The Book of Review (Deuteronomy -
Chapter 12) - Part
2
Moses' famous last words and unique
funeral
Charles E.
Wigg
In verse 5 we have a
mention made of a place; a place that Jehovah would choose, it was there that
they were to bring their , first fruits, and every sacrifice that was offered to
God. This became a test for them later. And even some of their best Kings built
“High Places”, which the people clung to, even in days of revival. This smacks
of the idea of what was for the convenience of the people, a principle that is
common even today. Religious people, even Assembly people love to organise
things to suit their convenience, instead of always being guided by what God
desires as set out for us in His
word.
It is interesting to
note that later, when the kingdom was divided into two, (Israel & Judah),
that in order to secure the support of the people, Jeroboam said to them, “It is
too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, Israel, which brought
thee up out of the land of Egypt!”. He secured the support of those people by
encouraging laziness, and by making the worship of God a matter of convenience.
We might well ask, “Was it a matter of convenience for the Lord Jesus to leave
Heaven, to be found in fashion as a man, and to die for us on the cross of
Calvary?” The answer is surely NO, then as another has said, “No sacrifice can
be too great for me to make for Him”. (C. T.
Studd.)
The children of
Israel were to bring everything that was offered to God to that place. May the
Lord help us to see the importance of the place where He has chosen to place his
name. That is the importance of the place where believers are gathered to the
name of Christ alone! This was not to be confused with the normal things in
connection with the running of their households. When we come to the New
Testament we find that cunning and greedy men made use of the provision that God
had made for those who lived at a distance from Jerusalem, to make a business of
worship, and thus turned the general buildings of the Temple into a bazaar, and
a bank where they were able to change their money into currency that was
acceptable in the Temple. Such a spirit of greed and avarice, made the Lord
Jesus angry, and He drove out the sacrificial animals, overturned the banker’s
tables, and said to the sellers of Doves, “Take these things hence”. His zeal
for God’s house, greatly impressed the disciples, but it also made the merchants
angry. We find that the same spirit of profiteering has corrupted the Church
today, and we may be sure that the Lord Jesus is just as angry with the idea of
merchandise in the worship of God now, as He was
then.
Yet the merchants
might have claimed in that day, (as they do today), that they were providing a
service for the people of God. That they were making it easier for them to
worship God. Let us remember the words of David, when he refused to take the
threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite from him for nothing, saying that he would
not offer a burnt offering to God without cost. The worship of God is meant to
be a costly
thing.
In verse eight we
find that God in His patience overlooked the ignorance of His people, but once
they entered the Land, and once they had tasted of the rest of God, they were
responsible to act in accordance with His word. While in the wilderness, they
did what was right in their own eyes. That was a recipe for total anarchy, but
once they were settled in the Land, they were to be governed by the word of God
alone.
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[Reproduced by
permission of the
author]