Deuteronomy 12:15-19 Bible Study | Episode 889

March 6, 2025

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Deuteronomy 12:15-19  Bible Study | Episode #889

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison and you're listening to Hope Applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in Deuteronomy, chapter 12, and we're dealing with something that really, you know, to tell you the truth, a lot of times when you're, when you're studying through scripture, you're looking at something you're trying to figure out, okay, how does this apply to me? And by the way, that's legitimate, a very legitimate way to study scripture. Now, I will say to you that you need to study scripture for information, meaning you need to intake the information where it'll be a part of who you are and how you. How you see the world, just because you are thinking about the world through the lens of scripture. So sometimes you just gotta get the information. You gotta get the information into your mind, into your heart. And then sometimes as you're studying through scripture, sometimes as you're looking at scripture, you realize, hey, this was going on a long, long time ago, and it's the same situation today. The same things are going on. And you go, well, I mean, I thought mankind had gotten better. And the truth is, that's not true. It's not true. You're going to hear this all the time. In fact, the world is trying to sell you the progressive nature of humanity. And the truth is, is that man has not progressed. Man has not progressed in his ethos, in his ethic. He may have progressed in his knowledge, he may have progressed in his technology, but the heart of man is replete with wickedness. And, and he continues to, as an individual human being. Everyone that's born continues to struggle with their. With their. Well, they can they struggle with their evil, the evil that's in their heart. And so now can a human being progress in his life or her life to something better and more and more godliness? Absolutely, absolutely. But that, that progression ends with that human being, okay? And so you can Progress. And you can be a part of helping others progress. You can be a part of helping others become. But once you're gone, does my progression in someone else's life, meaning my help of them in their walk with God, does that continue on? Yeah, in fact, you get, you get reward for that and reward for everything that person feeds into other people. So yeah, my reward for being faithful to God. It is a, it is a great progression in the world, but that doesn't mean that, that I am progressing humanity such that they're less evil or less wicked when they're born. They're not. And, and some of the things that we deal with as far as just worshiping God today are found clearly in the Old Testament. Clearly you go through all these Old Testament stories and you realize, that's me. There's no way you can look at somebody who lived 3,500 years ago and say, that's me. And say that society or human beings are way different today than they were back then. If that's me, then there's not been a lot of progression. The heart of man is lost and must find God. Well, God must find us, and then we must respond to it for us to really, really ever have a true life and true progression. And so we get to this passage and he says, follow me. He's talking about where we're worshiping. He's going to pick them a place to worship, and that's where they're supposed to go to worship, okay? That's where they're supposed to go for these feasts and these festivals and to make their sacrifices. That's the place, okay? He says, you may, however, you may slaughter and eat your meat within all your gates, meaning, you know, obviously you can eat food where you live, okay? And by the way, you go, what does that matter? Well, when they did these celebrations, when they did these festivals, when they did, when they took their offerings to, to Jerusalem for a sacrifice, when they did all those sacrifices and all those offerings, God got a portion. Portion might be a burnt offering, meaning burnt before God. Or, or the bread offering might be a burnt offering. We've been through that Leviticus numbers, you know, that some of the offering would be burned up, some of it would be given to the priest, deed. Some of it. They would sit down with the priest and eat. Because it was, I mean, it really was a celebration. It was a celebration of the worship of God. So they give, the priests, they would get. They would sit down and literally eat the cooked meat. They would eat it and they would you know, add to it. You know, the, the loaf offerings, you know, the bread offerings, all, all those, the, the wheat offerings, the grain offerings, all that kind of stuff. The, the, the. The wine offerings, the libation offerings. And they would drink and eat and celebrate. Celebrate who? God. That's what worship's about. Worship is about seeking God, knowing God, celebrating God, who He is worshiping. And so they would do that. Now he's saying to him, look, there's a difference between you and, and your life. Eating and, and drinking and celebrating and living just living life and worship. And they're two different things. And you can't. You don't need to muddy them up, okay? Oftentimes you'll hear people say, I can worship God anywhere. You can. You absolutely can. But you can't worship God in His prescribed way by yourself somewhere. And you go, what are you talking about? Well, God says that we're to assemble ourselves for worship, meaning we're to come together as a group and worship Him. So you can worship him on your own, but you can't fully worship him on your own. You can't do that because he says that we're to gather together. He teaches in the New Testament that we're going to get together on the first day and that we're to worship Him. And there's a prescribed picture of that worship. We get it. In the Old Testament, you go to any church around the world, and even though there might be some nuances and differences because of the culture and because of the people that are around, there might be all that kind of stuff. Okay, might be. There might be all that kind of stuff. But the truth is, is that there's usually just. There's usually a pattern, a pretty, pretty obvious pattern. What it will. Patterns, Pastor. What's the pattern? Well, you know, you get together, you fellowship, and then, then you begin to sing. And during that singing, there might be. There might be the Lord's Supper, there might be a baptism, there might be all kinds of things like that that are celebratory. There's a, an offering that might be financial, that might be all kinds of things, but there's a given of an offering, and then, then there's usually a hearing of the Word, and then there's a call to respond to it. Now, that doesn't always happen. Some of those parts may be different, may look different, but that's how, how it generally works. Why? Because it's the clearly prescribed way to do it. And as you go through scripture, you know, that's. That's pretty much how it's prescribed. And that's how we're supposed to do it, and we're supposed to do it together. And God's saying, listen, you can eat what you want to, okay, according to the blessings of your God which he's given you. The unclean and the clean may eat of it or the gazelle or the deer alike. What he's saying is you can eat whatever. You're back at your place, only you shall not eat the blood. You shall pour it onto the earth like water. What he's saying is, don't eat the blood. Now, this has medical reasons for doing it. God's obviously got reasons for telling them not to eat the blood blood for just purely sanitary purposes. But he's also got a reason to tell them not to eat the blood because that's a part of worship. And he's saying, don't eat it. Don't eat the blood. Don't partake of the blood because the blood is a part of the sacrifice that comes to me. You may not eat within your gates the tithe or the grain, or the new wine, or your oil of the firstborn of your herd or flock, or any of your offerings which you vow, or your free will offerings, or your heave offerings from your hand. What he's saying is, all these offerings that you're supposed to make with me, you're not supposed to do it in your own place. You're not supposed to do it in your own village, in your own place. Don't do it there. Those offerings are to be brought to me where I prescribe to bring them. Bring them where I'm telling you to bring them. But you must eat them before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord your God chooses you and your sons and your daughters, your male servants and your female servants, your Levites, who is within your gates. And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God in all to you put to your hand, take heed to yourself that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in the land. What he's saying is, take care of the spiritual leaders that I'm giving you. The Levites that are going to live among you, you take care of them and you do these offerings. You take these offerings and you bring them to Jerusalem. It's going to be Jerusalem. We know that now. Okay, they don't know that here, but we know that now. It's going to be in Jerusalem. You're going to bring them there, and that's where you're going to do it. Don't do spiritual things and make them common. And we do that a lot now. You know that. And by the way, it's not like it's something that we haven't been doing and making common. We've been doing that a lot for, well, 3,500 years. 3,500 years. Well, I could do it this way. I can do it that way. Okay. Yeah. If I'm in my car singing to God, am I worshiping God? Yeah, I am. Am I doing the prescribed worship that God has told me to do each week? And what I'm doing in the car replaces what I'm supposed to be doing together with all God's people. No, no, no, that's not. No, sorry. I can worship God on the lake while I'm fishing. Yes, you can. In fact, you ought to worship God every day, all your life. Your whole life ought to be a offering of worship to God. Absolutely. But that does not negate the responsibility nor remove God's instruction that you're to worship him in his prescribed way. Well, Pastor, how you do that? Well, in the Old Testament, they'd meet together, they'd sing. They have some practices that they did that were worship oriented that God said. And like I said, I've already told you, you know, the Lord's supper, dancing, raising hands, baptism, all that kind of stuff. Not in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, all that kind of stuff. All of it. Then they would. Then they would have a hearing of the Word and a discussion of the Word, and. And they pray. Oh, I forgot. Praying. Pray. A lot of praying. Okay. And then. And then they would have. They would call people to. To account for the Word. They'd say, what does God say? What should we do? What then shall we do? And they do it. Okay. Now that is how God said to. We're to worship him. Come together and do that. Now, could they do that in their villages, at their synagogues? Yes. But could they take their sacrifices and just cut out Jerusalem? No, they couldn't. Why? Because God told them not to. Because before you know it, they're just going to start doing their own practices. And before you know it, they're not going to be worshiping God. They're going to be worshiping other gods because the heart of man is wicked. Because we have not progressed. And you know it as well as I do, that there are people out there who will say to you, I don't need to go to church to worship God. And that's not true. That's not true because you're in disobedience to God. So you're going to tell me that you're actively disobeying God's word where he clearly tells us that we're together in worship, you're actively disobeying God's Word and you're okay with God. Sorry, you're not. And let me tell you something. I'm quite sure in my now it's 30 years of pastoring and well over 40 years of reading God's Word. I am quite sure that if you're not doing what God has told you to do, that your worship is not very good outside of the church. And you're probably not chasing after God. And the truth is God's slowly seeping out of every aspect of your life and you're just playing games, saying, I can worship God anywhere. You're not worshiping him because when we do things the wrong way, we don't get God's results. That's a hard teaching, I know, but it's been going on for 3,500 years. So, you know, let's not act like we've already. We somehow arrived and figured it out, because we haven't. It is necessary that we come together and worship. It has so many aspects to it that are necessary for your life. And I guess I could spend maybe 20 weeks going through all the necessary reasons for worshiping God and not get to him. And you not realize how much totally you get from gathering together and worshiping him as a people. I pray that you will do that, that you'll find a place to worship. If you're in Tallapoosa county, we invite you to come to Lake Community Church. But if you're not, you should find a place where you're at to worship him on Sunday morning. And you go, well, Pastor, I listen to you every morning. I'm good to go. Nope, nope. Sorry. Not giving you that license. If you're saying that. I'm just telling you right now you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing. So if. If you. If your worship involves watching me on this screen and listening to what I say, they gonna get it. I'm not God. Just letting you know I figured it out. Took me a while to work it out in my head. I'm not God. I'm joking. I really have pretty much known that the whole time. And you're not God either. But God does want you to worship him and he wants you to know.

As you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.