Not Like The Nations
Deuteronomy: Remember and Rehearse • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction
Introduction
Story of “like Mike” gatorade commercial
“Be like Mike. . . Drink Gatorade.”
We were created to worship. . . we are worshippers by nature.
We worship what we imitate.
We imitate what we value and see as worthy.
Key Point: Since God has chosen us in Christ to be a holy and set apart people, we must not worship and live like the world.
Key Question: Does your imitation match your confession?
In chapters 12-26 Moses begins to unpack and explain how the people must live out the Ten Commandments as they enter into the promised land.
Remember that the Ten Commandments are an explanation of the greatest commandment to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and might.
In Chapters 12-21, Moses commands the people that they cannot worship the Lord like the other nations in the promised land, because they were called to be a holy and set apart people.
They were chosen to be God’s treasured possession and to be different from the nations, especially in the way they worshipped Yahweh.
Tonight, we will learn two specific ways Israel was to be different from the nations in their worship: They must worship God in his chosen place, and his chosen prophet.
1. Worship God In His Place
1. Worship God In His Place
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.
To understand the importance of why God commanded Israel to worship him in his chosen place, we need to answer a few background questions about the Canaanites and their worship.
Who were the Canaanite gods?
Polytheism-many gods.
El, Baal, Asherah, fertility goddesses.
Saw the seasons, Sun, Moon, and Stars as gods.
The Canaanite gods needed to be appeased and were dependent on their creation.
How did the Canaanites worship their gods?
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.
They did what was “right in their own eyes” (Deut. 12:8).
Pragmatic. . . worshipped gods for their own selfish gain.
Canaanite worship was Religiously false.
Idol worship.
Canaanite worship was Morally corrupt.
Temple prostitution.
Canaanite worship was Physically and Brutally cruel.
child sacrifice.
Mutilation of their bodies in rituals for the dead.
Canaanite worship was Socially Destructive.
Multiple forms of sexual immorality.
Sorcery and Divination.
Because of the abominable practices of the Canaanites, Israel was commanded to destroy their places of worship to establish the name of Yahweh as the only true God worthy of worship.
So in contrast to the Canaanite gods, how must Israel worship Yahweh?
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.
They must seek the place where God’s name would dwell and worship him only there.
Not by setting up an idol.
Not by cutting themselves or shaving their heads.
Not by eating animals that God has declared unclean.
They must bring the proper burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Unblemished animals, the firstborn from their flocks (Deuteronomy 17:1).
They must bring their tithes and contributions. . . giving their very best to the Lord in providing for the priests and the poor-love others.
They must rejoice in the Lord and be filled with joy as they worship him (v. 7).
God commanded the people to gather together consistently to worship him in one place as one people.
God had redeemed Israel and set them apart to be his holy people, thus Israel must not be like the nations by imitating their abominable practices of worship, but must worship Yahweh alone his way and in his chosen place where he would dwell with his people.
So, Israel must worship God in his chosen place. Second, Israel must worship God through his chosen prophet. . .
2. Worship God Through His Prophet
2. Worship God Through His Prophet
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.
How to discern a false prophet.
If they persuade you from worshipping the Lord alone.
Deuteronomy 18:21-22 says someone is a false prophet If what they say does not come to pass.
Also, Deuteronomy 13:6-8 says that not only was Israel to not allow false prophets to deceive them, they must also be careful to not let even those they love persuade them from worshipping other gods.
Israel is to give supreme loyalty to Yahweh.
Moses said in Deuteronomy 18 that the Canaanites listen to “fortune-tellers, charmers, mediums, necromancers, and those who inquired of the dead,” but Israel was commanded to listen to the prophet God would raise up among them. . .
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen. . . 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him. 20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’
God promised to raise up a prophet like Moses from among the Jewish people.
He would be their mediator and priest just as Moses was on Mt. Sinai (Horeb).
He will speak all the words of God, and whoever does not listen to his words will be judged.
Thus, God called Israel to not listen to false prophets or be enticed by others to follow false gods, but only listen to the prophet whom he would raise up and who would speak all his words.
Response
Response
Worship as God’s Holy People.
Don’t Worship (live) like the nations.
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
We are in the world, but called not to be of the world .
14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Holding fast to God’s truth in his Word will keep us from being like the world as we live among them.
Worship in God’s Place.
We cannot worship God however we want.
“I worship God in nature.”
“I don’t need to go to church to worship God.”
“I can worship God apart from what the Bible teaches. . . I can worship God in my own way that makes me feel alive.”
Experiential, hype-filled worship, “good vibes.”
Worship God in Spirit and truth through the true temple. . . Jesus Christ.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
“In Spirit”: Through the Holy Spirit. We must be born again.
“In Truth”: Through Christ and his Word.
The church is now the temple where God’s Spirit resides.
19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
True worship
Offer our bodies as living sacrifices.
Worship the Lord with Joy.
Worship God’s Name Alone.
Don’t be enticed by anyone else to worship other gods. . . Don’t be deceived by false prophets, signs, and wonders.
Don’t be deceived by spectacles, signs, and wonders.
Social media influencers.
“Christians” in Sports and Entertainment.
False gospels
Prosperity Gospel.
Undermining PSA.
Social Gospel.
Moral Behaviorism Gospel
Love God supremely over all other people.
37 Whoever 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.
Listen to his prophet. . . the Lord Jesus Christ.
17 “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.
Does your imitation match your confession?
