Thoughts on Deuteronomy 12 & Revelation 13

Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 12; Revelation 13

Thoughts on Deuteronomy 12

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I just want us to once more realize what it is God that is looking for from His people. I know I keep harping on this, but I just hear so many people have serious misconceptions about what God wanted from His people in the Old Testament and/or why they were sent into exile from Israel. Plus, like we talked about yesterday, Moses keeps harping on it over and over, so it must be important enough to keep coming back to.

But Deuteronomy 12 opens and closes with the same comment: Moses starts by declaring that these are the statutes and rules they need to be careful to follow in the land, and he ends the chapter by declaring that they need to be careful to do all that he has told them. And what are the rules and statutes that he lays out for them in between? The same thing we have already seen over and over and over and over and over again in Deuteronomy so far, to stay faithful to God and not worship the gods of the nations being driven out of the land.

Yes, Moses does give the Israelites a little more detail than that, but it is really all focused around protecting their believing loyalty to Yahweh. Moses warns them that they are to destroy all the places that the people they are driving out worshiped their gods, and are not to worship Yahweh there, but are only to worship Him where He places His name (where the tabernacle is, or where the temple later is). God knows that if worship is decentralized, people will fall back into the pagan practices that He is against, and so Israel is to have one place of worship and is expressly prohibited from using the places or practices of the previous peoples. In fact, they are told that they aren’t even supposed to ask about how the previous inhabitants of the land used to worship their gods because they did things abominable to God, like burning their children to their gods, and God wants no vestige of those practices at all in His land.

I do think it’s interesting too that in centralizing the place of worship, God makes express provision for His people to kill animals and eat meat in their cities. In a lot of pagan practices every animal that was eaten would be killed on an altar to whatever god, which was not really difficult or troublesome because those gods would have altars all over the place. In fact, we see this in Isaiah when Sennacherib sends his emissary to taunt Israel and part of the taunt is that clearly Yahweh is displeased with them because they have removed all of the altars throughout the land and only allow sacrifices in Jerusalem. So with this being standard practice, when Moses tells the people that they are not to sacrifice to God anywhere other than the singular place He makes His name to dwell, the people very likely wondered how that was going to work logistically for making dinner. So Moses clarifies for them that that which they offer as a sacrifice they are to bring to the tabernacle, but everything else they are just eating can be killed and eaten anywhere, not as a sacrifice, but they are expressly not allowed to use the altars or places of worship left over from the peoples before them.

And that’s it. Once again, the rules and statues that Israel is expressly told to keep so that they can stay and prosper in the land are to worship God and not worship other gods. If they remain faithful to Him, He will continue to bless them and His presence will continue to dwell among them. 

And this is the same thing He is looking for from us today. We are not saved by our good works, nor by our avoidance of sin. We are saved by our believing loyalty to Yahweh, just like Israel was, expressed through our faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Thoughts on Revelation 13

I don’t have much to say on Revelation 13 other than to point out that God’s enemies are shown to be able to exhibit real supernatural power.

The reason I want to point this out is that I know people who have been caught up and deceived by supernatural experiences and displays of power, and have turned away from God as He presents Himself in the Bible as a result. This is something we’ve discussed before, but it’s worth repeating. The Bible does not teach us that God is the only only supernatural being, or that all supernatural beings are good. In fact, God declares, in the pages of Scripture, exactly the opposite, that there are spiritual beings in rebellion against Him who are actively seeking to lead people astray from the message of salvation in Jesus. We would be foolish to ignore this reality, or to think that somehow any and all spiritual beings who have rebelled against God have been stripped of all spiritual power.

So the fact we are warned in this chapter about a supernatural being leading people astray by miraculous healing, calling down fire from heaven, and animating an otherwise mute idol should give us pause.

God has enemies. Some of those enemies are supernatural beings of incredible power and brilliance. And those enemies are actively working to dismantle the kingdom of God in this world by leading people astray from saving faith in Jesus. This is why John warns us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because there will be people who are interacting with spirits that are not aligned with Him and are not leading them to the truth. We cannot afford to ignore this reality, or we make it simplicity itself for ourselves or those we love to be drawn into deception and subtly turned away from God.