Let's read the last two verses
of Deuteronomy chapter 16. I told you the last time I think
we had our Bible study that the subject doesn't end here with
chapter 16 and verse 22. It continues on in chapter 17. But let's begin our study tonight
in verse 21 and verse 22 of Deuteronomy chapter 16. plant thee a grove of any trees
near unto the altar of the Lord thy God, which thou shalt make
thee. Neither shalt thou set thee up
any image which the Lord thy God hateth." Now, you and I have
looked at this, and if you will look in your concordance sometime,
you will see that there are other scriptures like verse 22. And
you and I have looked at some of them concerning idols or images. And he says here that we are
not to set up any image because the Lord thy God hates them. God hates images. You can hold chapter 16 right
there and look back over in chapter 4. Let me remind you of this. In chapter 4 and verse 15, We
studied this when we were here, but there are several places
in the book of Deuteronomy that the Lord reminds them not to
set up any images. And look what he says in the
fourth chapter and in verse 15 of Deuteronomy. Take ye therefore
good heed unto yourselves. For you saw no manner of similitude,
no manner, no likeness on the day that the Lord spake unto
you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire." There on Mount
Sinai, when the Lord spake, they saw no images. They saw nothing.
They just heard His voice, and He reminds them of that. And
He says, Take good heed unto yourselves. lest you corrupt
yourselves and make you a graven image, the likeness of any figure,
the likeness of male or female, that is, the likeness of a man,
the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness
of any winged fowl that liveth in the air, the likeness of anything
that creepeth upon the ground, the likeness of any fish that
is in the waters beneath the earth. Now, I was amazed when
I read this because Wayne taught on Romans 1 last Sunday, and
you remember verse 23 of chapter 1, and let me read it to you
because it seemed like Paul almost quoted this passage of Scripture
when he's talking about idolatry. He said, "...professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like unto corruptible man,
that's what Deuteronomy says here in chapter four, to birds,
four-footed beasts, and creeping things. And I remembered that
passage that Paul almost seemingly quoted it here because he lists
four out of the five things. They made an image like man,
image like birds, image like beasts, and image creeping things,
that creepeth upon the earth. Why isn't an image so hateful
to God? And Wayne covered this so wonderfully,
and I commend him for covering this. If you want to get that
CD and listen to it again, it's just wonderful the way that he
covered this. But why does God hate these images? And it's because these images
are made to represent the being of God, or the work of God, or
the things of God. And what image is fit or able
to represent that? It's unbecoming of God for any
man to make an image out of wood or stone or metal and say this
represents to us the incorruptible God. It's hateful to the Lord
to do that. And you and I, one of the things
that you and I see, especially in our day, and in our communities,
is these crucifixes. We see people wearing the crucifixes,
and you know, we've seen them so much, people think little
about those. But what does a crucifix represent? Sometimes they have a little
image of a man on the crucifix. They either hold it on a stick
or wear it around the neck. But what does that crucifix represent? It represents Christ, doesn't
it? It represents the death of Christ. Is anything made by man,
stamped out of metal or carved out of wood, is anything sufficient
to represent accomplished redemption? You see why that's hateful to
God? that His incarnate Son come down from heaven and redeemed
us by His blood at a great cost to Himself and to stamp out or
carve out a little image of a cross with a man on it and say, this
represents Christ died. See why God hates that. You say,
Bruce, how do you know He hates that? Our text says He hates
these images. And He says, take good heed to
yourself that you don't make these things. You don't make
them. Instead of being pleasing to God that such representations
of the death of his son is made, he hates them. He hates them.
And how many of us in time past, we saw nothing wrong with these
images. Poor Joe and I used to attend,
the little church we used to attend years and years ago, they
had a picture of Jesus up front. And for quite some time, we thought
nothing about it. Until we finally come to the
knowledge, that's an image. An image of the Son of God. And some of us, you know, begin
to make an issue out of it and disturb the whole congregation.
We thought nothing much about a mourner's bench, about having
a mourner's bench. But that's an image, isn't it?
We were here at Frank Hall. Me and him got here a little
bit early. We were standing right here where I am now, Frank was,
and he was asking me why we designed this place like this and what
it looked like. And I said, well, it had a mortars bench here,
and we took it out. And I said, you know, we took
all the fence here out, and I looked there, and here's this little
cross. And I never had seen that before. But you know that needs
to come down. You say, Bruce, why are you making
an issue out of this? Don't make any image of anything,
the likeness in heaven or the likeness upon this earth, because
the Lord hates them. The Lord hates them. Frank said
they got to looking one day at Danville where Brother Fortner
pastures. And the end of every pew has a cross on it. So I bet you, I bet you if somebody,
I'm going to say something Brother Fortner about it and I bet you
anything he'll have somebody going over the chairs on him
getting those things on him. Why should we be careful about
this? Well, somebody said it aids us in our worship. You know
why? What is the question we should
ask ourselves when we think of these images like the crosses?
the crucifixes and like the altars and all kinds of images we see
in our day. The question we should ask ourselves,
when that person began to carve out that image, what was his
intention by making that? And he'll tell you, it was to
aid in the worship of God. It was made to integrate into
the worship of God. But you remember when the Apostle
Paul was on Mars Hill, and he beheld that altar, and he said,
I behold that in all things you guys are too superstitious, because
I saw, I beheld your devotions, and I saw this altar with this
inscription, this altar with this inscription, to the unknown
God, whom you ignorantly worship, Him I declare unto you, He's
the God that made the world. He gives to all life and breath
and He made this statement about this God. He's not worshipped
with men's hands as though He needed anything. He's not worshipped
with beads that men count when they say the rosary. He's not
worshipped with crucifixes we put around our necks. He's not
worshipped with mortars benches that we can take hold of with
our hands. And He forbids these things.
He forbids us to make these things. Look back over here in our text
again, in Deuteronomy chapter 16. Notice verse 21. He speaks there
about these images that the Lord hates. And notice verse 21. Thou shalt not plant thee a grove
of any trees near unto the altar of the Lord thy God which thou
shalt make thee. They planted groves of trees
near their idols. And we'll look at that in just
a minute. One man said this, he said, the
altar depicts the worship of God. And the altar of God was
to stand out in distinct and unmistakable separation from
those groves and shady places where false gods were worshipped. If they made an altar, if they
were to make it out of stones, uncut stones, And they weren't
to plant a grove around it. Because that's what the heathens
did. Remember when the children of Israel went into the land
of Canaan and they cut down their groves? They first destroyed
their images. They hid their orders and images
inside these groves. Here shows the separation in
the worship of God. They want to plant a grove near
the altar of the Lord. Now, it's a very telling thing. When you read the New Testament,
the word altar is in the New Testament 23 times. Twenty-two
times in the New Testament, it has to do with the altar of the
Lord, the altar of worship. One time it has to do with idolatry. And there's a little word, I
wrote it down because I can't even, it's two Greek words that's
given to define these two orders. I can't even pronounce them,
but listen to this. Twenty-two times out of twenty-three, the
Greek word, phy-tho-see-ah-tray-reon, Now, Mr. Baker, you can do a
better job pronouncing Greek than I can. I don't even sound like
Greek when I put it. That's a 17-letter word. Every
time the altar of the Lord is mentioned in the New Testament,
22 times, that Greek word is used. One time, the altar of
idolatry is mentioned, and it's defined by the Greek word vomos,
V-O-M-O-S. When I beheld your devotions,
I saw this altar. with this inscription. That's
Bono's. The rest of it is the 17-letter word. Isn't it strange? Isn't it very telling? When the
Holy Spirit wanted to define the order of God, 22 times He
uses this 17-letter word. When He wanted to define the
order of idolatry, He used this little short word. He could have,
if he was pleased, to shorten the twenty-two times with a five-letter
word. But he didn't. Why did the Holy
Spirit go to all of this trouble, brothers and sisters, is what
I'm saying. To make such a distinction in
the altar of the Lord and an altar that was used for idolatry.
Because of the importance of it. The distinction that's to
be made in the altar of the Lord and in idolatry. That's why he
says here, when you build an altar unto the Lord, don't you
plant a grove of trees around it. It's to stand out. It's to be distinct. The truth
of God, the worship of God, the gospel of God is distinct from
everything else in this world. And you and I know that, don't
we? And we believe that and we love that. Don't plant a grove. Something else concerning these
images and these groves, as I said a minute ago, these idolaters
sometimes hid their images in these groves. They hid their
idols in these groves of trees. Listen to Deuteronomy 27, verse
15. Cursed be the man that makes
any graven image, that abomination unto the Lord, the work of the
hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place." That was
the key. They planted a grove or they
found a grove. They would go in there and cut
the center trees out and then plant their idol and then worship
in secret. That's what these groves were
all about. That's why Israel was told to
not only break down their images, but to burn their groves with
fire. The truth of God The knowledge
of God and the worship of God must be open. It must be in the
light. Nothing is done in a corner. Nothing is done in secret. Nothing
is done in shady places. Our redemption. You think about
our redemption. Brother Larry brought this out
a few weeks ago in his Sunday School lesson. the birth of the
Lord Jesus Christ. We sometimes think that it was
so secret that there was just his supposed father and his mother
there. But until Larry made us aware
that he was in the center court, he was born where they keep the
animals, that place was full of people. There was no room
for them in the inn. Thousands of people probably
witnessed the birth of the Son of God. A heavenly host witnessed
His birth. It wasn't done in the secret,
was it? And the ministry of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Word He preached, the miracles that He did, was
done openly. Listen to what He told the high
priest when they were judging Him in John 18. Jesus answered
him and said, I spake openly to the world. I ever taught in
the synagogue and in the temple where the Jews always resort,
and in secret have I done nothing." He didn't do his work in secret,
did he? And upon the cross of Calvary, that was the day of
Passover. That city was literally full
of people, and thousands of people came around the cross and looked
up and witnessed the death of the Son of God. And the day of
Pentecost, what happened on that day? We looked at that just a
few weeks ago, didn't we? Thousands and thousands of people
gathered there to celebrate Pentecost at the coming of the Holy Spirit. Paul was preaching to Agrippa,
and he was preaching about what the Lord Jesus had done in Jerusalem. And he said, I'm convinced that
the king knows of these things, for whom I freely witness. For
I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him, for
this was not done in a corner. See what I'm saying? It wasn't done in a grove, hidden
from the eyes of others. in darkness or in shady places.
The Lord may save us in secret. He saved me. He made Himself
known to me while I was down on my knees in my bedroom. He
may save a person going down the road alone in your car when
He makes Himself real to you. But I tell you what, when He
saves us, we come out in the open. We don't live secret Christians. We don't live, as it were, in
the shade or in the dark or in the grove to worship the Lord.
Our worship of Him is distinct. It's open. It's in the light.
Paul was speaking of those who have a form of godliness but
deny the power of the earth. And he said they creep. He used
this word sometimes to define people. He called them creepers.
They creep in among us to spy out our liberty, he said. He
called them creepers. In other words, they're sneaky. They're the kind of fellas that
would plant a grove, you know. You couldn't see what was going
on. Couldn't know what they believed or what they were doing. They
were sneaky. But then he says, But thou hast fully known my
doctrine, my manner of life, and my faith, and my patience,
and so on. And the Lord Jesus said, Every
one that doeth evil, he hates the light, neither comes to the
light, lest his deeds be reproved. But he that doeth truth, He comes
to the light that his deeds might be made manifest, that they are
wrought in God. So I think that's what these
groves represent to us. When the Lord saves us, I mean,
we've got nothing to hide, have we? In our doctrine, in our manner
of life, we walk in the light. We walk in the light. And if
you've got some things to hide, if you're one of these fellows
that you've got all these shady places, boy, something's wrong. Something's wrong. Now, let's look back at my text
again in Deuteronomy 17 and verse 1. And this is connected to chapter
16, verse 21, 22. It would be awfully easy here
for Israel to say, boy, we've got our outward form correct.
You know, we've not planted any groves around the altar, and
we've got this farm of worship, and it's a correct farm. It's
a good manner. We worship the living God. We
know Him. The Gentiles don't know Him,
but we know Him. It'd be easy to say that, wouldn't it? But
that's not enough. Look what he says now. Thou shalt
not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock or sheep wherein
is blemish, or any ill-favoredness, for that is an abomination unto
the Lord thy God." It'd been awful easy to say, well, we've
got the right farm. We're not planting any groves.
And we've got the living God. We've got the right doctrine.
But then offer, offer, blemished sacrifice. not genuine in their
devotion to God. You know, it's pretty easy to
be negative, ain't it? It'd be easy for me to get up
and say, man, we don't have any altars. We got rid of our altar. We don't have that image. You
won't find any pictures of Jesus hanging around here on the wall.
We've got the right doctrine. We believe in the free and sovereign
grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. But how about our heart worship?
How about our heart devotedness to God? Do we offer to our Lord
any ill-favoredness? Easy to be negative, isn't it?
It's easy to say what not to do. And it was easy for Israel
to know not what to do. Don't you do it like this. Don't
you do that. But boy, now he comes and says,
when you bring your sacrifices, this is pertaining to you. When
you bring your sacrifices, be sure what you offer to God is
not something that's ill favored, or a sacrifice that has a blister
on it, or a broken leg. And you know one of the greatest
sins and one of the things that grieved the Lord and brought
His judgment upon them, they begin to do this very thing.
Look over here in the book of Malachi. It's the last chapter. If you go to Matthew and turn
back one book to your left, you'll find the book of Malachi. The
last book in the Old Testament. Look here in chapter 1. of the Lord Jesus Christ when
He came into this world, He offered Himself without spot to God,
didn't He? Everything He did was with all
of His heart, wholehearted, not always within my heart. He did
everything He did with all of His heart. And when you and I
offer up ourselves and our worship to God in the name of Christ,
do we do it with all our heart? Is there any ill-favoredness
in our worship of God? That's what this is teaching
us. And look at the book of Malachi. Look in chapter 1. Let's begin
here in verse 6. A son honoreth his father, and
a servant honoreth his master. If then I be a father, where
is my honor? If I be a master, where is my
fear? saith the Lord of hosts unto
you. O priest that despised my name! And you say wherein have we despised
thy name? You offer polluted bread upon
my altar. And you say wherein have we polluted
thee? In that ye say the table of the
Lord is contemptible. Do you remember what they were
to do about that bread? They changed it every day. They
changed this bread every day. They just left it on there. or
they got old bread. They ate the fresh and put the
old bread on the table. And if you offer the blind for
sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and
the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now to your governors.
Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person except the
Lord of hosts? And now I pray you, beseech God
that He will be gracious unto us. This hath been by your means,
will he regard your persons, saith the Lord of Hosts? Who
is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught?
Neither do you kennel far on mine altar for naught. I have
no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of Hosts, neither will I
accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun
even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great
among the Gentiles. And in every place incense shall
be offered unto my name, and a pure offering. For my name
shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But
ye have profaned it, and that ye say, The table of the Lord
is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible.
Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness it is! And ye have sniffed at
it, saith the Lord of hosts. And ye brought that which was
torn, and lame, and sick. Thus ye brought an offering.
Should I accept this of your hand, saith the Lord? But curse
be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and boweth
and sacrifices to the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king,
saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the
heathen." Now wouldn't that say it? Wasn't that sad? The Lord warned them all through
Moses' writings not to bring that which was ill-favored or
had blemishes. And here they were killing the
healthy ones and eating them themselves, offering the blind
and the blemished to the Lord. Now that's sad, isn't it? And
what's so sad, he's not worthy of such worship. He's worthy
that that which is offered to Him be without any blemish or
ill-favoredness. Let's contrast these folks with
King David. Listen to what he said. Listen
to David 27.8. When you said, Seek you my face,
my heart said, Thy face, O Lord, will I seek. There's heart worship
isn't there? My heart said, Thy face, O Lord, will I seek. Listen at him in another place.
With my whole heart have I sought thee, O Lord, let me not wander
from thy commandments. I am treat thy favor with my
whole heart. Be merciful to me according to
thy word. Listen to him in another place.
Praise you the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my
whole heart. in the assembly of the upright
in the congregation with my whole heart. Listen to another place. Blessed are they that keep his
testimonies, and blessed are those that seek him with the
whole heart. Listen to this. Oh God, my heart
is fixed. My heart is fixed. I will sing
and give praise with my glory. Listen to this. I will praise
Thee with my whole heart before the gods when I praise Thee.
And listen to this place. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
all that is within me, bless His holy name. O my soul, bless
it. All that is within me, bless
it. Here's what the Apostle Paul
said. speaking to yourself in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord. There ain't
nobody in this congregation that's got more reason to complain about
a cold heart than I have. But I tell you this much, that
bothers me, don't it you? I don't rejoice in that, do you?
I pray against such a thing, don't you? And I tell you why. Our Lord is not worthy. We come
into His presence with a no cold heart. Any more than bringing
a blemished lamb into His presence or a blind heifer into His presence. And that's what it represents,
doesn't it? Nobody here strays in prayer any more than the pastor
does. But I tell you, it breaks my
heart, doesn't it, you? How would you feel, Clarence,
if I come up and I was talking to you, and all of a sudden I
just turned away and started talking to somebody else? You
know what you'll think of me? Well, he don't care about me.
He was talking to me about something important. And look at him. When
we go into the presence of the Lord and stray and begin to think
of other things, is that not ill-favoredness? Is he worthy
of that? When we sing, sometimes I look
at you all, and I may embarrass you when I tell you this, but
sometimes I look at you folks and some of you are not even
singing. And sometimes I wonder, I wonder where their mind is.
I wonder if it's on what they're going to do when they get home
or what they did when they were home. I can't help it. Sometimes
I look at you and you're not singing, and I wonder why aren't
you singing? When David said, I will sing
unto the Lord with my whole heart, Isn't He worthy when we come
into His presence to sing with melody in our hearts to Him?
I can't say much to you. I can't get on much to you because,
well, I'm better singing with my lips. I'm not singing with
the understanding. We all have difficulty in this,
don't we? But this should really reprove
us. And we should look upon our coldness
in heart and coldness in worship and not serving the Lord with
our whole heart. We should look upon that just
as these Jews going into our God's presence, our Redeemer's
presence, with a blind lamb or a broken leg and saying, How
shameful. What would you and I do if we
were there at the tabernacle and here came some guy leading
a lamb that had a broken leg? What would we say about a fellow
like that? What would we think? You're bringing that to the Lord?
You're bringing that to your Redeemer, to your Savior? But
isn't it the same way when we do it in our hearts? It is, isn't
it? Listen to Psalms 96, verse 8.
"...given to the Lord the glory due unto His name, bringing an
offering, and coming to His courts, or worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness, and fear before Him all the earth." The beauty
of holiness. That's the way we want to worship
Him, ain't it? And I tell you this, we'll not
worship Him at all if He don't give us grace to do it. That's why every service, every
service before you and I come together. This should be our
hearts. Our hearts' prayer. Lord, give me grace. Prepare
my heart to worship You tonight in this service. Let me see Your
glory. Let me hear from You. Let me
understand Your Word. Prepare my heart. I don't want
to offer in my offering a lamb with a blemish. or one with ill-favoredness. Lord, give me grace to worship
you. Don't you long to praise him
with all your heart. Don't you long to worship him
with all your heart. My son, give me your heart. That's what
he said. Give me your heart. Rinse your
heart, not your garments. Whole heart. Whole heart. We
don't hear much. We talk a lot about this warfare
that goes on in us. And we get so concentrated on
that sometimes that it seems like we lose sight of God deserving
our worship with our whole hearts. Is it possible to do that? Well,
we ought to set it as a name. Sometimes we think, well, when
I would do good, evil is present with me. Yes, it is. But don't
you think he's got grace? If David said, I do it with all
my heart, don't you think the same grace is there for us, for
us to do it? Wouldn't you love to go home
tonight and somewhere off by yourself, either on your knees
or walking down to the barn or driving home, to be able to say
what David said? When you said to me, seek ye
my face, my heart said, Wouldn't you love to be like David? All
that is within me, everything that's within me, praise His
holy name. All that's within me. That's
what he said. All that's within me. My soul. My soul. May God help us to do
that. May the Lord give us grace to
do that. To worship Him in such a way. He's worthy of it. If
you've got high-hearted worship and you're not concerned about
it, I hope you'll waken to that. If you can come here and you
don't sing to the Lord, I hope your conscience checks you because
of that. If you get down on your knees
and you can't pray to Him and pour out your heart to Him, I
hope your conscience checks you for that. The Lord's worthy of
better worship than that, brothers and sisters. He's worthy of a
whole-hearted, truthful, sincere worship. Our God is the Spirit. He's an eternal, holy Spirit
that's revealed Himself in His incarnate Son. And He is worshipped
in spirit and in truth. Not just in truth. You can't
worship Him without truth. But not just truth, but in spirit. The worship of God is a spiritual
worship. And God give us grace to worship
Him with all our hearts. Let's pray.