that book. Now, explicitly it's talking about adding to the book of Revelation. But, in principle, it's talking about adding any of our thoughts to the worship of God and making God's way secondary to our thoughts. Now, we are to make sure we do what God says to do. Now, we go back to chapter 27 of Deuteronomy. And I want to take a look at verse 6 here.

As they're building, bringing together these massive stones, and they had to have a lot of stone because they're going to write all of the book of the law on them. So, it's going to be a pretty good-sized chunk of real estate they're going to be taking up here. But notice verse 6. You shall build with whole stones the altar of the Lord your God and offer what? Offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. A burnt offering. Again, God chose that offering very specially. There are five major offerings listed in the Old Testament. Years ago, I went through all five of those. I think I've gone through the five in various midweek studies over the years. But this burnt offering, brethren, I think sometimes people think all the offerings dealt with sin. Not this one. Of the five, only two of the offerings really dealt exclusively with sin. The sin offering and a trespass offering. The other three did not deal with sin. The burnt offering here doesn't deal with sin. That's not the issue here. The burnt offering is an offering given. The whole of the animal was consumed in fire. What the burnt offering teaches us is we need to be consumed with our worship of the great God. As the fire consumed the animal, we need to fire God's Holy Spirit to consume us and be people of God's Spirit. So the burnt offering symbolized a person's entire surrender to God. But more than that, it also pictured the congregation or the nation's surrender to the great God. So here we have this wall of remembrance. And at that wall of remembrance, the people are told to give a burnt offering that's pleasing to God.

Matter of grace. A matter of grace. Romans 12. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2.

Offerings, brethren, are not something that's just done in the Old Testament. Again, this is an eternal principle. Offerings are done in the New Testament as well. Romans 12, verse 1. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a want, as a living sacrifice, as a burnt offering, so to speak. Holy! Now that doesn't mean that does not mean sinless, because let's face it, none of us are sinless. None of us are going to be sinless until the resurrection. You know, we were sinless for a moment after our baptism. We'll be sinless when we're resurrected, but right now we're clay.

But holy means to be separated for a godly purpose. As Israel is separated to be the people of God, to be an example to all the other nations around, you and I have been called by God to set an example to all the people around. Christ said the Christians were the salt of the earth.

You know, what do you do with salt? You have a little bit of salt on your food.

Goes a long way. A living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Our mind needs to be renewed. It needs to be rededicated, recalibrated, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So in Deuteronomy chapter 27 verse 6, we see that they gave a burnt offering. But in chapter 27 verse 7, we see another offering. Deuteronomy 27 verse 7, and you shall offer peace offerings, and you shall eat there and rejoice before the Lord your God. A peace offering. Now, isn't it interesting what two of the five offerings God chose? Again, this doesn't deal with sin. This is not a sin offering. This is not a trespass offering. This is a peace offering, also known as a fellowship offering. What the peace offering represents, brethren, is God the Father, Jesus Christ, and mankind being at one with God. God, Christ, and man being at one.

This offering serves to establish the individual more firmly in the fellowship of God. And as you and I are more firmly in the fellowship of God, we'll be more firmly in the fellowship of our fellow man. One follows the other. So, as a nation is being founded at this wall of remembrance, when the law of God is written on it, the entire law of God is written on it, and you have a burnt offering showing total dedication, you've got a peace offering showing that oneness with God, Christ, and man. Then you begin to see what is in God's mind as he's bringing these people across the border into the Promised Land. Matthew 22. Matthew 22.

Matthew 22 and verse 36.

Teacher, what is the great commandment in the law? Jesus tells him, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. That's the thinking of a burnt offering there. This is the first and the great commandment. The second is like, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Well, this would be a portion of the peace offering, wouldn't it? On these two commandments saying, all the law and the prophets love God, love man, burn offering, peace offering. Now, there's something else very special in that section. I want to draw your attention to. Please turn back to Deuteronomy 27 and look at verse 8.

Deuteronomy 27 and verse 8.

And you shall write very plainly on the stones all the words of this law. Very plainly, very distinctly. God doesn't want fuzzy wording. God doesn't want fuzzy lettering. God wants things to be crystal clear. Now, earlier in the week when I sent out my midweek study, you know, I'm always wondering, well, what can I discuss with the brethren in my midweek Bible study that I send out via email? And just so happened last Sabbath over in Windsor, I was talking to Marilyn Anderson. Marilyn was saying how that Bob Faye puts out a sort of a midweek study, a type of a midweek study. His goes several paragraphs. And so she sent me a copy of that. And what Bob wrote was about how we have in this nation today, truth decay. I mean, when you watch the news and you hear one of our leaders speak, I don't care what side of the aisle, I don't care at what level, when you hear our leaders speak, do you really believe what they're saying? Especially after time, after time, when they, you know, it's been shown what they're saying. It's simply not the case. Or the police sometimes, or the military sometimes. Petraeus just recently. What he got himself into. I mean, we have a real issue with people telling the truth, don't we? People want to shade things. They don't want things to be clear. They want to be living in the gray areas. And yet, notice what it says there in verse 8. You write those words plainly on the stones. Now, why do I make a big deal about this? Because, brethren, God wants His law written very clearly, very distinctly in your life and mine. He wants His words written chiseled onto the fleshly tables of our hearts. Your heart, my heart. Not fuzzy, not indistinct, not wishy-washy. The truth of God distinctly, proudly, boldly, engraved on our hearts. As I said before, God is a tremendous teacher, and He's got tremendous lessons for us here. Okay, so we've gone through these first eight verses. As I look at this first section, a couple of lessons to keep in mind. We've talked about lessons already, but some additional lessons to learn from these first eight verses is that when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we make a covenant with Him. At Passover, brethren, you sat in a room, just the kitty quarters of the room were in here, over in the social hall. And I think we had 31 for attendance that evening over here in Detroit.

You have a covenant with God the Father and Jesus Christ. Once a year, we don't do it weekly or quarterly, we do it once a year. It's a memorial. Memorials are done once a year. Once a year, you come into a room, quiet. It's quiet because it's a solemn occasion. We're thinking about the death of our Savior and all that He went through. It's solemn, but yet it's joyous because of what He went through. Because of what Christ went through, our sins are forgiven. We've got a brand new lease on life. Our names have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life. And as that tray of bread comes to you and as that tray of wine comes to you, you are renewing. You're rededicating yourself to living as Jesus Christ did.

So that's one of the lessons we want to learn from this section of Scripture.

The second lesson that I've already touched on is the fact that we need to have things clearly in our hearts and minds. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15.

Be diligent to present yourselves approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

Brethren, as we get closer and closer to the end of the age, if you and I are living at the time when Jesus Christ is ready to come, we're going to be living during the age of the Antichrist. We're going to be living during the age where this individual who's going to be claiming to be God, he won't start that way, but he'll be ending up by claiming to be God. Once he gets people's attention, once he calls enough fire down from heaven, once he walks through enough hospitals and heals everybody he can heal, once he does all these marvelous false lying wonders that God allows him to do, people are going to start worshiping him. And the scriptures say, if the elect weren't into the scriptures, we would be deceived. So, brethren, you and I need to know the word of God to rightly divide the word of truth. That's going to be your physical salvation, not just your spiritual salvation. It's going to be your physical salvation at the end of the age. Okay, let's go back to Deuteronomy. Look at the next section. The next section is only two verses, verses 9 and 10. Verses 9 and 10, the first eight verses was a challenge.

Here we have kind of like a challenge squared or explained. Verse 9, Deuteronomy 27, 9. Then those in the priests and the Levites spoke to all Israel, saying, Take heed and listen, O Israel. This day you have become the people of the Lord your God.

So, very simply, what's being said here is, this is God's part. This is God's part in the whole deal. God freed you as being from slavery. God baptized you in the Red Sea. God is going to lead you forward into the Promised Land. And, brethren, that's not just what God did for ancient Israel. That's what he's doing for you and I today. Where were you before you came into God's church? What were you doing? What were you thinking? Where was your life going?

God freed you from all the falsity that you were clinging to. He showed you his beautiful truth.

Most of us in this room have been baptized. Our sins have been forgiven us.

Our names have been written in the Lamb's Book of Life as a result of that. And now we are going forward marching toward the Kingdom of God, just like these people were. But God wanted Moses to make sure the people realized who did this for them.

Verse 10, Therefore you shall obey the voice of the Lord your God, observe his commandments, his statutes, which I command you today. So here's the people's part. Here's the people's part. But their responsibility is to realize that God has given us this freedom. As Paul said, I stand by the grace and in the grace of God. The things I accomplish I accomplish because of the grace of God.

Now, brethren, I do want to, before I pass this section, go through the very last section, which will only take a few minutes, I want you to turn over to the 2nd Corinthians chapter 3.

2nd Corinthians chapter 3, because this whole section about the stones comes up in conversations about, well, we don't need to keep the Sabbath anymore. All that stuff written on stones, that was all done away. That's all shadow of things in the past. Let's take a look at that for a moment because it's appropriate here, as we're studying what took place in Deuteronomy chapter 27. Let's see what Paul was saying to the church there in Corinth. 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 7. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, that's what we were just reading about in chapter 27. It's the administration of death, Paul called it. Written and engraved on stones was glorious. No, he didn't write that and start spitting. He said it was glorious so that the children of Israel could not look steadily on the face of Moses because of the glory of his continents, which glory was passing away. Oh, all that stuff written on those stones is passing away. The Sabbath, the Ten Commandments, the Holy Days, tithing, all that stuff. That's a relic of the past. We don't need that. That's passing away.

Verse 8. How will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? So people will take verse 7 and say, well, that's Old Covenant. And in our minds, Old Covenant means Old Testament, means the law of God, particularly the Sabbath, particularly the Holy Days, tithing.

Verse 8 in our minds represents the New Covenant, where we're free from all that. We're just people who live by grace. And it's true, brethren, we are people who live by grace, but not the way they say.

What we have, brethren, here in 2 Corinthians and other scriptures very much like this, God's not doing away with His law. We have a change of administration.

Just as there was a change of administration regarding tithing, in the Old Testament, people gave their tithes and offerings to the Levitical priesthood.

Today, people give their tithes and offerings to the priesthood of Melchizedek. I am of that priesthood. It's a spiritual priesthood. The Old Testament, Levites, were physical people. They got their physical things. Today, we've got a New Testament, New Covenant, spiritual priesthood by the grace of God. So tithing has not been done away. It's just administrative. Who we give the tithe to has changed. The same thing is true with the laws of God. Matthew 5, verse 18, not going to turn there, not one jot or tittle will be passed away. Right? When you read the Beatitudes, when you read the Sermon on the Mount, who can at all say that Christ was doing away from the law? He said, back in the day, it said, don't kill. I'm telling you, don't hate. Christ magnified. I say to you, back in the old days, don't commit adultery. I'm saying to you, don't lust. Law's not being done away. It's being magnified. Let's look at Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 10. Hebrews chapter 8 and verse 10.

Hebrews 8 and 10. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days.

Now, explicitly, this is something that we know is going to take place in the millennium. In a period of time, we call the great white throne judgment period. But brethren, it's also true for a select few that God is calling today. And that select few are one you and I are part of that select few.

Is it because we're so bright? Uh, no. No. Is it because we're all so handsome and so pretty? Oh, because we've got these great minds. We're just very nimble of minds. No. The Bible says there in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, you know, God calls the weak of the world. That puts us more on our proper perspective. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind. He doesn't say, well, we're anarchists now. Forget the laws. No. New covenant is a covenant of law. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts. And he'll write them clearly. He'll write them distinctly. There won't be gray areas along those lines. We know what sin is. We know what sin isn't. Write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people. None of them shall teach his neighbor and none of his brothers say, no, the Lord. Why? For all shall know me. That's why we say this is mostly going to be taking place in the millennium. In the Great White Throne Judgment Period, where the laws and the Word of God covers the earth like the waters cover the sea.

So don't let people tell you this is all done away. That's fallacious theology. Okay, let's go back to Deuteronomy and take a look at the one last section here we're going to go through about the next three or four verses. And we'll call it quits because time is running out. Again, we've got a, you know, Wayne was talking about something and the reason I was attracted to his sermon up today is he had a very nice set of props, did a very nice job, made a lot of good points. But God is going to make some really good points here. And it's really interesting the way God does this. Again, the consummate teacher. Verse 11. And Moses commanded the people on the same day saying, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people when you have crossed over the Jordan. Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these shall stand on Mount Ebel, the curse, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulon, Dan, and Actilae. Now, let's pause here for a moment. I know that, you know, you probably have not studied the topography of Israel in a long time. What you have are these two smaller mountains or mounts. You've got Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebel. Between them is a valley. And the valley is the city of Shechem. We talked about where Abraham was blessed there. Joseph was buried there, became a city of refuge, Levitical city, and so forth. Now, so you've got that. On the one mountain, Mount Gerizim, you've got half of the tribes of Israel going to be speaking to the blessing of the people. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Mount Gerizim, when you looked at it, you saw a beautiful, green, vibrant mountain. Probably water flowing, probably waterfalls, interesting topography, beautiful, gorgeous. And from there, a discussion about blessings. Mount Ebel, where they were having the cursings announced, like a barren piece of rock, like the moon. Nothing there. Awful.

So you've got the nation of Israel. You've got these two mountains forming, and in between, you've got a valley. So what you have is basically an amphitheater. In between, in the Shechem, you've got the priests. And these weren't just any priests. These were the ones who held, and took, not held, but carried the Ark of the Covenant. The priests were between the two mountains shouting out the Covenant of God. Between the priests, among the priests, was the Ark of the Covenant. So here you have the priests shouting these things out. All Israel, surrounding the situation, blessings coming from the beautiful mountain, curses coming from the ugly mountain, all of Israel looking down between, and what are they seeing? They're seeing the Ark of the Covenant. What was in the Ark of the Covenant? Three things, right? You've got the tablets of the Ten Commandments. You've got the rod that butted. And you've got the pot of man.

And so they're looking down, and this is an object lesson. God says, if you're blessed, you get Mount Gerizim. If you're cursed, you're going to Mount Ebal. And what tells you which way you're going? You look to the center of things, and there's the Ark of the Covenant. Now, one other thing that I've not mentioned to this point is that those two mounds and Shechem are basically in the center landmass of the Promised Land, in the very heart of the Promised Land. Now, does the teaching get any more clear than that? You talk about our Father giving word pictures. Let me read from the Nelson Study Bible notes here, and I quote, Mount Ebal was north of Mount Gerizim. Between the two mountains was the city of Shechem. Shechem and its two mountains are roughly in the center of the land of Canaan. Adding more detail, Ebal and Gerizim are the two important peaks in central Canaan, flanking an east-west pass through the north-central hill country. Almost the entire Promised Land is visible from the top of Mount Ebal. The Lord used topography of the land for dramatic visual effect. Mount Ebal, where the curses came because of the topography and climatic conditions, is normally a barren peak, while Mount Gerizim, where the blessings come from, is usually covered with vegetation. Constantly, Mount Ebal was an ideal place for the curses to be recited. Mount Gerizim was suitable for the blessings. The association of the place and the words should have been unforgettable. God was impressing something on their minds. And doesn't God do that with us all the time?

When we're sitting there at Passover and we've got the symbol of bread, we've got the symbol of wine. During the days of unleavened bread, we just have unleavened bread.

During atonement, we don't have anything. Doesn't God teach us using physical things? He was teaching these people using the physical things that were there.

Verse 14, chapter 27, verse 14, And the Levi shall speak with a loud voice and say to all the men of Israel. And then from this point on, there's this whole list of cursings.

There's not a lot of blessings being done here in the rest of this chapter. The idea being, you know, you mess with God in the wrong way, you're going to pay a price.

Sin has its consequences. Even if we're repentant, sin has got its consequences, right? You and I, I think everybody in this room has done things we would regret. We repent of, but just like in David's life, the man after God's own heart. He killed one man to take his wife, had a baby, the baby died. Even though David was repentant, there are consequences to our actions. And God many times allows us to learn the bitterness of those consequences. That's why on Passover evening, the ancient Israelites had the bitter herbs. So, the bitter consequences of sin.

So, brethren, we're going to stop there for today. In the future, we'll go through other sections here of Deuteronomy. But as I was preparing this, I just was struck by the tremendous teaching, the visuals that God has for us in a story like this. And for all the lessons to be thought about and meditated, please, brethren, take the time to think about what God has for us here. That's why this is God's Word. That's why He's given us this beautiful example to study.