God's Will, Part 6
Notes
Transcript
Handout
We are continuing to look at God’s will expressed through his choice.
Deuteronomy 12:1-7 is the first place that we have “bahar” in the context of Yahweh choosing a place.
However, I could not help but ask this question: Where is the first place God chose to dwell with his creation?
He chose to dwell with man in the Garden of Eden. We get this idea in Genesis 3:8-9, stated in the negative, for man is hiding from the presence of God as a result of the shame of his and her sin.
8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
This passage sets the stage that it is God’s will that he dwells with man in a place. With this in mind, let’s turn and look at the passages where God is choosing a place to dwell.
1 “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 the Lord 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 the Lord 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 “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.
Deuteronomy 14:22-27.
22 “You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.
23 And before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.
24 And if the way is too long for you, so that you are not able to carry the tithe, when the Lord your God blesses you, because the place is too far from you, which the Lord your God chooses, to set his name there,
25 then you shall turn it into money and bind up the money in your hand and go to the place that the Lord your God chooses
26 and spend the money for whatever you desire—oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household.
27 And you shall not neglect the Levite who is within your towns, for he has no portion or inheritance with you.
Deuteronomy 15:19-20.
19 “All the firstborn males that are born of your herd and flock you shall dedicate to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock.
20 You shall eat it, you and your household, before the Lord your God year by year at the place that the Lord will choose.
Deuteronomy 16:1-15.
1 “Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
2 And you shall offer the Passover sacrifice to the Lord your God, from the flock or the herd, at the place that the Lord will choose, to make his name dwell there.
3 You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction—for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste—that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.
4 No leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the flesh that you sacrifice on the evening of the first day remain all night until morning.
5 You may not offer the Passover sacrifice within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you,
6 but at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell in it, there you shall offer the Passover sacrifice, in the evening at sunset, at the time you came out of Egypt.
7 And you shall cook it and eat it at the place that the Lord your God will choose. And in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.
8 For six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it.
9 “You shall count seven weeks. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time the sickle is first put to the standing grain.
10 Then you shall keep the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God with the tribute of a freewill offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you.
11 And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite who is within your towns, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are among you, at the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name dwell there.
12 You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.
13 “You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress.
14 You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns.
15 For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.
Deuteronomy 17:8-10.
8 “If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose.
9 And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.
10 Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you.
Deuteronomy 18:6-8.
6 “And if a Levite comes from any of your towns out of all Israel, where he lives—and he may come when he desires—to the place that the Lord will choose,
7 and ministers in the name of the Lord his God, like all his fellow Levites who stand to minister there before the Lord,
8 then he may have equal portions to eat, besides what he receives from the sale of his patrimony.
Deuteronomy 26:1-2.
1 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it,
2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there.
Deuteronomy 31:9-13.
9 Then Moses wrote this law and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.
10 And Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seven years, at the set time in the year of release, at the Feast of Booths,
11 when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.
12 Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law,
13 and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the Lord your God, as long as you live in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.”
What is Yahweh doing at the place he chooses?
He is dwelling there. He dwells everywhere, so he is making a special manifestation of his presence in the place of his choosing - to dwell with man face to face.
What places has he chosen?
He chose the Tabernacle.
He chose the city of Jerusalem.
He chose us, the body of Christ.
He chose the new heaven and earth with his people.
What things are being done at the place that the Lord will choose in the book of Deuteronomy?
Worship through sacrifice. How do we now worship in sacrifice?
Romans 12:1 instructs us as to what that looks like.
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Worship through eating and drinking with rejoicing in the presence of Yahweh.
The Israelites are appearing before Yahweh at the Feast of Booths.
The Israelites will hear the book of Deuteronomy read in the presence of Yahweh.
What are some conclusions we can draw from Yahweh choosing a place to dwell?
The takeaway for me is that Yahweh wants to dwell with his people face to face. He has gone to great lengths to make that happen. I pray that I am responsive to him, and that I chose to be in the place he has chosen to be face to face with me, which is, at this time, the people of God.