Christ or Chaos in the Land
Introduction: The Geography of Worship
We live in an age that believes geography is irrelevant to worship. The modern evangelical mind, soaked in a kind of syrupy gnosticism, thinks that what we do with dirt, trees, and buildings has nothing to do with our approach to the living God. Worship is a "heart thing," they say, a private affair between me and Jesus, conducted in the ethereal spaces of my own sincerity. This is a profound mistake, and it is a mistake that Deuteronomy 12 is designed to correct with extreme prejudice.
Moses is standing with Israel on the plains of Moab, on the very cusp of the Promised Land. The book of Deuteronomy is a series of farewell sermons, a covenant renewal, preparing a new generation to take the land God had promised. And what is the first order of business once they cross the Jordan? It is not to set up a new form of government, or to establish trade routes, or to plant their crops. The first order of business is to settle the question of worship. Where, how, and whom will you worship? This is the fundamental question for any society, for any culture, for any family, for any man. Get worship right, and everything else will eventually fall into its proper place. Get worship wrong, and you will get a cascade of chaos in every other area of life.
The instructions here are violently at odds with our modern sensibilities of pluralism and tolerance. God commands Israel not to coexist with the pagan places of worship, but to obliterate them. He commands them not to invent their own forms of worship, but to seek the one place He will choose. This is because God understands something that we have forgotten: worship is warfare. Every altar is a declaration of sovereignty. Every sacrifice is a claim of ownership. The central issue is this: who is God here? Is it Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Or is it Baal, Asherah, and the whole demonic pantheon of the Canaanites? There can be no truce. There can be no syncretism. It is Christ or chaos, right down to the rocks and trees.
This passage establishes the absolute antithesis between the worship of the true God and the worship of idols. It teaches us that true worship is defined by God, not by us. And it shows us that true worship results not in grim duty, but in explosive, overflowing joy. These are not dusty regulations for an ancient people; they are the foundational principles for how God's people are to live in God's world in any generation.
The Text
"These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall be careful to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days you live on the earth. You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. And you shall tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut the graven images of their gods in pieces and destroy their name from that place. You shall not do thus toward Yahweh your God. But you shall seek Yahweh at the place which Yahweh your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come. And there you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock. There also you and your households shall eat before Yahweh your God, and be glad in all that you send forth your hand to do, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you."
(Deuteronomy 12:1-7 LSB)
Covenantal Premises (v. 1)
The chapter begins by grounding these commands in the covenant God has made with His people.
"These are the statutes and the judgments which you shall be careful to do in the land which Yahweh, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess all the days you live on the earth." (Deuteronomy 12:1)
Notice the framework. These are not suggestions or helpful hints for spiritual formation. They are "statutes and judgments." This is the law of the King. And obedience is not optional. They are to be "careful to do" them. This requires diligence, attention, and a holy fear.
Furthermore, this obedience is tied to a specific place: "in the land which Yahweh... has given you." This is not an abstract ethical system for all mankind in general. This is covenant law for God's covenant people in the land He is giving them. Grace precedes law. God gives the land first, and then He tells them how to live in it. The indicative of His grace ("He has given you") is the foundation for the imperative of His law ("you shall do"). We do not obey in order to be saved; we obey because we have been saved. We do not obey in order to get the land; we obey because we have been given the land.
And this is a permanent obligation: "all the days you live on the earth." This is not a temporary arrangement. This is the constitution for their national life for as long as they possess the land. The principles established here are perennial. While the specific applications will change with the coming of Christ, the underlying reality does not. The principle that God's people must worship God according to His Word in the place He has appointed is an abiding truth.
Total War on Idolatry (v. 2-3)
The first and most urgent command is to conduct a holy war against every vestige of pagan worship.
"You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess serve their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. And you shall tear down their altars and shatter their sacred pillars and burn their Asherim with fire, and you shall cut the graven images of their gods in pieces and destroy their name from that place." (Deuteronomy 12:2-3)
The language here is absolute and violent. "Utterly destroy." This is not a call for dialogue or mutual understanding. It is a command for eradication. Why? Because paganism is not a neutral, alternative lifestyle choice. It is rebellion against the Creator, and it is demonic. The apostle Paul tells us that what the pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God (1 Cor. 10:20). There can be no fellowship between light and darkness, no accord between Christ and Belial (2 Cor. 6:14-15). To tolerate a pagan altar in the land of Yahweh is to tolerate an enemy embassy on sovereign soil. It is treason.
The locations of this worship are significant: "on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree." Paganism is a nature religion. It worships the creature rather than the Creator. They located their worship at places of natural grandeur or fertility, deifying the creation itself. The God of the Bible is the transcendent Creator of all these things. He is not in the mountain; He made the mountain. He is not the spirit of the tree; He made the tree. This command is a theological statement: Yahweh alone is God, and the entire creation belongs to Him. Therefore, any place where the creation is worshipped must be torn down and cleansed.
The destruction is comprehensive. Altars, sacred pillars, Asherim (wooden poles representing a fertility goddess), and graven images must all be physically demolished. But it goes further. They must "destroy their name from that place." The very memory of these false gods is to be erased. This is the cultural application of the first commandment. A nation cannot serve two masters. A land cannot have two gods. You cannot have Yahweh and Baal. You cannot have Christ and Molech. You cannot have the God of the Bible and the god of secular humanism. One must go. And God commands His people to be the instruments of this cultural cleansing.
The Regulative Principle Applied (v. 4-5)
After the negative command comes the positive. The antithesis is stark.
"You shall not do thus toward Yahweh your God. But you shall seek Yahweh at the place which Yahweh your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come." (Deuteronomy 12:4-5)
Verse 4 is a thunderclap. "You shall not do thus toward Yahweh your God." You shall not worship Yahweh in the way the pagans worship their gods. This is the negative formulation of the regulative principle of worship. The pagans worshipped on every high hill. You shall not. The pagans invented their own rituals and images. You shall not. Our worship is not to be guided by our own creativity, our own sincerity, or what we think might be effective. It is to be governed by God's express commands. We are not permitted to worship God in any way not authorized in Scripture. To do so is to offer strange fire, and God does not tolerate strange fire.
Instead of the decentralized, will-worship of paganism, God commands a centralized, appointed worship. They are to "seek Yahweh at the place which Yahweh your God will choose." For Old Testament Israel, this would eventually be Jerusalem, the place where God chose to put His name. This centralization served several purposes. It protected the purity of worship from syncretism. It unified the twelve tribes into one people. And it constantly pointed forward to the one true Mediator and the one true sacrifice that would be offered there.
But what about for us? Has this been abolished? No, it has been fulfilled and transformed. Jesus tells the woman at the well that a time is coming when true worshipers will worship neither on Mount Gerizim nor in Jerusalem, but will worship the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:21-23). The "place" is no longer a geographical location, but a person: Jesus Christ. He is the true temple, the place where God has chosen to put His name and make His dwelling. To "come to the place" now means to come to the Father through the Son. But the principle of centralization remains. There is only one way to God. There is only one name by which we must be saved. And in the new covenant, this gathering of worship happens in a new Jerusalem. We have not come to a mountain that can be touched, but "to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12:22). Every Lord's Day, when the church gathers for worship, we ascend into the heavenlies and join that great assembly. This is the place God has chosen.
The Overflow of Joyful Feasting (v. 6-7)
The result of this prescribed worship is not legalistic drudgery, but an explosion of covenantal joy.
"And there you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes... There also you and your households shall eat before Yahweh your God, and be glad in all that you send forth your hand to do, in which Yahweh your God has blessed you." (Deuteronomy 12:6-7)
At this central place, they are to bring all their offerings. The worship of God is not cheap. It costs something. It involves the surrender of our lives (burnt offerings) and the dedication of our substance (tithes and contributions). But notice what happens next. After giving to God, they are to feast before God.
"There also you and your households shall eat before Yahweh your God." This is astounding. The Holy God of Israel invites His people to a meal. Worship culminates in table fellowship. The sacrifices are not just burned up and wasted; a portion of many of them comes back to the worshiper to be eaten in a celebratory feast. This is a picture of communion, of reconciliation, of friendship with God. Sin has been dealt with, and now we can sit at His table and eat in His presence.
And the required emotional posture is joy. They are to "be glad in all that you send forth your hand to do." This is not an optional extra. Joy is a non-negotiable part of biblical worship. Why? Because their joy is grounded in what God has done: "in which Yahweh your God has blessed you." We are not glad because we have worked up some positive feelings. We are glad because God is a God who blesses. He blesses our work, our families, our lives. Our worship is the joyful recognition and celebration of His boundless generosity. This is a robust, full-bodied, feasting kind of joy. It involves your whole household, it involves good food, and it is centered in the presence of God. This is what true worship looks like. It is a world away from the solemn, boring, and introspective piety that so often passes for worship today.
Conclusion: From Jerusalem to the World
So what is the takeaway for us? First, we must see that the war against idolatry is not over. Our land is filled with high places, not of stone, but of ideology. We have the high places of secularism in our schools, the Asherah poles of sexual perversion in our culture, and the graven images of materialism in our hearts. We are called to tear them down, to utterly destroy them, beginning with ourselves and extending to every area of life over which Christ has given us dominion.
Second, we must recover the centrality of worship according to God's Word. We must seek the place God has chosen, which is Christ, and gather with His people in the heavenly Jerusalem every Lord's Day. Our worship must be governed by Scripture, not by the fads and fashions of the world. We are not to do "thus" toward our God. We are not to import the techniques of the entertainment industry or the therapeutic culture into the house of God.
And last, our worship must be characterized by this kind of robust, feasting joy. We come to the table of the Lord not as those who are afraid, but as sons and daughters coming to a feast thrown by their Father. We eat and drink in His presence, and we are glad. We are glad because He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He has dispossessed our enemies. He has given us a land, a better country. And so we rejoice. This is the pattern. First, the destruction of idols. Then, the seeking of the true place of worship. And finally, the explosion of covenantal joy. This is the path to true reformation in our lives, in our churches, and in our land.