Contributing commentaries by pastors Sonny Islas, Albert Lopez, and James Fire
DEUTERONOMY 12: “UNCOMPROMISED WORSHIP” by Sonny Islas, check out the complete teaching here!
And for even more on this, check out David Guzik’s study on
INTRODUCTION: In Deuteronomy 12, Yahweh God calls for uncompromising worship by the mouth of Moses. Israel must worship in the holy way and in the holy place that GOD has prescribed – How and where God has chosen. Cannan was a land that was pagan through and through and was utterly infested with gloss idol worship. And it’s no different for us NT believers today – we too are called to refrain from anything and everything that dishonors the LORD.
DEUTERONOMY 12:1-5
1 "These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the LORD God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. 2 "You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. 3 "And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. 4 "You shall not worship the LORD your God with such things. 5 "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.
Vs. 1 ‘’YOU SHALL UTTERLY DESTROY ALL THE PLACES WHERE THE NATIONS WHICH YOU SHALL DISPOSSESS SERVED THEIR GODS…”
First things first, Commandments #1 and #2 are to be obeyed in order for God to be the only One worshipped – because only He is worthy of worship. Because He alone is the One true God revealed in three persons – Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
#1 Do not have other gods before Me.
#2 Do not make any graven image/idol to worship it.
YOU SHALL: Notice that the LORD leaves this most important responsibility on them – “you shall.” The LORD fights the good fight of faith with us and for us – BUT He also requires our participation. It’s not only that He fights the good fight of faith with us, but that we are also to fight alongside with Him!
UTTER DESTROY ALL THE PLACES: God wanted the Israelites to rid themselves of fully and completely all evil, wherever it was found. All Canaanite worship centers and locations were to be demolished. With no remains, trace, or remembrance of them. God wanted a nation where a Holy God is loved and enjoyed by a holy people.
God didn't want there to be any room for temptation, for compromising, for deception, for apostatizing, for falling away, for spiritual flirtation and adultery or backsliding. And they were going into a land where they’d be surrounded with idols and false gods! The bottom line of the bottom line is this:
God did not want to be worshipped along with Satan and his demons in the form of idols and perverted and twisted religious forms.
And God feels the same way today!
The Apostle Paul tells us to cast down every idea and false belief that is contrary to the Word of God and Christ.
2 CORINTHIANS 10:5 says,
“casting down arguments (that is - erroneous claims, faulty opinions, worldly advice and counsel etc.) and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
…bringing every thought (that is - humanistic ideas, unbiblical concepts, worthless theories; as well as fiery darts: those demonic thoughts that the enemy shoots into our minds if they are undefended with the helmet of salvation) into captivity to the obedience of Christ”.
Mental idols can creep in if we don’t wage the battles of the mind. We have to be super careful with what we allow our minds to entertain, believe and digest. What we watch (movies, television), what we listen to (radio and music) and what we read (books, magazines) – anything that can prompt our own imagination and thinking along ways that are anti-God, anti-Bible.
Jesus also warned us of loving money, material things, and people more than Him. “We cannot serve (or fully love) two Masters…” (MATT 6:24). There is only room for one owner! We are the property of God alone. We are purchased with a price (1 COR 6:20): with the precious blood of Christ (1 PET 1:18-23).
Jesus’ half-brother James warns us of “selfish ambition” (JAMES 3:14-16) and how it’s the work of demons to exalt oneself.
Vs. 2 “HIGH MOUNTAINS, ON THE HILLS AND UNDER EVERY GREEN TREE” Again, Canaan was flooded with pagan places for false god worship. Temples were built on high mountains because they believed that the higher you climbed, the closer to god you were. The Bible also calls these wicked spots the “high places.” They had many statues and altars located on hills and under trees.
Vs. 3 SACRED PILLARS: Not to get too sexually graphic here but some of these so-called “sacred pillars” resembled the shape of the male reproductive organ, where people worshipped false gods with sexually perverted acts. Most temples provided temple prostitutes to enhance the public’s worship experience.
The modern-day equivalent of this would be what La Luz Del Mundo cult does today as the supposed “spiritual leaders,” groom, deceive and seduce teenage girls to then violate their bodies sexually in the Name of God and worship. Telling these girls and their parents that God will bless them if their girls would just have sex with these “church leaders.” These men are demented, demon possessed monsters, not ministers!
One of these Canaanite like ‘’churches” (La Luz Del Mundo) is located near our old church building on 4th Ave.
Modern-day prostitution and sex trafficking is also equivalent to this Old Testament Canaanite-ish filth. All kinds and types of sexual perversions and pornography watching is no different than the perversion that happened in Canaan.
Asherim/wooden images: was one of the Canaanites favorite goddesses. She was worshipped as mother goddess. She was believed to be god’s wife – or El’s wife. She was known as the goddess of fertility (fruitfulness, success, and riches). It is said that many Israelites worshipped Asherim alongside Yahweh as though they were a pair/a couple. This was no doubt hardcore blasphemy. This is exactly what Moses was trying to avoid in warning them and commanding them to do what is right in the sight of God.
Vs. 4 YOU SHALL NOT WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH THOSE THINGS: I hear of supposed “evangelicals” or professing Christians who burn sage to rid of evil energy and use crystals for personal power and other pagan paraphernalia to “worship God with” – this is spiritual insanity. God only wants to be worshiped as revealed in scripture – in the Bible and in no other way.
Notice how DEUTERONOMY 12:2 says,
“destroy all the places (plural – meaning more than one many place or many places)?” and in verse 5 it says, “But you seek the place (singular) where the LORD chooses, out of all the tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go.”
The point here is that the Canaanites have many places of worship because they serve many gods. The Jews were to worship in one place only because they serve One God (kind) revealed in Three Persons of course.
The Canaanites were polytheistic, and the Jews were called to be monotheistic: many gods vs. One God.
The Jews worshipped on Mt. Ebal, Shechem and Shiloh until King David and King Solomon came along – then the Tabernacle was replaced with the 1st Temple in the territory of the Tribe of Judah – in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount.
Today as the Church of Christ, we worship in many places because every true believer has the Spirit of the living God living permanently (“sealed”) inside of them (1 COR 6:19). This wasn’t so with the Jews in the Old Testament.
DEUTERONOMY 12:6-28
6 "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. 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. 8 "You shall not at all do as we are doing here today-every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes- 9 "for as yet you have not come to the rest and the inheritance which the LORD your God is giving you. 10 "But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, 11 "then there will be the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow to the LORD. 12 "And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God, you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates since he has no portion nor inheritance with you.
There is no such thing as worshiping GOD “my way” if it violates the clear teaching of Scripture. Any who desire to worship GOD must do so according to the truth, and only through the Spirit of GOD: which requires that the participant must be born again in Christ, having received the Spirit (JOHN 4:24). GOD accepts worship only from His spiritual children, born of GOD's will, and His Spirit (JOHN 1:12-13).
For detailed study on these sacrifices check out the TTUF study on LEVITICUS Chapter FIVE & SIX
13 "Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; 14 "but in the place which the LORD chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you. 15 "However, you may slaughter and eat meat within all your gates, whatever your heart desires, according to the blessing of the LORD your God which He has given you; the unclean and the clean may eat of it, of the gazelle and the deer alike. 16 "Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 17 "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. 18 "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. 19 "Take heed to yourself that you do not forsake the Levite as long as you live in your land. 20 "When the LORD your God enlarges your border as He has promised you, and you say, 'Let me eat meat,' because you long to eat meat, you may eat as much meat as your heart desires. 21 "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, just as I have commanded you, and you may eat within your gates as much as your heart desires. 22 "Just as the gazelle and the deer are eaten, so you may eat them; the unclean and the clean alike may eat them. 23 "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. 24 "You shall not eat it; you shall pour it on the earth like water. 25 "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. 26 "Only the holy things which you have, and your vowed offerings, you shall take and go to the place which the LORD chooses. 27 "And you shall offer your burnt offerings, the meat and the blood, on the altar of the LORD your God; and the blood of your sacrifices shall be poured out on the altar of the LORD your God, and you shall eat the meat. 28 "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.
The LORD basically gives them the freedom to kill any clean (kosher) animal and eat the meat wherever they lived, only they were not allowed to eat or drink the blood of the animal and they were not allowed to do any kind of sacrificial work at home but only at the Temple or the place where God chooses.
The Canaanites were known to drink the blood of animals in order to supposedly get the animals traits or characteristics. i.e. The blood of a Gazelle or a deer would make them swift. The blood of a lion would make one fierce. The blood of an eagle would make one fast etc. It was all religious superstition.
Drinking blood is also very dangerous as it can cause sickness, diseases, and death.
Also, the blood was the life of the animal, and the blood was sacred because it pointed to the atonement (sacrifice and forgiveness of sin) Jesus made for us on the cross.
When God’s people ate at home or in the ever tangible presence of God at the Temple it was all a time of joy and celebration. The Jews were in a sense having BBQ’s with God all the time.
DEUTERONOMY 12:29-32
29 "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, 30 "take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, 'How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.' 31 "You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.
Vs. 30 “HOW DID THESE NATIONS SERVE THEIR GODS? I ALSO WIL DO LIKEWISE.”
Listen, people have strange beliefs. I ministered to Lawrence Park Landscaper yesterday morning and, long story short, he told me that God talks to him in unique ways – like when a hawk appeared, he said that it was God telling him that all will be well. Then he said that he prays to the trees and thanks Mother Earth for them. – I then shared the Gospel with him and the difference between General Revelation (creation) and Special Revelation (God’s Word) – he gladly listened.
Vs. 31 “They burn their sons and daughters to their gods”
Some pagan religions still do that today; about a year ago I was talking with Joshua from India, and he was showing me an actual real time baby sacrifice in a distant village. We prayed together as they were sacrificing a baby!
Moloch was the name of the Canaanite god whom they sacrificed their children to (PSALM 106:37; LEV 18:21). He had the head of a bull and the body of a man with a fire in his belly like a furnace or fireplace.
Today’s modern Moloch is Planned Parenthood and all abortion centers. It’s just more sophisticated paganism. Where a doctor wearing scrubs does the murdering, not an ancient Moloch priest with a religious robe on. And the abortion isn’t done on an altar or in a temple but in a clinic - in a “healthcare” facility, where no one is caring for the health or life of the baby being sacrificed (aborted).
Baby sacrifice is alive and well today – don’t be fooled. America has sacrificed over 57 million babies since Roe vs Wade (and some millions illegally beforehand). Thank God that it was turned over but the fight for babies continues.
For more information on how to carry on this fight, check out the TTUF article: MARCHING ORDERS AGAINST MOLECH.
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