Deuteronomy 12:20-28 Bible Study | Episode 890

March 7, 2025

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

Deuteronomy 12:20-28  Bible Study | Episode #890

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.

If you would like to revisit today’s Bible study, please visit our website at https://hopealive.buzzsprout.com/ to download the transcript. 

If this podcast ministered to you, please subscribe, and leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Reviews help us reach more people and spread the wisdom of God. 

Please follow us:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hopealivewithgod/

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/hopealiveministry/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LakeComChurch/ -Lake Community Church

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 talking about what we've been talking about Moses telling the people that there's gonna be a special place set aside, special place set aside in the land, promised land. And that place is gonna be the place where all the offerings and all the burnt offerings are gonna be made. They're not gonna have separate locations throughout Israel. They're gonna be one place to come, and it's gonna be a place of unity, a place where all of God's people come together and have their festivals and have their feasts, but also when they come to make their sacrifices, when they come to make their offerings to God, it's going to be in one location. And we know that's Jerusalem. But God has not told them where that is at yet. They don't know the promised land. They haven't really been in the promised land. They have scattered it out. They do have some knowledge about who lives there and what information's out there, but they don't go. And they're not going in the promised land. He's giving them kind of rules. He's saying, you can eat your meat, you can eat the produce that you produce, you can eat all you want to where you live. But what is sacrificed to me must be brought to me. Now, he's gonna add to that here. He's gonna explain to them that God is going to bless them. And in their blessings, they need to realize that, well, they need to remember God, if you want to know the truth. Oftentimes when we're in the middle of blessings, we forget God. And really we forget what God's done. So that when we get in a position again where we need to trust God, need to hear from God, need to know God, well, we've forgotten him. We forgot what he did. We've forgotten how to interact with him. We've wandered away and we've got to relearn it. We've got to re. Walk through it again. And so he says to them, he gives them some, you know, some things he wants them to do and to understand when their blessings come so that they don't forget the one who is the source of the blessing. And they focus totally on what they have received. Says verse 20. When the Lord your God enlarges your border as he has promised you, notice God's not speaking as if it might be true. He's not speaking as if it's possible that it's going to happen. He's speaking as if it's going to happen. He says, when the Lord your God enlarges your borders as he has promised you, meaning God's going to do these things and by the way, in your own life, he's going to enlarge your borders. He's going to give you more things to be in charge of, more things to have dominion over, more things to control. And you go, when did that start happening? Well, it may be happening in ways that you didn't want and isn't happening the ways you want it to because you got to first learn how to actually be in charge of God's blessings. And what I mean by that? Well, oftentimes people say, well, I want my borders to be enlarged, meaning I want my finances to be better, I want to live in a bigger house, I want to have better jobs. I want to do all those things. And you go, and God's not doing any of that for me. Well, he may be. He may be giving you children. He may be putting you in occupational situations where he can grow you and develop you and prepare. He may actually be in total. You may be totally in the boot camp of God's provision right now. He may be preparing you for all kinds of blessings. And you're complaining about it because he's got you in the school of God's plans. And you're whining because he's preparing you to. To be able to hold onto and to prosper in the place he's about to put you. So quit whining. I guess that's best way to say it this morning. That's not very loving, pastor on a Monday morning. Yeah, I know, but quit whining. He may actually have you in the perfect position to enlarge your territories, but you keep whining about it so you can't learn the things that are necessary for you to be able to hold onto those territories. Let God. Let God continue to build you up and see what he won't do to enlarge your territories. He said he promised you. And he said, when I do it, when God does it, this is what you need to do. You gonna say, let me eat meat? Meaning really what you're saying there is, I want the best. And let me say this. I say, let me eat meat all the time. I think that is a really good quote there. I think it defines me really well. Let me eat meat. Because you long to eat meat. You may eat as much meat as your heart desires. God's saying, listen, I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you a lot. I'm going to give you a big old blessing. If. If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his name is too far from you, then you may slaughter from your herd and from your flock, which the Lord has given you season. I'm going to give you all my best. All the best. And you may be far, far away from the place God said to bring his. Bring your offerings. You may be a good ways away from that. And if you are, that's okay. He says, you may be a long way from that place. And then you may slaughter you. And you can eat as much as you want. You can eat it within your gates as much as your heart desires, even if you're hundreds of miles away. You can have my blessing and you can walk in my blessing. You don't have to be in the middle of my presence all the time to walk in my blessing. And so when you're thinking about this, you realize God's saying, I'm going to give you big and lots of stuff. And it's going to be in a place where you're not necessarily always reminded of me. He says, only be sure that you do not eat the blood, for the blood is the life. You may not eat the life with the meat. You shall not eat it. You shall not. You shall pour it on the earth like water. You shall not eat it. That it may go well with you and your children after you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord. What now, what he's saying is, now there is some rules for this. There's some rules I'm going to give you about this. And what are the rules? Well, the rules are that the blood of the animals, it cannot be eaten. And if you're sacrificing it, it must be poured on the altar. The Blood must be poured on the altar. It is, by the way, in the Old Testament and the New Testament, blood is symbolic of life, okay? And in fact, the Bible says in the blood is the life. It says that itself. And by the way, it really is true. I mean, blood provides all of the life force that we have, all the energy that you have in, in your whole body for all the organs and, and everything that you do physiologically derives from your blood. Your blood is, is the mechanism by which, well, your, your whole life is sustained. And so in the blood is the life. And so as far as the animals are concerned, when they were eating meat, if they were taking it to be sacrificed, the blood had to be poured out on the altar. If they were preparing a meal, preparing a meal from God's blessing, the blood had to be poured out on the ground. And that means it was returned to the creation that God gave it to you from. Created it from. And so God says, I am the author of life. And so I get. Part of your sacrifice to me is, you understand that I'm the author of life. And life goes out for me and life returns back for me because I am the one who gives it and sustains it. And ultimately I'm the one brings you to the place where I bring your life into my presence for eternity. And so when you're kind of studying and thinking through this, you realize that God's saying you can live your life in abundance. And by the way, I've promised you that, and by the way, I want you to have that. But you're going to do things in such a way when you're living in that abundance that it reminds you of the source of that abundance. And the source of that abundance is me. That's what God says. I'm the source of that abundance. I'm the source of that life. And so when you're bringing your sacrifices to that appointed place, which we know is going to be Jerusalem, you're going to pour the blood out on the altar. You're not going to eat the blood of the sacrifice. And when you're, you know, hundreds of miles away and in your abundance and I'm blessing you with all kinds of things, you're going to pour that blood out on the ground, you're not going to eat it. You're going to remember that I am the author of life, and you're going to pour that blood out on the ground as a recognition that I am. I'm the one who provides you life, and I'm the one who provides you these enlarged borders, these great territories, when I'm the one who, who's giving you this great bless. I am the author of promises. And you're going to remember that. You're going to do what it takes to remember that. And you shall offer the burnt offerings, the meat 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, and you shall eat the meat. Notice we get to be a part of actually consuming the blessings of God, but the life comes from Him. The life is from Him. He says, observe and obey all these words which I command you, that it may go well with you and your children after you forever when you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. What he said is, be careful to do these things. And by the way, this is a little tidbit that's just right here at the end. Observe these things. So that might go well with you and your children. Observe these things that your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren might also know God and might observe them. And I say this because they're watching. They're always watching. Your children and your grandchildren are watching. And they realize what you consider to be important. And if they watch you watch your phone all the time, then they consider their phone to be something really important down the road. If you're watching God and you're looking for the things that God is doing and you're being a part of those things, they recognize that, too. When your children and your grandchildren see you worshiping God on Sunday morning, they realize who's important. And that thought and that understanding goes with them no matter where they go. And as they begin to figure out how to enlarge their territories, they remember what God has done with their parents and their grandparents. And if you train them in the way they should go, they. They, when they grow old, won't depart from it. And so these things that we do, they do have purpose and meaning. And the purpose and meaning is beyond our lives. When God decides one day to pour our life out as an offering to him and usher us into his presence, we won't leave behind nothing. But we'll leave behind a legacy of faith. And that is very important support and understanding. Oftentimes we don't come to those understandings till we're on into our 40s and 50s. And really they become stark and concentrated in our 60s and 70s. But. But until your children begin to get to the age where they leave your house many times you do not realize the importance of the things you do each and every day and each and every week that is in front of them that give them the best chance to enlarge their territories. Also, I would encourage you to walk in the blessings of God. I would encourage you more to walk in the blessings of God in front of your children.

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.