February 21, 2025 - Deuteronomy 12-14

The Lord continues to speak to the people through Moses and prepare them for entering the land.  Moses draws a sharp distinction between the religions of those in the land and that of Israel:  “You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree” (12:2) vs. “You shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation there. There you shall go. . . . And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice, you and your households, in all that you undertake, in which the Lord your God has blessed you” (12:5-7).  I recently wrote:  “The world’s religions exhibit deep differences.  The religious traditions of the world, in their essences, are incompatible. The only way to achieve compatibility would be to change the essentials. In our current culture, it sounds so ungracious and intolerant to note this incompatibility, but no measure of political correctness can change this fact. For all religions to be compatible, they must become what they are not, arranged and massaged in the likeness of contemporary notions of tolerance.”  Though perhaps not to others, this truth seems so clear to us.  The gospel is unlike anything else in the religious world.  And our God is unlike any other god.

Rejoice, the Lord is King:

Your Lord and King adore!

Rejoice, give thanks and sing,

And triumph evermore.

Lift up your heart,

Lift up your voice!

Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!

Jesus, the Savior, reigns,

The God of truth and love;

When He has purged our stains,

He took his seat above;

Lift up your heart,

Lift up your voice!

Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!   -- Charles Wesley (1744)