“Worship God’s Way (Deuteronomy 12-13)" | 3/29/26
Deuteronomy 12-13 | 3/29/26 | Will DuVal
Imagine with me it’s “Pastor Appreciation” month (October), and you want to show me how much you appreciate me, so you put together a gift basket. With some snacks - Skittles & Hershey’s milk chocolate - some GIFT cards to Starbucks and Papa Johns, some swag - maybe a CLEMSON t-shirt and a CUBS hat, even some TICKETS to go see the OPERA in town. Have you accomplished your goal, of showering “blessings” on me - we’ve been talking a lot about “blessings and CURSES” in Deuteronomy - and for ME, that gift basket, however well-intentioned, would be a CURSE! Cuz those are all my least favorite things. You wanna bless ME, it’s gonna be chips & queso & Topochico, Chick-Fil-A cards & Grizzlies gear, and Forrest Frank tickets.
The point is: if you wanna show someone how much they MEAN to you, you better KNOW that person, their likes and DISlikes, and what brings a SMILE to their face, and what DOESN’T.
What does any of this have to do with Deuteronomy chs12 & 13 for this morning? Glad you asked. These chapters are ALL about WORSHIP. The simplest way of understanding “worship” is “assigning WORTH to” someone or something. And specifically, these chapters are gonna outline for us how to “Worship GOD’S Way”; how HE wants to be worshiped… what brings a SMILE to His face, and what DOESN’T.
Most commentators consider these chapters to be a transition point in the book of Deuteronomy, from Moses’ “first sermon” recapping Israel’s PAST, to his “second sermon” now regarding God’s PRECEPTS. (And then chs27-34 will conclude with his THIRD sermon concerning God’s PROMISES for Israel’s future in the Promised Land. So God’s PAST provisions, His present PRECEPTS, and God’s PROMISED pledges). And it is telling, that Moses BEGINS this second sermon now, about God’s Law, with these commands concerning our WORSHIP.
Now, quick but important reminder, right up front: I say “OUR worship”, but let’s remember the context here: Moses is writing FOR our benefit but he’s speaking TO the people of ISRAEL, some 3,400 YEARS ago. So when it comes to the instructions governing worship we find here, we need to distinguish between PRACTICES and PRINCIPLES. A LOT of what we’ll find here in the text, most explicitly, are PRACTICES - “Go to JERUSALEM to worship…”; “Bring me your BURNT OFFERINGS and animal sacrifices…”; “KILL the INFIDELS!” - these are all PRACTICES that God put in place for a very specific TIME and PEOPLE, that were NEVER intended to be binding on us, applicable still today; the NEW Testament makes that abundantly clear: “In [establishing] a new covenant,” Hebrews 8:13 tells us, “[God] makes the first one obsolete”; it is “ready to pass away”, and now HAS. However, if we dig just a little beneath the surface of the practices, we discover PRINCIPLES for worship that are TIMELESS, universally relevant and requisite for ALL people in EVERY time and place throughout history and the world. And it is those principles that we want to excavate, explore, explain, and then exercise, APPLY and EMPLOY in our OWN lives this morning, and going forward.
So I invite you to STAND with me (as you’re able; and settle in: it’s a long passage! )... Deut 12-13… Hear the word of the Lord:
““These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim with fire. You shall chop down the carved images of their gods and destroy their name out of that place. 4 You shall not worship [YHWH] your God in that way. 5 But you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go, 6 and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, your vow offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. 7 And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.
8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes, 9 for you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you. 10 But when you go over the Jordan and live in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, and when he gives you rest from all your enemies around, so that you live in safety, 11 then to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes and the contribution that you present, and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord. 12 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite that is within your towns, since he has no portion or inheritance with you. 13 Take care that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I am commanding you.
15 “However, you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns, as much as you desire, according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle and as of the deer. 16 Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 17 You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock, or any of your vow offerings that you vow, or your freewill offerings or the contribution that you present, 18 but you shall eat them before the Lord your God in the place that the Lord your God will choose, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your towns. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake. 19 Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land.
20 “When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised you, and you say, ‘I will eat meat,’ because you crave meat, you may eat meat whenever you desire. 21 If the place that the Lord your God will choose to put his name there is too far from you, then you may kill any of your herd or your flock, which the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your towns whenever you desire. 22 Just as the gazelle or the deer is eaten, so you may eat of it. The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it. 23 Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh. 24 You shall not eat it; you shall pour it out on the earth like water. 25 You shall not eat it, that all may go well with you and with your children after you, when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. 26 But the holy things that are due from you, and your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose, 27 and offer your burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, on the altar of the Lord your God. The blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the Lord your God, but the flesh you may eat. 28 Be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever, when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God.
29 “When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, 30 take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ 31 You shall not worship [YHWH] your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
32 [b] “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
13:1 “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
6 “If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend - who is as your own soul - entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 some of the gods of the peoples who are around you, whether near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth to the other, 8 you shall not yield to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him, nor shall you conceal him. 9 But you shall kill him. Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 10 You shall stone him to death with stones, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel shall hear and fear and never again do any such wickedness as this among you.
12 “If you hear in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to dwell there, 13 that certain worthless fellows have gone out among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, 14 then you shall inquire and make search and ask diligently. And behold, if it be true and certain that such an abomination has been done among you, 15 you shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, devoting it to destruction, all who are in it and its cattle, with the edge of the sword. 16 You shall gather all its spoil into the midst of its open square and burn the city and all its spoil with fire, as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It shall be a heap forever. It shall not be built again. 17 None of the devoted things shall stick to your hand, that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping all his commandments that I am commanding you today, and doing what is right in the sight of the Lord your God.” This is the word of God…
-
There’s a lot there, but just 3 main points for us this morning, when it comes to “Worshiping GOD’S Way” - He instructs us 1) WHERE to worship; 2) HOW to worship; 3) and lastly but most importantly, WHO to worship.
But we start with the WHERE of worship: and Moses’s ANSWER to the question here: in God’s (designated) PLACE. (12:1-27)
Now notice: he leaves the answer pretty VAGUE. He doesn’t actually NAME the place where “God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name”; as I alluded to in the intro, we know eventually that place would be JERUSALEM. Some 500 years later King Solomon would build the TEMPLE in Jerusalem, and God would “make his habitation” there. But for now, He leaves the exact place uncertain, but what IS certain is God’s clear prohibition against worshiping him in OTHER places, at least in certain WAYS. See, there are SOME acts of what might STILL be rightly called “worship” - “eating meat” (v15), “rejoicing before the Lord” (v18), “taking care of the Levite” (v19) - all those things can and should be done ANYWHERE, “within ANY of your towns” (v15).
But then there are OTHER acts of worship - “offering sacrifices”, “tithes and contributions”, “the holy things that are due from you,” v26 specifies, like “your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the [special] place that the Lord will choose”. V13: “do not offer your burnt offerings at [just] any [old] place that you see, 14 but at the place that the Lord will choose ”.
So what’s the overarching PRINCIPLE here? God’s ANSWER to the question of WHERE we worship? Well, it’s TWO-fold.
There’s a sense in which the answer is of course: “EVERYWHERE”! In John ch4, Jesus is talking with a woman from Samaria, and she says, ““Sir, [my people, the Samaritans] worship on this mountain [Mt GERIZIM, near Shechem], but y’all say [the JEWS say] that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”” And Jesus replies, ““Woman… the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father… The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” (4:20-23)
Jesus is saying, “Now that I’M here - the MESSIAH - I’m about to blow the LID off your entire IDEA of what worship IS and how it’s DONE. As long as you’ve got the “How” and the “WHO” right - you’re worshiping “in TRUTH”; the true GOD in the true WAY that He desires and DEMANDS to be worshiped - then you can worship ANYWHERE… EVERYWHERE… our worship is no longer tied to a physical place anymore - this or that mountain; Gerizim OR Zion - because what happened in the TEMPLE, on Good FRIDAY, when Jesus breathed his last, and gave up HIS spirit?
The temple CURTAIN - that once separated us from GOD’S Spirit, HIS presence - it was RIPPED in TWO, from TOP to BOTTOM, as God’s way of saying, “YAHWEH has left the BUILDING!”. I won’t be LIVING here anyMORE; where does God live NOW?
1 Corinthians 3:16, Paul announces to the church in Corinth: “Do you not know that Y’ALL are [now] God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells WITHIN y’all?” Which means, on the ONE hand, that we can and should worship EVERYWHERE; we no longer HAVE to travel to Jerusalem to meet with God, because He now lives WITHIN us.
And at the SAME time, it means that “God now lives within US”, plural; “Y’ALL are God’s temple”, Paul reminds them. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus promised us, “there am I among them,” plural (Mt 18:20).
So there’s ANOTHER sense in which we must answer the question of WHERE we worship God, by affirming, “In God’s designated PLACE”. Once upon a time that was the TEMPLE; but NOW, WE are His temple, specifically, when we gather together in His name as His BODY: the CHURCH.
That’s why BELONGING to a church, and being WITH the church, REGULARLY, is NEVER treated as an “OPTIONAL” thing for Christians in the Bible; No, do “not neglect to meet together” for corporate worship, God commands us (Heb 10:25). He gives us 59 “One Another” commands in the New Testament - “Serve one another, pray for one another, welcome one another, exhort one another, LOVE one another”... - pretty much ALL of them REQUIRE us to be a part of a community of faith in order to actually OBEY God’s word. Claiming to be a Christian without a church is like claiming to be a basketball player without a TEAM; you can go out in your driveway and dribble around and shoot baskets all you want, but until you actually get together with OTHERS, 5 on 5, or at LEAST 2 on 2, you’re not really playing BASKETBALL, cuz it’s a team SPORT. And we’d love to have you come join us and be a part of OUR team, if you aren’t already; our next membership class is in 3 weeks.
But as commentator David Guzik points out, “The man who tells himself, “I can worship God just as well out here on the golf course” [on Sunday morning as I can at CHURCH] is a man who - as v8 puts it here - is “doing whatever is right in his own eyes”; he’s giving God a basket of Skittles and Starbucks (Enduring Word: “Deuteronomy 12”), when the Lord has clearly TOLD us WHERE He desires to be worshiped on the Lord’s Day, when the Lord’s PEOPLE come together for the Lord’s worship: get your butt to CHURCH. Unless you’re sick, or you’re traveling and the ONLY flight available left on Sunday at 10am… then you find a Saturday night service.
Because as was the case for ISRAEL, there are certain ASPECTS of our worship - IMPORTANT facets - that REQUIRE us to be with the church: the LORD’S SUPPER (can’t do it on your own); corporate SINGING (can’t do it on your own); SERVING one another so as to build up the Body: NECESSITATES that we’re here together.
“Take care”, v13, “ that you do not offer your burnt offerings at any place that you see”; gotta go to the TEMPLE. There was an OT king once who tried to do AWAY with that requirement; his name was Jeroboam. It was right after King SOLOMON, who BUILT the Temple, violated the warnings of ch13 here and was led astray by the pagan practices of his foreign wives, and as punishment, God DIVIDED his kingdom in TWO: Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Well, Jeroboam was the Northern king, but the TEMPLE was located in Jerusalem, down south. And Jeroboam was worried that if people had to travel SOUTH to the TEMPLE to make their offerings and worship, like God had instructed, then they might DEFECT. So you remember what he DID? He built TWO GOLDEN CALVES for the northern Israelites to worship instead; “Why travel all the way to the TEMPLE, when you can worship from the comfort of your own tribe? After all, we can worship God ANYWHERE…” (1 Kings 12:28)
And he NAMED those two idols: “LIVESTREAM” and “YOUTH SPORTS”.
“Take care that you do not offer your offerings at any place that you see, but at the place that the Lord [has] chosen” (v13), His CHURCH.
#2- Moses outlines for us here HOW we are worship: by God’s (designated) PROTOCOL. (12:3-32)
Protocol refers to “a system of rules that explain the correct conduct and procedures to be followed in formal situations” (Merriam-Webster), SUCH AS… our WORSHIP.
And God GIVES us His protocol for worship here, at least in PRINCIPLE (again, the PRACTICES will differ today). And actually, God offers us FIFTEEN principles for worship here. We’re gonna FLY through them; less than a minute each. We must worship:
1) HUMBLY- why did the pagan nations worship their gods “on the high mountains and the hills”? Because they were trying to get closer to the gods. Think “Tower of Babel”. But God says, “The only way you’re getting to me is if I decide - in LOVE - to condescend and come down to YOU”. And He declares “this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit” (Isa 66:2).
2) We worship CHASTELY - Why did the pagans worship “under every green tree”, usually with sexual acts; people would come and pay the priests and prophetesses of Baal and Asherah to have sex with them underneath especially LUSH trees, because they thought it boosted FERTILITY for their family, their livestock, their crops, when they reenacted what the GODS must be doing up there, which resulted in rain, and babies.
But YAHWEH says “No, I grant fertility to whomever I choose.” And remember who He PROMISED it to? The BLESSINGS from ch11 last week? Those who OBEY, who are CHASTE in their personal holiness.
3) We must worship UNADULTERATEDLY – v3: “You shall tear down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and burn their Asherim… destroy their name out of that place. You shall not worship [YHWH] your God in that way. ” Because God makes NO ALLOWANCE for syncretism. Syncretism is the BLENDING of different religions or objects of worship.
*“Christian Nationalism” - worshiping God AND country, an indistinguishable from one another; both end up suffering. It’s not very Christian OR patriotic.
*the so-called “Prosperity Gospel”, blending worship of God with MATERIALISM; “Mammon”.
*or “Religious Pluralism”, blending the worship of God, the God of the Bible (kind of…) with the gods of Islam, or Buddhism, or New Ageism…
God makes it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR here: “You shall not worship [me] in that way”! Every lesser “god” is just an IDOL, and we are commanded to SMASH our idols before the Lord.
4) We worship DEFERENTIALLY - v5: “you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose ”; v8: “not doing whatever is right in [your] own eyes” – Not the gift basket that YOU would want to receive (or more accurately, the one that is EASIEST for you to OFFER Him); No, if we’re really worshiping GOD, we give Him the worship that HE desires. David Guzik points out: “Much of what is called ‘worship’ in today’s church isn’t really worship. It is self-focused, man-focused, and personal experience-focused instead of being GOD-focused. Much of today’s worship is measured by how the worshipper feels instead of being measured by how God is honored.” (ibid) And God TELLS us how He is honored, the kind of worship He accepts and LOVES… here in His WORD.
5) We worship JOYFULLY - so important Moses repeats it THREE times! v7: “you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice”; v12: “you shall rejoice before the Lord your God”; and v19: “you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all that you undertake”. Every time it’s phrased as a COMMANDMENT! People have this misconception that God is the “fun police”, and his whole M.O. is to make sure we’re not having too much FUN down here. But here, and elsewhere in His word, God actually COMMANDS our JOY!
It was DAVID’s prayer “make [me] glad with the joy of your presence.” (Ps 21:6)
So too the apostle Paul: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy” (Rom 15:13); “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.” (Phil 4:4)
But most significantly, JESUS claimed it was the very reason that He TAUGHT us: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (Jn 15:11)
Friends: God LOVES a cheerful giver (2 Cor 9:7), and a JOYFUL worshiper.
6) We worship CORPORATELY - v7: “you and your households”); we unpacked that already in point #1 concerning WHERE we worship: with God’s PEOPLE, the CHURCH. But Moses goes BEYOND that here, in vv12,15, 22, to indicate that God wants His worship to be…
7) UNIVERSAL - “...your male servants and your female servants, and the Levite”; “The unclean and the clean alike may eat of it”, when you WORSHIP God by ENJOYING your meat “according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you”. God invites EVERYONE to the party, to come enjoy the good gifts that HE’S given, and to WORSHIP Him accordingly. Which is a good segue way to point #...
8) We worship GRATEFULLY - v7: “you shall rejoice… in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”. See, it’s ONE thing to be JOYFUL, but it’s ANOTHER to be GRATEFUL. An ATHEIST can ENJOY the food on her table. But in order to truly be GRATEFUL, you need an OBJECT of your gratitude. Thanksgiving must be GIVEN to someone. So WE sing “Praise GOD from whom ALL blessings flow!”
9) We worship GENERALLY, on the ONE hand; v15: “you may slaughter and eat meat within any of your towns”. Ajith Fernando explains (PTW: Deuteronomy, 372): “According to the regulations described in Leviticus 17, meat from the kinds of animals used for sacrifices, like sheep and cattle, could be eaten only during meals in connection with the sacrificial ritual… This was because during the wilderness travels there weren’t many cattle and sheep, and also because everyone was near to the tabernacle where the sacrifices were offered. When they got to the promised land (however), most people will NOT be near the place of sacrifice [they spread OUT]. And as there will be opportunity to have large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, there WON’T be a shortage of sacrificial animals. So the restrictions are removed… This chapter shows us that the OT Law is not some dreary list of dos and don’ts, but is a way to lead people to the full enjoyment of life with God and with each other.” And you don’t have to be in one specific PLACE - the TEMPLE - in order to enjoy it; God wants life to the fullest for us, generally, at ALL times and places.
Yet at the SAME time, #10) We do also worship PARTICULARLY; v17: “You may not eat within your towns the tithe of your grain, wine or oil, or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock…”; v26: “But the holy things that are due from you, your vow offerings, you shall take, and you shall go to the place that the Lord will choose”. YES, we worship God ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE (“whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God”, 1 Cor 10:31). But there are OTHER calls to worship in God’s word, as we’ve noted, which require us to worship in PARTICULAR ways - not just ANY time and place, but at a particular place and time with a particular people, GOD’S people.
And there are certain COMPONENTS of our worship that ought to be reserved for God ALONE. We worship #11- REVERENTIALLY.
For Israel, it was the BLOOD of the sacrifice; v23: “Only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life”. That belongs to God ALONE.
So we might ask OURSELVES: if ALL of life is, in a sense, “worship”, because we are ALL “assigning worth”, all of the time, to different tasks and people - my son Elijah has a birthday party this afternoon, and 21 kids from his class (plus even some of their PARENTS), are gonna be there to effectively say, “Elijah: you are worth TWO HOURS of my Sunday afternoon” - but we’ve gotta ASK ourselves, Church: what aspects of my worship do I reserve for GOD ALONE? There’s a part of my heart that NO ONE gets - not my KIDS, not even my SPOUSE - because it belongs exclusively to THE LORD.
#12) We worship COMPASSIONATELY; v12, v19: “Take care that you do not neglect the Levite as long as you live in your land… since he has no portion or inheritance with you”. God explicitly here makes caring for others an act of WORSHIP! James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction”. “You wanna assign ME worth,” God says: “assign THEM worth. Cuz they are my children, who I made in my IMAGE”, and “‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it for one of the least of these my brothers,[f] you did it for me.’” (Matt 25:40).
#13) We worship DISTINCTIVELY - vv30-31: “do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way”. We worship DIFFERENTLY. Others MAY skip church for golf, or youth sports, or the Cardinals game, or LOTS of reasons… but not YOU. Others MAY assign way too much worth to their CAREER, or their KIDS, or their STATUS… but not YOU, God says. You belong to ME. You are to be “holy”; “set APART”.
#14- We worship PURELY - v31: “every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.” Guzik explains: “This referred to the practice of Molech worship, where Canaanites offered up their children by placing them alive on a burning hot statue of the god Molech. And sadly… Israel had a tragic history of following this horrible god Molech.
· King Solomon sanctioned the worship of Molech, building a temple to him (1 Kings 11:7).
· Kings Ahaz and Manasseh of Judah gave their own sons to Molech (2 Kings 16:3; 2 Kings 21:6.).
· One of the great SINS of the northern tribes of Israel was their worship of Molech, leading to the Assyrian captivity (2 Kings 17:17).
And you think, “Well what’s the relevance for us today? It’s not like we sacrifice our children today…” - Or DON’T we? We just LEGALIZED it in our state a year and a half ago! And THOUSANDS of babies were slaughtered last year in Missouri, most of them at the altar of personal convenience. What does that have to do with worshiping God PURELY? Well let me ask you: how does abortion get legalized in a state where 75% of residents claim to be CHRISTIANS, a majority of them “evangelicals”? In a word: syncretism. The Church has adopted the wicked principles and practices of the world around us.
So what’s the FIX? How do we right the ship? For starters, and lastly on point #2 concerning God’s protocol for worship:
15) We must worship CAREFULLY! v28: “Be careful to obey all these words that I command you”; v32: ““Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.” We worship God on HIS terms. And Moses uses this verb shamar - “take care” - SIX times in this chapter, and 65x total in this book, to emphasize his warning.
Heb 12:28-29 “let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” So worship CAREFULLY!
Because of WHO it IS that we worship; point #3 now, we’ll be quick, but…
3) We must honor God’s (distinctive) PRIORITY in our lives (13:1-18).
We discussed it already: Priority is “the right to precede others in order, rank, privilege, etc.”; it means “to take precedence.”
And God has 3 questions, 3 TESTS of our priorities here for us in ch13:
Do you love & trust me more than INFLUENCERS? (vv1-5) Prophets and dreamers. Even miracle-attested prophets; notice v2: “even if the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, (remember, Pharaoh’s magicians turned THEIR staffs into snakes too; the question isn’t “do they have power”, but “where’s their power FROM?”. God wouldn’t be so CONCERNED with us dabbling in sorcery, witchcraft, dark magic… if there wasn’t ACTUAL power in it. So even if their fortune-telling comes TRUE…) but if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’... don’t LISTEN”. Paul says in the NEW Testament: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to this one, let him be accursed. ” (Gal 1:8)
Do you love & trust me more than FAMILY? (vv6-11)““If your brother… or your son or daughter or the wife you embrace[d] or your friend who is as your own soul entices you, ‘Let us serve other gods,’... you shall kill him. And your hand shall be first against him to put him to death”.
Jesus said “Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matt 10:37). Your love for your family has to look like HATRED in comparison to your love for me.
Lastly: Do you love & trust me more than your own COMFORT? (vv12-18) It would have been pretty uncomfortable to have to go confront a whole other town full of strangers, to get up in their business… put them to DEATH! Wouldn’t you rather stay home, mind your own business?
But God says, “A little sin SPREADS, and before you know it THEIR idolatry problem will be YOUR idolatry problem.” So you must root it out completely.
Because as Jesus reminded us “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” (Lk 4:8)
Why? [[CONCLUSION]]: That’s where we END this morning. After the “where” and the “how” and even the “WHO” of worship… is the WHY. Why do we worship God alone? Because v10: “the Lord your God brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Because God alone RESCUED us from our SLAVERY to sin! By sending his only SON to die in our place on that best and worst of Fridays 2,000 years ago… and to RISE from the grave on Easter morning to give us NEWNESS of life. May we WORSHIP Him for it.