In Closing April 3, 2014 Wrapping Up the Second Sermon Deuteronomy 26 Page 1

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1 In Closing April 3, 2014 Wrapping Up the Second Sermon Deuteronomy 26 Page 1 How do we react when God provides for us? When a new opportunity He opened up becomes reality what should our reaction be? The Lord has anticipated this question and Moses deals with it in his closing remarks to his second sermon These are special instructions for the the nation will see This is a way to show the nation the land the crops The firstborn Tithing The Sabbath The Sabbath year The Jubilee Year This was to be I cannot provide a thanksgiving on your behalf Psalm 50:10 12 For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains. He has never renounced His deed of ownership He only further locked it down 1 Corinthians 6:19 20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. 1 Peter 2:9 10 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.

2 Page 2 John 19:30 Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, It is finished! And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit. We are to presume upon the God of the universe that we have ownership over anything here on this Earth We do have something we own Ephesians 1:3 12 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. Everything we own here on planet Earth is in reality a provided to us by the king to take care of on His behalf How are we doing on that? to the place where the LORD your God chooses to establish His name. Not a place of our choosing Only where It was originally at Gilgal, then Shechem, then Shiloh, then Mizpah, and later, after David s conquest of Jebus, Jerusalem (cf. 2 Sam. 5:6 7; 1 Chr. 11:5, 7). The purpose of a central sanctuary was tribal and religious unity. It was also to keep the Israelites away from local Ba al shrines. Bob Utley, Deuteronomy, Study Guide Commentary Series (Marshall, TX: Bible Lessons International, 2008), 275.

3 Page 3 It was common for Semites to regard a part of the whole as the whole (v. 9; cf. Josh. 21:43 45; 2 Sam. 5:6 10; 1 Kings 13:32; Jer. 31:5). They did not think of the firstfruits that they offered to God as the only portion they owed God. They viewed it as representing all that God had given them all of which belonged to Him. Tom Constable, Tom Constable s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Dt 26:1. The nation was to, individually, what God has done for them Do we have times where we sit and remember what God has done for us? This is being done here during a time of What is worship? The origins of the word worship aid in defining its meaning and usage. Worship is from the Saxon/Old English word weorthscipe or weordhscipe, which means worthship or worthiness. This connotes actions motivated by an attitude that reveres, honors, or describes the worth of another person or object. R. P. Martin, Worship, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, ), Hištaḥawâ - TO BOW ONESELF DOWN, to sink down, to be depressed, to prostrate oneself before any one out of honour. Those who used this mode of salutation fell on their knees and touched the ground with the forehead Wilhelm Gesenius and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Gesenius Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2003), προσκυνέω (κυνέω to kiss ). used to designate the custom of prostrating oneself before persons and kissing their feet or the hem of their garment, the ground, etc.; to express in attitude or gesture one s complete dependence on or submission to a high authority figure, (fall down and) worship, do obeisance to, prostrate oneself before, do reverence to, welcome respectfully, William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker, and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 882. It is important for us to express our gratitude for what God has done for us All you are doing is what the Psalmist said Psalm 29:2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due to His name; worship the LORD in holy array.

4 Psalm 147:1 Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant and praise is becoming. Page 4 Philippians 4:6 8 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Praise is Praise is from an outflowing heart Praise gets us off of me and oriented to Once the nation has experienced three years in the land, they then have another offering to make Now they are making provision for the Every third year, the tithe was to be kept local and not taken to the Tabernacle But there was a required attestation to be made regarding the disposition of the tithe Were the people faithful in this? Malachi 3:8 10 Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, How have we robbed You? In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Are we faithful in this? Offering food to the dead was a Canaanite practice Putting food in a grave was Egyptian practice Still practiced today The worshiper would declare his obedience and allegiance to God God then declares back His election and call to His people The KJV uses the term peculiar people Many believers believe today that applies to them

5 Page 5 Deuteronomy 26:16 19 The LORD your God is commanding you this very day to observe these statutes and judgments. Be careful to obey them with all your heart and soul. You have declared this very day that the LORD will be your God. You are to walk in his ways, keep his statutes, commands, and judgments, and obey his voice. The LORD affirmed this day that you are his prized possession. Therefore observe his commands, so he may elevate you far above all the nations that he has made. Then you will live to the praise, fame, and glory of God, and so be a nation that is holy to the LORD your God, as he has promised. (ISV) I like the idea of being God s This applies to New Testament believers as well 1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people to be his very own and to proclaim the wonderful deeds of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (ISV) Even more, we are God s gift to John 17:11 12 I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. This is the conclusion for the remarks Moses began his second sermon with Deuteronomy 5:1 Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. God s goal for His people is That is still His goal for us today That ends the second sermon of Moses, he has one more to go Sermon Three The Altar on Mt. Ebal Deuteronomy 27:1 8 Instructions for the To do s for after crossing the Jordan

6 Page 6 Joshua 8:30 31 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings...to set up large stones covered with lime upon Mount Ebal, after crossing into Canaan, and to build an altar there for the presentation of burnt-offerings and slain-offerings, and to write the law upon these stones Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 959. The people, upon entering the land, were to again,. In the midst of the turmoil, they need to take time to remember how they got there For us, as we enter the land and cross over, we have to Their tenure in the land, their dwelling there, would be determined by their obedience to God. That was a conditional arrangement. But the land was given to them with no conditions attached whatsoever. God has given that land to Israel, and that is an unconditional covenant. J. Vernon McGee, Thru the Bible Commentary: The Law (Deuteronomy), vol. 9, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991), 164. The people were to post God s law so that all would know who ruled the nation It is interesting to note that the altar and the law would be on the Mt of, not blessing 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Once the altar is completed Burnt offerings Peace offerings Offering Burnt offering Meal offering - Loveliness of Christ Peace offering Sin offering - Sin as a nature

7 Trespass offering - Sin as an act Page 7 The Peace Offering Also known as the Offering The only one which is shared with the worshiper A peace offering implies that fellowship has been established and accounts are in order Do we take advantage of that access we now have as a result of the work Jesus did on the cross? In eastern culture at this time, it was not unusual for those who had been at war to sit down and eat together symbolizing the establishment of peace Peace Offering To be shared with the worshiper The Priest (servant) also gets to share The war is over The sacrifice is acceptable Now there is peace with God and each other Now there is communion with God and each other True Fellowship Ephesians 2:13 22 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. AND HE CAME AND PREACHED PEACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. We clearly see that as soon as the land is entered and in the midst of combat with the world, we still need to to worship, ensure we are holy through repentance, and with the Lord and each other Past teachings, study notes and slides of Through the Bible with Pastor Ken Brown are available at: