Living in Canaan Land
Deuteronomy 12:1-4
When Israel was in bondage in the land of Egypt, God carried them out with His mighty hand and brought them to the shores of Canaan land. As they prepared to go into possess the land, .
I. Tear down the altars that compete for your worship. (12:1-4)
A. Verse 2 “You shall utterly destroy” – Demolish completely
B. The call is to put away all known evil. It can rob your life of all joy, peace, happiness, and spiritual power.
C. Hebrews 12:1 “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”
D. The army of Alexander the Great was advancing on Persia. At one critical point, it appeared that his troops might be defeated. The soldiers had taken so much plunder from their previous campaigns that they had become weighted down and were losing their effectiveness in combat. Alexander commanded that all the spoils be thrown into a heap and burned. The men complained bitterly but soon saw the wisdom of the order. Someone wrote, "It was as if wings had been given to them—they walked lightly again." Victory was assured. As soldiers of Christ, we must rid ourselves of anything that hinders us in the conflict with our spiritual enemy. To fight the battle effectively, we must be clad only with the armor of God (Ephesians 6:11-17). The Bible also likens Christians to runners. To win the race, we must "lay aside every weight" that would drag us down and rob us of our strength and endurance (Hebrews 12:1). This weight may be an excessive desire for possessions, the captivating love of money, an endless pursuit of pleasure, slavery to sinful passions, or a burdensome legalism. Yes, if we are to fight the good fight of faith and run the spiritual race with endurance, the watchword must be: Off with the weight! — Richard De Haan
E. If your Christian life is a drag, worldly weights are probably to blame - copied
F. 1 Thessalonians 5:22 “Abstain from every form of evil.”
II. Worship in the place where God has established (12:5-14)
A. Worship is not left to the opinion of the individual – it is not do as you please.
B. Verse 8 “You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes.”
C. Verse 4-6 “You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things. But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.”
D. Ephesians 5:25-27 “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”
E. Though as believers we can worship God anywhere, the Bible teaches us that Christians are to meet together on the first day of the week. To watch a worship service on television is not the same. It is in no way a substitute for God-ordained corporate worship.
F. Hebrews 10:24-25 “let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
G. “Aunt Effie” Linquist attended the First Baptist Church in Keokuk, Iowa, regularly for 88 years. She didn’t missed a single Christmas or Easter service. During that time 15 different pastors had served her church. She had listened to over 8,000 sermons, attended more than 4,000 prayer meetings, and said over 29,000 bedtime prayers. Mrs. Linquist taught Sunday school for over 50 years, and several of her former Sunday school students are now in the ministry. —Have a Good Day
III. Enjoy the daily blessings of God in your life. (12:7)
A. Verse 7 “And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”
B. The world sees too many sour Christians.
C. Psalm 118:24 “This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.”
D. Author Leo Buscaglia tells this story about his mother and their “misery dinner.” It was the night after his father came home and said it looked as if he would have to go into bankruptcy because his partner had departed with their firm’s funds. His mother went out and sold some jewelry to buy food for a sumptuous feast. Other members of the family scolded her for it. But she told them that “the time for joy is now, when we need it most, not next week.” Her courageous act rallied the family. (Christopher News Notes, August, 1993).
E. John 15:11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”
F. A declining Christian cannot be a joyful Christian; but a growing Christian who is walking in concert with the Lord has wonderful peace and joy.
G. Psalm 119:165 “Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them.
H. In one of his booklets, Adrian Rogers tells of some gold prospectors who discovered an exceptionally rich mine. One of them said, "Hey, we've got it made as long as we don't tell anybody else before we stake our claims." So they each vowed to keep the secret. Because they had to have more tools and provisions, they headed for town. After buying all the supplies they needed, they hurried back to the mine site. But they weren't alone. A crowd of people followed them because their discovery was written all over their faces. What happens on the inside shows on the outside. Joyful Christians with the light of God on their faces are needed in the darkness of this world.
IV. Return to God a portion of what He has given to you. (12:13-19)
A. Verses 17-18 “You may not eat within your gates the tithe of your grain or your new wine or your oil, of the firstborn of your herd or your flock, of any of your offerings which you vow, of your freewill offerings, or of the heave offering of your hand. But you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, and the Levite who is within your gates; and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to which you put your hands.”
B. Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
C. 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 7 So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
D. Malachi 3:110 “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try 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 such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.
E. Abraham commenced it.
Jacob continued it.
Moses confirmed it.
Malachi commanded it.
Christ commended it.—Selected.
V. Avoid setting up idols in your life. (12:29-30)
A. Verses 29-30a “When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you...”
B. You don’t have to go to heathen lands today to find false gods. America is full of them. Whatever you love more than God is your idol. (D.L. Moody - in Who said that? By George Sweeting, p. 270).
C. Ezekiel 14:3 ““Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts, and put before them that which causes them to stumble into iniquity. Should I let Myself be inquired of at all by them.”
D. Our hearts have the uncanny ability to make an idol out of absolutely anything. John Calvin once said, “Our hearts are idol factories. “
E. Idolatry is worshipping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshipped. - Augustine
F. 1 John 5:21 “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.”
G. “Whatever we give our minds attention and our heart’s affection, those objects can become the focus of our worship” – copied
VI. Don’t mimic the world in your life or your worship. (12:30b-31)
A. Verse 30-31 “take care... that you 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, 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.”
B. Don’t let the culture change you – you change the culture.
C. Jeremiah 10:2, “Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen …”
D. Today many modern churches try very hard to imitate the world in order to show that Christians are not really so different after all. But this flies in the face of true Christianity and the new creation emphasis (2 Cor. 5:17). Many today want a golden-calf kind of Christianity that pretends to worship God and live for the Lord without changing very much. Christianity is supposed to change people, but churches have allowed the world to change Christianity. As a result, the church does not change people; rather the people of the world change Christianity. Instead of Christianity advancing on the world the world advances on the church and blurs the distinctions between the lifestyles of the saved and unsaved - Kelly Sensenig
E. Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
F. I often visit newcomers in town and find them to be church shopping. They want to know what they can get out of church. Churches are one more consumer commodity. Worship services are not a place for us to serve God and neighbor but a place where people expect to purchase the best: inspiring worship, good music, moving sermons, quality child care. As if we buy God and not vice versa. Arthur Boers in The Other Side, May/June, 1989
G. 2 Corinthians 6:17 “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
