The book of Deuteronomy was written to a second generation of the children of Israel that had come out of Egypt. The first generation God had caused to perish. They spent 40 years wandering in the desert. Now he gives their children, anybody that was the age 19 and younger at the time that they came out of Egypt God spared. But He tells them, when you get into the land there are certain things that are going to be required that you must do. That is what we are reading about here.

First in verse two He said, "Ye shall utterly destroy [notice] all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree." (Dueteronomy 12:2)

Isn’t that interesting that the very first commandment that is given to them is to destroy false places of worship. That tells me something about God’s priorities.

We worry about where we live, what kind of house we are going to live in. But all these things take care of themselves, don’t they?

I mean, we are not to worry about tomorrow. We spend an awful lot of time doing it, but we are not to.

That is not what's vital!

Do you know the most important and vital matter that you could ever settle with your family is where you worship and how you worship and what kind of message these children are being raised under.

You know, some might criticize a congregation as they do ours in Shreveport because we don’t have children’s programs. We don’t have youth groups.

We do just like what I am seeing here, young children sitting with their families in a place of worship, sitting just like the adults with the same need to hear the Gospel, hear the message of Christ and to be completely separated from every false doctrine or worship.

That is the first thing that God lists here in Deuteronomy 12 verse 2.

And He says in verse 3,

“And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.” Again, “that place”.

Now we don’t literally do that today.

We are not on a campaign to go and fire bomb, you know, buildings that we think are false worship. That is not the call. I know there are some that are that zealous where they would possibly try to do that. But in our teaching don’t we make a difference?

When we open this Word don’t we in pointing sinners to Christ in showing them the Truth concerning Christ and His Work and what He has accomplished make a difference between Grace and works, between Sovereign Will, the Sovereign Will of God and the so-called free will of man?

And aren’t we, whenever we make that difference, destroying every false notion, everything that man builds upon, those altars at which they worship: free will, works, will worship, you see?

That is what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to make these things plain.

I have not done what I am supposed to do if I don’t make these things plain with you or with my congregation or anybody that listens to me on the radio or any article that I write.

You know, people react. You get hate mail, you know.

“Why did you say this? How could you say that?

Aren’t you excluding a great number by saying this or that?”

People always testing your persuasion, but we have to make it plain.

We have to make it plain.

I know this.

You will never offend one of the LORD's sheep.

You will offend a lot of goats.

But one of the LORD's sheep, he has got to hear the Truth and in hearing it, it may not be immediately, but in hearing it the LORD is going to draw him in His time.

And that is who we are after anyway.

Don’t worry about the goats.

And don’t even worry about an offended sheep.

You will never be able to run off an offended sheep.

They get offended for a while, but they come back!