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In the Land Which God Gives You

Christ Church on July 3, 2022

THE TEXT

These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the Lord God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods . . . ” (Deuteronomy 12:1-8)

INTRODUCTION

Many saints don’t know what to do on earth. They view life on earth as something like a train station at which they’re waiting. They have a ticket to ride to heaven upon death. But in the interim, there is not much to do here at the train station, at least there’s not much to do that has any relationship to the final destination. They need to be holy in this train station, they understand that much. And they need to read their Bibles and pray to the God who awaits them at their final destination. But they don’t have a strategy for life at the train station. And they have no sense that the glory of the heaven to which they indeed are going is coming upon the train station. The good news is that the glory of that heaven is indeed coming upon the train station. That is why we pray in faith, “Your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Once you realize that the kingdom of God is coming upon earth, coming upon this train station, then the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 12 can make sense. Moses delivered marching orders to Israel who was soon to cross the Jordan River to conquer and possess the Promised Land. And the marching orders that he delivered to them are the same marching orders we have today. Some things have changed. But the marching orders have not changed. Let’s consider a survey of the text.

SURVEY OF THE TEXT

Moses tells Israel that they must observe and do the statues he was giving them when they entered the land. And it was the LORD God who was giving them the land to possess. The statues Israel received were to be done “on earth” (v. 1).

Israel was to utterly destroy all the places where the adherents of Canaan served their gods: the high mountain places, the hills, and under every green tree (v. 2).

Not only the places, but the altars also had to be destroyed. Their pillars had to be broken, their groves torched with fire, their graven images cut down. The destruction of these idols resulted in the “names” of these false gods being destroyed and erased from “that place” (v. 3).

Moses ordered the opposite concerning the LORD God. His “name” was to be put in a special place of his choosing. This place would be his habitation, where he would dwell in the midst of Israel. And Israel would routinely come to this central place (v. 5).

When they came, Moses instructed Israel to bring a variety of sacrifices and offerings: routine burnt offerings and sacrifices, tithes, and heave offerings (which were a certain portion set aside for the priests), vows and freewill offerings (which were offerings freely given over and above the required ones), and the firstlings of their herds. Moses had already instructed Israel back in Exodus 13 regarding these first born offerings. When Israelite children asked why the firstborn of the herds and flocks were sacrificed, parents were to tell their children about God striking down Pharaoh and the firstborn of Egypt.

Israel was to eat before the LORD, which is a pattern we see many times in Scripture when Israel gathered for covenant renewal. Israel was to rejoice in their work with their households, whatever it is was they laid their hand to do (v. 7). As they lived in the Promised Land, they were not to live as they had before, every man doing what was right in his own eyes (v. 8).

THE SAME MARCHING ORDERS

The marching orders from Moses to Israel were clear. So many years later when the Israelites heard that Dagon, god of the Philistines, had fallen down before the ark of the Lord, and his head and hands were cut off, they knew that the LORD had cut down an idol. We must read our times in the same way. In the New Covenant, some things change: The Old Testament saints ate Passover, we eat the Lord’s Supper. They circumcised their children, we baptize them. But the substance of things stays the same. God cut down idols back then, and charged his people to do the same. And none of that has changed.

So the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade was an idol that God cut down. Planned Parenthood clinics are the altars where the sacrifices are offered. The unborn children are the sacrifices. The whole operation is simply modern day Molech worship.

After God struck down Dagon, the Philistines picked him up off the ground and set him up again to be worshipped. And, in the same way, many will attempt to keep up abortion. But the fact that they will offer their blood sacrifices in California and across the border in Washington State does not negate what God has done in our midst. The battle rages on, yes. And that is the point. You must heed God’s commands for life and battle in the land that God, the God of your fathers, has given you.

THE LAND WHICH GOD GIVES

In Moses’ day, God gave Israel the land of Canaan. And many make the mistake of thinking that God has only given us heavenly real estate. They think the train station in which they find themselves belongs to the devil. But as Jesus was headed to the cross he said, “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). Moreover, Christ has told us to baptize the nations, teaching them to obey all that he has commanded. He speaks as if the nations belong to him, and that is because they do.

Our new covenant terrain has not been diminished or unrealized. Rather it has been expanded. Israel of old stood on the banks of the Jordan and Moses told them how they were to live in Canaan. And you stand in the world that has been promised to Christ. Indeed, it has not only been promised to him. It has become his possession. The Apostle Paul shows just how this point shakes out for the saints when he says, “All things are yours; Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23).

DESTROYING IDOLS

How then should you live in the world that is yours in Christ? You should destroy idols like Israel of old. There is nothing wicked or fleshly about doing so. Paul says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

When idols pop up, that is not a time to be afraid. That is a time to do your job. All of the idols will be gone one day. And then Christ will return, having made all of his enemies his footstool. In the meantime, you’re not allowed to sit back and think that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. You’re to put hell in a hand-basket. Cut down the idols, and deliver them over to Christ. That operation can only be done by the Word of God.

Now where do you start cutting down these idols? You look around and say, “Boy they’re all over.” Yes, they are. So start right at home. Start with your idols. John says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). And then intercede for your children. And then your church. And then the Moscow Christian community. And then the whole kingdom of God. And then the idols manifest outside of the kingdom of God like Roe v. Wade, and Obergefell, and all of the other pillars that state legislators are toiling away at right now in the wake of Roe’s fall.

WORSHIPPING GOD

Another duty you have, here in the land God has given you, is to attend the LORDs house to worship him. Moses told Israel there was to be one place, a central place. And we hear the same language when the LORD spoke to Solomon after he completed the temple in 2 Chronicles 7. The LORD told Solomon that he had chosen this house and his name would remain there forever.

But like with the increase of land, so with the increase of our place of worship. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that the Church of God is now this holy temple. And we are being “built together for a habitation of God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). Every baptism is the addition of another brick in this temple. And God’s “name” is upon us.

You assemble here to offer sacrifices to God. And the sacrifices that you offer are yourselves. You present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice (Romans 12:1). If you feel “stretched out,” that is because you are. If you feel cut by his Word, that is because you are. If you feel “poured out,” then praise the Lord, you are right there alongside the Apostle Paul.

As you have heard before, worship is the central engine that drives cultural reformation. People struggle to see this because they have either become pragmatists or pietists. The pragmatists can’t understand the point because he wants to rig up and run the reformation according to humans blue prints and ingenuity. The pietists can’t understand it because he wants to worship God in a sky theatre with no earthly manifestation of God’s name.

But the Christian way is to worship, knowing that while Baal cannot send the rain or the fire, Yahweh can. And Yahweh does. He really is building up his kingdom on earth. And you baptized, covenant people, are his kingdom. If the kingdom grows, and it will grow, then pagan temples fall.

What this means is that the worship of the Triune God was the central driver to the fall of Roe. And there are many other idols that need to have their “name” destroyed. So keep up the public worship of our Triune God.

REJOICING IN WORK

Moses said that Israel was to rejoice in all that they put their hand to do. And they were to do rejoice in their work as households. I do not have to tell you that such joyful work is going on around here. The saints in Moscow are known far and wide for covenant households and joyful labor. So this is a reminder to keep it up and grow not weary in doing good.

What kind of works ought you to lay your hand to? The answer is: any kind, all kinds. Laundry and writing and teaching. Cleaning teeth and learning and building. Legislating and marketing and painting. Coaching and kid-transporting and a thousand other things: “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,” remember.

Some think that work is too big. And others think the promise of Christ’s worldwide conquest is too good to be true. But the Apostle Paul has already addressed this and we should take it to heart: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things” (Romans 8:32)?

Redeemed with the Blood of Christ

Christ Church on May 15, 2022

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THE TEXT

Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;¹⁴As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:¹⁵But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;¹⁶Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.¹⁷And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man’s work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:¹⁸Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;¹⁹But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:²⁰Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,²¹Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.²²Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:²³Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.²⁴For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:²⁵But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you (1 Peter 1:13–25).

Slaying the Sea Dragon (Good Friday A.D. 2022)

Christ Church on April 15, 2022

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If you would slay sea dragons then you must go down into the sea. It is dark down there, of course. But there is just no way to crush the head of the sea serpent without going down into the waters. Our Lord’s passion can be considered under many themes and slaying the sea dragon is one of them. Dragon slaying appears a fair amount of times in Scripture.

God will slay the sea dragon once and for all on a future day when Christ returns. The prophet Isaiah tells us, “In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea” (Isaiah 27:1).

But we don’t have to wait until that final judgment to see God slaying dragons. Asaph says in Psalm 74, “For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces” (Psalm 74:12-14). Asaph here speaks of God burrying Pharaoh and his army under the Red Sea. Isaiah addresses the same event when he says, “Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over” (Isaiah 51:9-10).

Isaiah’s words remind us that not only did God wound the dragon Pharaoh in the sea. But he also made his people Israel pass through the depths of the sea. We know from Exodus that they passed through the sea at night, which certainly would have made the whole event far more scary (Exodus 14:15-25). Being in that dark and watery dragon’s lair is not foreign to the saints’ experience. In Psalm 44 the saints cry, “Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, And covered us with the shadow of death.” Now we often wonder why the covenant people must go through the place of dragons. We are sometimes like the poor Jewish milkman Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, who upon receiving news of another wave of trials, looked to heaven and prayed, “I know that we are your chosen people and all, but just for once, could you choose someone else.” “Why are we in the place of dragons?” we ask. And the answer is God has dragons to slay down there.

This is the very thing we see on Good Friday as Christ, our older brother, goes to Golgotha, the place of the skull, to strike the head of the serpent. It is remarkable that all of the dragon battle stories, be they legend like St. George and the Dragon or biblical like Michael warring against the dragon in heaven or David warring against the armour-scaled Philistine in the Valley, all point to this central conquest of our Lord over the old serpent. Christ is the seed of the woman who ultimately crushes the sepent’s head. And he does so as the Greater Jonah who went down to a watery Sheol. Jesus himself said that the sign of Jonah would be the only sign given to the evil and adulterous generation. As Jonah spent three days in the whale’s belly so Jesus said he would spend three in the heart of the earth. In so doing, he struck the dragon’s head. In fact, we’re told in Revelation that upon Christ’s passion an angel came down from heaven, laid hold on the dragon, bound him with a chain and cast him into the bottomless pit where he awaits final judgment when he will be thrown into the lake of fire.

Now the saints do pass through dragonish places. But the death of Christ, his descent into Hades, and his triumph over the principalities and powers has radically transformed things. We go through dragonish places after Christ, not before. Jesus took up the cross. And we must also. But Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me.” He did not say, “Take up your cross and lead they way, I’ve got your back.” Jesus has already passed through the watery deeps where the dragon lived and crushed his head. We follow him through those waters and are promied that God will crush Satan under our feet, too. We are not promised that we won’t pass through the waters. But God does say to his covenant people, “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee” (Isaiah 43:2).

So as Israel faced the dark waters of the Red Sea and went forward, and as Christ set his face toward Jerusalem and went forward, likewise you must face the dark waters and go forward. What are the dark waters? That sin that you really don’t want to face up to and confess. That family trouble that you’ve been refusing to address. That bitterness you’ve been holding on to. That sacrifice for the welfare of your children and grandchildren that really is costly. That forgiveness you know you need to seek from your brother. That godly decision you know you are to make that will certainly lead to persecution. That discipline and self-control that you should have exercised long ago.

And if you are tempted to say, “I can’t go into those waters, it is going to kill me.” God’s response is twofold:

First, He says, “You’ve already died in the waters.” The Apostle Paul says in Romans 6:4, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.” You are not going to die in the waters in front of you. You have already died in the waters.

Second, He says, “Those waters you fear are now truly dragonless.” Jesus went down into them before you and took care of that problem. And he turns to you saying, “The dragon is behind you, bound and in the bottomless pit. The dragon and his army is behind you, and God has come between you and him, putting him in darkness and shining light upon you. You must come follow me through the waters, and they won’t hurt you.” For, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory” (1 Corinthians 15:55)? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen.

Divinely Justified Conquerors

Christ Church on March 13, 2022

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INTRODUCTION

The aim of this sermon is to remind you all that there is absolutely no one who can condemn you. And that message of “no condemnnation” has a purpose. The purpose is not merely to leave you feeling happy, though happy it should leave you. The purpose is to increase your joy and confidence so that you would be bolstered in your conquering.

THE TEXT

“What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:31–39).

NO ONE TO CONDEMN

The passage tells us that there is no one to condemn us. But that does not mean that there is any shortage of those who will try to condemn us. And these attempts come in various forms and from many directions.

DO MORE THAN CONQUER

Being justified, we are then more than conquerors. We not only conquer. We do more than conquer. The conquering is extensive, which means that the things which need to be conquered are extensive.

IT IS CHRIST

Colossians 1:17 says that by Christ all things consist. Christ holds all things together. And your justification is one of those things that Christ holds together.

Wisdom for Kings and Queens

Christ Church on February 3, 2022

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Collegiate Reformed Fellowship is the campus ministry of Christ Church and Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho. Our goal is to teach and exhort young men and women to serve, to witness, to stand fast, and to mature in their Christian Faith. We desire to see students get established in a godly lifestyle and a trajectory toward maturity. We also desire to proclaim the Christian worldview to the university population and the surrounding communities. CRF is not an independent ministry. All our activities are supplemental to the teaching and shepherding ministry of CC & TRC. Students involved with CRF are regularly reminded that the most important student ministry takes place at Lord’s Day worship.