Deut 12 - why God required Israel to only worship at His tabernacle - WHY ?

[Lou Newton]

Deuteronomy 12 NIV


The One Place of Worship


12 These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. ² Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. ³ Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

⁴ You must not worship the Lord your God in their way. ⁵But you are to seek the place the Lord your God will choose from among all your tribes to put his Name there for his dwelling. To that place you must go; ⁶ there bring your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, what you have vowed to give and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. ⁷ There, in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your families shall eat and shall rejoice in everything you have put your hand to, because the Lord your God has blessed you.

⁸ You are not to do as we do here today, everyone doing as they see fit, ⁹ since you have not yet reached the resting place and the inheritance the Lord your God is giving you. ¹⁰ But you will cross the Jordan and settle in the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and he will give you rest from all your enemies around you so that you will live in safety. ¹¹Then to the place the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name—there you are to bring everything I command you: your burnt offerings and sacrifices, your tithes and special gifts, and all the choice possessions you have vowed to the Lord. ¹² And there rejoice before the Lord your God—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns who have no allotment or inheritance of their own. ¹³ Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. ¹⁴Offer them only at the place the Lord will choose in one of your tribes, and there observe everything I command you.

¹⁵ Nevertheless, you may slaughter your animals in any of your towns and eat as much of the meat as you want, as if it were gazelle or deer, according to the blessing the Lord your God gives you. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat it. ¹⁶ But you must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. ¹⁷You must not eat in your own towns the tithe of your grain and new wine and olive oil, or the firstborn of your herds and flocks, or whatever you have vowed to give, or your freewill offerings or special gifts. ¹⁸ Instead, you are to eat them in the presence of the Lord your God at the place the Lord your God will choose—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites from your towns—and you are to rejoice before the Lord your God in everything you put your hand to. ¹⁹ Be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.

²⁰ When the Lord your God has enlarged your territory as he promised you, and you crave meat and say, “I would like some meat,” then you may eat as much of it as you want. ²¹ If the place where the Lord your God chooses to put his Name is too far away from you, you may slaughter animals from the herds and flocks the Lord has given you, as I have commanded you, and in your own towns you may eat as much of them as you want. ²² Eat them as you would gazelle or deer. Both the ceremonially unclean and the clean may eat. ²³ But be sure you do not eat the blood, because the blood is the life, and you must not eat the life with the meat. ²⁴ You must not eat the blood; pour it out on the ground like water. ²⁵ Do not eat it, so that it may go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

²⁶But take your consecrated things and whatever you have vowed to give, and go to the place the Lord will choose. ²⁷ Present your burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord your God, both the meat and the blood. The blood of your sacrifices must be poured beside the altar of the Lord your God, but you may eat the meat. ²⁸ Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the Lord your God.

²⁹ The Lord your God will cut off before you the nations you are about to invade and dispossess. But when you have driven them out and settled in their land, ³⁰ and after they have been destroyed before you, be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.” ³¹ You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.

³² See that you do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it.

God tells Israel 5 times to not worship Him anywhere except at the place He has chosen for His Tabernacle or Temple.

Why can they not worship Him at their home or in their town ? Is God being legalistic, of course not.

See post #2 for answer

[Lou Newton]

Ex 25 thru Ex 30 - Go gives exact instruction's of how to build the tabernacle. He tells Moses the size and shape and material of everything. God then tells Moses exactly where to place everything in the tabernacle.

Ex 40- God tells Moses to cleanse everything, and everyone, who will go into the tabernacle One has to be cleansed of all sin to enter into God's presence in the Holy of Holies.

Ex 40 - God enters the Tabernacle:

The Cloud and the Glory

34Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. 35And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

Moses, or no other man, had any control over how the Tabernacle was built, or when God entered it.

God has no beginning but His Tabernacle had a beginning here on earth.

[Lou Newton]

JESUS IS GOD ALMIGHTY - THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS

Isaiah 9:6 GNV

⁶ For unto us a child is born, and unto us a Son is given: and the government is upon his shoulder, and he shall call his name, Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The prince of peace.

The He in this verse is God and He calls the child Jesus, Wonderful Counselor Or The Holy Spirit; The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father. Everlasting means Jesus always was The Father and always will be The Father.

As far as His Manhood Jesus is fully a man of flesh. As far as His Godhood Jesus is The One and Only God our Father, our Creator.

Isaiah 43:10

¹⁰ “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord,
“and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor will there be one after me.
¹¹ I, even I, am the Lord,
and apart from me there is no savior.

Here God tells us that He is The Messiah or Jesus.

John 1

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John 2

¹⁸ The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

²⁰ They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.

So God dwells in the human body of Jesus as His Temple.

Romans 8

²⁹For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers

We are to be like Jesus.

John 3

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

⁴ “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. ⁶ Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷ You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

Just as the human body of Jesus was His Temple, our human body of flesh is to be His Temple.

We have absolutely no control over how it is to be built. God gives the instructions just as he gave Moses the instructions for the Tabernacle. Our DNA is God's instructions of how our body is to be built.

God even told us what to put in our Temple by his food laws, just as He told Moses what to put in the Tabernacle. He tells us what to put in it and what not to put in it. However few seems to obey these instructions. There is a blessing from God to those who do.

We have to cleanse our Temple just as Moses had to cleanse the Tabernacle.

1 John 1

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

⁸ If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

One may ask, how can any mere man walk in the light as Jesus is in the light. Jesus is The Truth and can not lie. We are all liars and do not even know the whole truth so can not tell the whole truth. We see through a foggy window and can not tell the whole truth. We are all liars and God alone is true.

There is but one way we can do this. If we confess that we are total and complete liars, we have just told the complete truth. We then are in the light as Jesus is in the light.

We are then washed in His blood and He purifies us from all sin.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

The Holy Spirit of Jesus then enters our Temple, or our spirit. We are then born of His Spirit and we have fellowship with Him.

³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

This is the one and only way we can worship Him. We have to have our Temple built by Him and cleansed by His blood, and then He enters our Temple and we have fellowship with Him. There is no other way we can worship Him.

So God told Israel that they had to worship Him only at the Temple they built according to His instructions, and cleansed according to His instructions, then He would enter that Temple and fellowship with the ones who obeyed these instructions. This was a shadow of the way we can fellowship with Jesus today.