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[0:00] So Deuteronomy 15, starting in verse 19, going into the 16th chapter, reading down to verse 17. If you remember, Moses is here giving great command to the nation of Israel before they go into the promised land.

[0:17] And we have to take it within that context because he is speaking here with the reality that they are about to be a settled people, no longer a sojourning or traveling people. They are about to be a people who are taking possession of a land and living in a very defined region as opposed to moving throughout the land.

[0:36] And therefore, how they do things will seem to, will take on a little new meaning. It'll take on new implications. It'll take on new truths.

[0:48] And one of those that resonates through this particular passage, and not just where we're at this evening, but in the last few weeks we've been together as we're looking at Deuteronomy, is this reminder that there would be a place where the Lord their God would cause his name to dwell.

[1:05] There would be a place of his presence, and they were commanded to go to that place, right? They were commanded to make journeys and trips to that place, to bring their offerings to that place.

[1:16] If they couldn't do it wherever they wanted to, they couldn't do it at their house, they couldn't do it, you know, wherever they decided on the high places, or even though they did do those things, the truth is, historically they did those things, and they got in trouble about it, but they weren't supposed to.

[1:34] They were supposed to go to the place where the Lord caused his name to dwell. That just literally means the place where the tabernacle and later on the temple would be constructed. Those two places are shallow first.

[1:47] Shallow would be the place where God calls his name to dwell in the period of the judges. In particular, that's where Samuel was at. Remember when Samuel was born, and his mother took him and left him at the temple there at Shallow, and there was the priest there, and he was serving there, and that's where Ichabod was written.

[2:03] Ichabod means what? The glory of the Lord has departed, right? So the Ark of the Covenant was carried away in battle, was taken captive by the Philistines. They wrote Ichabod across it. The glory of the Lord departed.

[2:15] The very next place would be Jerusalem, and that would be when David brought the Ark of the Covenant in with all of his dancing and celebrating and rejoicing. But the meaning here is that there would be a place where they would go to do these things.

[2:29] They weren't just free to do them wherever they wanted to, because when they were sojourning and traveling, they were traveling as a group. They were traveling as a unit. They camped in a very definite unit.

[2:40] Sure, there were probably around two million people, but they were camping in a unit, right? Very ordered, and at the center of their camp is the tabernacle, and at the center of their camp is the presence of God.

[2:53] But when they live in a dwelling or they go to take possession of the land, they're going to be scattered, right? They're going to be all over the land. And the truth that resonates here, and I know I haven't even got to the text, but you need to see these things so that we understand the text, is that the more they are faithful, the more their land would expand.

[3:10] So there was the possibility, at least, that they would move further and further and further away from where God calls His name to dwell. So God was always calling them back, literally, calling them back to Himself, calling them back into His presence, calling them back to come before Him through all of these commands, these laws, these regulations.

[3:34] And you will see them tonight, of how God just continuously calls them back, calls them back, calls them back, even those that live far off. By the way, the things we'll read tonight are the very things that we can use to date how long Christ had a public ministry.

[3:50] How long His public ministry, how do we know that Jesus had a three, three and a half year public ministry? How do we know that He didn't just have a year-long ministry?

[4:02] How do we know that His ministry wasn't six months, like John the Baptist? How do we know that there were somewhere between three, three and a half years of what we call the public ministry of Christ?

[4:13] When He came, and they suppose He was about 30, they tell us in the Gospels, and then about three, three and a half years later, He's crucified. So we can ascertain from that, somewhere around the age of 33, He's crucified, and then resurrected.

[4:28] But how do we know that? Well, from His travelings into Jerusalem. The things that are foretold here, the things that are set in order here, as God commands His people, and then later on, we can kind of see it being displayed in the life of Christ.

[4:45] So, Deuteronomy chapter 15, starting in verse 19, I'm going to read down to the 17th verse of chapter 16. Moses commands the people, remember this is right on the heels, and the reason I didn't put these last few verses in chapter 15 with the verses that precede it, right after he had dealt with how they were going to interact with one another, right?

[5:06] How they weren't going to, the year of Jubilee, they were going to forgive the debts every seventh year, they were going to set the slaves free after six years of service, they were really just how they were treating one another.

[5:19] And now he's going to start focusing on worship, because worship is quite often a reflection of how we treat people, how we deal with people, because as we've seen resonate in the New Testament, how can we say we love God whom we have not seen and not love our brother whom we have seen?

[5:38] A.W. Tozer used to say, water never rises above its source. So we will never exceed in our worship of God, we will never exceed our treatment of fellow man.

[5:51] Right? We'll never worship God more than we display the character of Christ to those around us. And that's why these two are kind of intertwined and connected together.

[6:04] But here in verse 19 it says, You shall consecrate to the Lord your God all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock, and you shall not work with the firstborn of your herd nor share the firstborn of your flock.

[6:18] You and your household shall eat it every year before the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses. But if it has any defect, such as a lameness or blindness or any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God.

[6:31] You shall eat it within your gates. The unclean and the clean alike may eat it as a gazelle or a deer. Only you shall not eat its blood. You are to pour it out on the ground like water. Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God.

[6:46] For in the month of Abib, the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd in the place where the Lord chooses to establish His name.

[6:59] You shall not eat leavened bread with it seven days. You shall eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction. For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, so that you may remember all the days of your life, the day when you came out of the land of Egypt.

[7:17] For seven days no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory, and none of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day shall remain overnight until morning.

[7:27] You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of your towns which the Lord your God is giving you, but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name.

[7:41] You shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset at the time when you came out of Egypt. You shall cook and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses.

[7:52] In the morning you are to return to your tents. Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God.

[8:02] You shall do no work on it. You shall count seven weeks for yourselves. You shall begin to count seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. Then you shall celebrate the feast of weeks to the Lord your God with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give just as the Lord your God blesses you.

[8:21] And you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter and your male and female servants and the Levite who is in your town and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your midst in the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name.

[8:35] You shall remember that you are a slave in Egypt, and you shall be careful to observe these statutes. You shall celebrate the feast of Booth seven days after you have gathered in from your threshing floor and your wine vat, and you shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter and your male and your female servants and the Levite and the stranger and the orphan and the widow who are in your towns.

[8:56] Seven days you shall celebrate a feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord chooses because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and all the work of your hands so that you will be altogether joyful.

[9:09] Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses at the feast of unleavened bread and at the feast of weeks and at the feast of booths and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed.

[9:25] Every man shall give as he is able according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you. Deuteronomy 15 verse 19 into chapter 16 verse 17.

[9:36] I'm going to go ahead and say this text is rich. I don't think we will do it justice this evening even in public reading of it here together with you. It is such a rich text and it has so much implications and applications for our New Testament understanding.

[9:52] It is so rich in the things that it teaches us and it is so rich in the things that it shows for us. We see here this command, okay, that God is calling His people.

[10:03] Three times a year every male shall appear before the Lord his God. Three times a year. So what I want you to see is a calendar of worship. A calendar of worship.

[10:15] God redefined the calendar for His people. The month of Abib was considered to be the first month in the Jewish calendar. It is our March slash April, okay?

[10:26] It was not the first month in any other calendar of that day. It was not the first month of any other calendar which would have been in use. But God says, this is your first month because that was the day of the Passover, the month of the Passover, right?

[10:38] This is where we get our Easter celebration and that's why it fluctuates because it goes by the phases of the moon and the harvest and things like that and we really don't have time to get into all that. But this is, so from beginning to end we see that God is ordaining and scheduling cycles of worship because you have that first month worship.

[10:57] Then you have the worship after the grain harvest which would have been kind of mid-year. And then you have the worship after the summer harvest which would have been kind of at the end of summer, right? So it would have been our September slash October type of worship.

[11:11] And God is ordaining that throughout the year people would come before His presence and worship Him. These, by the way, are very, very instrumental in our understanding of what's happening.

[11:23] How do we know when Jesus died? How do we know the crucifixion? How do we know? And this is kind of the challenge that I give you. And I'm not here to cause questions, okay? I'm here with the understanding that we're the Wednesday night crowd.

[11:36] We like meat and we can kind of chew on the cud a little bit, not in a bad way. But we can get the tough stuff and we can kind of gnaw on it for a while and we can let it settle and all these things. And I don't want it to upset anyone and I don't want it to offend anyone.

[11:49] But, okay, when Jesus died He had a Passover meal, right? Passover type meal. He wasn't eating the Passover because He is the Passover lamb.

[11:59] Okay? They were in Jerusalem. Every male had to come to Jerusalem. But we also read in all four gospel accounts the day of His crucifixion, it says, for that day was the day of preparation.

[12:15] That day was the day of preparation. That day. Four times, okay? God doesn't repeat Himself if He doesn't want us to pay attention. Every gospel tells us that day was the day of preparation.

[12:27] Well, what's the day of preparation? That is when you shall kill the Passover lamb at twilight in order to prepare to eat the Passover meal that night.

[12:39] Jesus absolutely fulfills the type of the Passover. It's also why we read that that day, the day after when they went to the tomb or the day they had to hurry up and bury Him because that day was a holy day, a Sabbath day.

[12:56] Why couldn't they go into the praetorium? Remember when the Pharisees and Sadducees and everybody got together and the high priest went and they wanted to take Jesus and they put Jesus on trial and they took Him into Harajah, but it said that they didn't go in?

[13:08] Remember? They sent Jesus in there, but they didn't go in there. It said they couldn't go in there because they didn't want to defile themselves because that was the day of preparation. He is the Passover lamb.

[13:20] That's important. Why? Because you know what the Feast of Weeks is? There's another word for the Feast of Weeks. Pentecost. Pentecost. Remember how Paul says that Jesus showed Himself alive for over 40 days?

[13:36] And then He was carried into Heaven. And then we read in the book of Acts, there's this Pentecost. And then we read of Peter preaching this message at Pentecost and every man hearing the message in his own language, in his own tribe.

[13:47] Well, why would there have been so many people there? Because that is one of the times when all of the Jewish people were supposed to come back. God ordained that the people would be there to hear the message when the Spirit came.

[14:01] So these things are important, right? God had a plan and a purpose for these. But originally, what He's establishing here is He's establishing this calendar of worship that God's people would always continuously come before Him and be in His presence and be reminded.

[14:16] And sure, God is not caught off guard and He says, well, I'm going to utilize these days. No, these days in the very beginning and the foreknowledge and the planning and the purposes of God were there to be in place for the Passover and to be in place for the Pentecost and to be in place for the Feast of Booths.

[14:32] By the way, we read of all these things taking place, right? We read, this is where the branches would have came from when they put them down when Jesus came into what we call the triumphant entry because people would have been building tents to live around a Jerusalem because of the Passover feast.

[14:48] They would have been building these booths, right? So they literally deconstructed what they were living in and laid it on the road for Jesus to walk in the town. It makes a lot more sense, right? We understand these things and we're like, wow, it's amazing.

[15:00] But what we're doing is we're seeing how God is bringing them together so that they may worship. And there are four things that resonate just in these passages that I want us to see. Maybe we'll, and I won't have time to get into all of it tonight.

[15:12] I will have time to get into these four, but not into the richness of the passage and we'll see if the Lord allows us to come back to it. But what I want you just to kind of see from the passage itself without going too far and I ask your forgiveness for going too far into other sidetracks.

[15:26] I got carried away when I was reading. But I want us to see these four great truths. Number one, in this calendar of worship we see the priority of God. We see the priority of God. And we see the priority of God with this great declaration found in verse 19.

[15:41] It says, You shall consecrate to the Lord your God all the firstborn males. Now, God is giving way to redeem the firstborn of man.

[15:55] Because of the Passover event, the firstborn of all the Egyptians die. And God says, So all the firstborn are mine. They're mine, right? Every firstborn Jewish child was his. He said, They're mine.

[16:06] But you may redeem them with an offering or a sacrifice. And Moses is here declaring that same truth. You shall give to the Lord, consecrate to the Lord every firstborn male from your flock or your herd.

[16:19] You shall do no work with it. You can't use it for anything. You can't use it for any labor. You can't even shear it, right? It has to, it's set aside. It belongs to the Lord God.

[16:30] And in this truth, we see the priority of God among his people. because the firstborn is typically a time of celebration, right?

[16:41] Especially, let's talk about farmers, for instance, or those involved in an agricultural society, much like the Jewish people would have been. If you have these herds and flock, and the one thing you're looking for is to grow your herd and flock, and you're looking for offspring, well, if you're growing a herd or a flock, if you have females, that's fine.

[17:01] You can continue to add them so that you have more mamas, right? You don't necessarily make money on mamas. No disrespect to animals because it really has nothing to do with us. There's no disrespect to animals. They grow your size.

[17:12] You make your money on the males because you can't keep the males there with their mamas and you sell the males. That's what happens in cows. That's what happens in sheep. That's what happens in goats. Your money makers are your males, right?

[17:24] The mamas, you just add back to the flock and that's how you grow your flock. So you're at this point where like, all right, we've got a baby boy on the ground. Time for celebration. Yes, we're finally going to make a little money and God says, yep, but that one is mine because before you prosper, you're going to give me the right priority.

[17:49] Before you increase, you're going to give to me what is mine. And this consecration, dedication, committing every firstborn mail to the Lord is just this continuous reminder that God is first over self-gain, over increase, over prosperity, over stability.

[18:20] God is first because by dedicating him the first, you are trusting him for the next. giving him the first fruits is an expectation of more fruit.

[18:36] But you have to give it before you can see it. Especially in livestock because the gestation is a lot more, right?

[18:47] It's not like the first fruits of a harvest when you go in the first grain that is there, you're going to offer to the Lord because you know that tomorrow or the next day you're going to go out and gather more grain with a firstborn male. You're going to have to wait months before you get another one.

[18:58] But it's trusting God's providing more. It is just this reminder that he is first. He takes the place of priority.

[19:10] Listen, and no worship, no worship comes before him until he comes before all others. No worship is true. No worship is sincere.

[19:22] No worship is authentic. until he has the rightful place of priority in the life of the worshiper. Even today, this is not just an Old Testament truth, right?

[19:33] This is not, I mean it is an Old Testament truth, but it very much so has New Testament application and church age application because the only way we can say that we are worshiping him in spirit and truth is if he is priority.

[19:47] He is number one. And that's a great demand. It's a great cause, a great standard, but it's what God says has to happen. And he's speaking to them where it really matters, right?

[20:00] He's speaking to them in their income. He's speaking to them in their livelihood. He's speaking to them where it really hurts and really hits. And if we bring that application to us, he speaks to us in that same level too.

[20:11] He has to be priority over anything that may be most beneficial to us. He has to have a place of priority. The priority of God.

[20:25] We see that and it resonates throughout Scripture. Number two, we see the purity he requires. The purity he requires.

[20:36] Because true, authentic worship is not a worship that comes with whatever and however we want it to. Right? It's not a worship that comes however we would like for it to happen.

[20:50] And I'm not just here speaking about music genres even though that's a hot topic or style genres that's a hot topic. I'm not saying that as long as everybody doesn't do it like us and they're doing it wrong. I'm not saying that, right?

[21:00] That's not what I'm getting to. I'm speaking of its purity. Because a holy God demands and calls his people to pure authentic worship.

[21:11] And we see that here because the firstborn male belongs to God. Now, the temptation maybe I'm just thinking about this wrong and maybe this is just humanity. Maybe you would never think about it this way but let's just put ourselves in that position.

[21:23] Say you finally have waited so long and you finally have a little one born, a little ram, lamb, a little ewe there, not a ewe but a lamb and you're like wow, okay, we've got one on the ground and it's a boy and man, that's going to be great.

[21:34] You know, I'm finally getting there and you say wait a minute, this one belongs to God and you look down well, it's kind of messed up anyhow. And you can say well, at least God got that one. You know, it wasn't going to do me any good.

[21:46] It wasn't to make good market value anyway. It had some issues with it. I'm glad that one belongs to him. He said nobody would do that. Go open the book of Malachi. They did that. Okay?

[21:58] And God says, yeah, it's mine but don't bring it to me. But that doesn't mean you get to use it because it's still mine. See that? He said, because you're going to eat it.

[22:11] You're not going to eat it in my presence but you're going to eat it in your gates. You're going to sit down and eat it like a deer or a gazelle. It says, it's still mine. And you can eat it within your gates, the clean and the unclean alike, it says.

[22:27] But don't bring it into my presence because that what you bring into my presence is going to be perfect. Perfect. Right? God demands purity.

[22:43] He doesn't mess around with this by the way. We like to think well God will overlook it. And that's why I'm thankful for those hard passages in scripture. And that's why I'm thankful for those passages in scripture to make us scratch our head and go, wow that doesn't seem right.

[22:57] Because what it does is it causes us to face our humanity and it causes us to face our own temptations and to go, you know what, he's right. And this is why when we get to the book of Malachi, God looks at him and says, quit bringing me your sacrifices.

[23:12] He said, wait a minute. Throughout the whole Old Testament God says, bring me these sacrifices, bring me these sacrifices, bring me these sacrifices. And now all of a sudden he looks at people and says, stop, just shut the doors of the temple.

[23:23] What is God doing? And then he says, because what you're bringing me is messed up. I'd rather you not bring it to me at all. Jesus said something similar to that all the way at the end of the Bible.

[23:35] It ends in the book, the Old Testament ends with, don't bring me that which is not pure. And then the Bible itself ends with, don't be lukewarm. Either be hot or cold.

[23:47] But since you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because see, lukewarm worship is okay if it has a little problem. I'm doing the best I can. It's okay if, well that lamb, I mean its leg is a little messed up.

[23:59] But I mean it's okay, I'm bringing what I can. And God says, no, you bring me the best. And this has been the standard, you know, I'm not, I'm not an OCD person.

[24:11] I'm just going to be honest with you as a pastor. Some of you people that are OCD wish it said CDO so that it's in alphabet, alphabetical order and it matters to you. I don't know why.

[24:22] It doesn't matter to me. Things can be, you can go to my office and see that it really doesn't matter. Some of you really like to have things in order and you really like to have things there and you like to have it right and that's great.

[24:33] God has wired us all that way and we blend together perfectly and that's the way we're supposed to be. But you know there is one area of my life where really everything has to be right at least in my eyes and if it's not I kind of get bent out of shape.

[24:48] And it's in the church's worship service. It bothers me. And I'm not saying, I'm just being honest as a pastor. Because I feel like whenever we come and we're gathering together to worship, it should be as perfect as we are able to be in our worship.

[25:09] Are we going to mess up? Sure we are because we are imperfect people. I stumble. I mean, I, just to bring it down, I called a gentleman from Guatemala a grocomolean one time preaching, okay?

[25:22] I have messed up big in my preaching. All week long I said don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. And I did it. And I just completely messed up. And I admitted it.

[25:33] As soon as I said it, I said, wow, what a mess up that was. And I just owned it right there in front of everybody when I did it. But what I'm saying is our desire should be, God, I want my worship to be pure.

[25:46] I want my worship to be as perfect as I can present to you. because this is not only what you demand, it's what you deserve. Right?

[25:58] This is what you deserve. So the church should always be looking at how can we worship in a greater, in a purer way.

[26:09] How can we come before his presence? I'm not saying he's discounted because, hey, we're coming through the blood of the lamb, which is perfect, right? We're coming through the spotless one. We'll see that in just a moment, which is perfect.

[26:21] But that should be our heart cry. Not to just, ah, well, we're going to go in there and do the best we can. I have a feeling when I walk into his presence in glory, I'm going to realize that the best I could was never, ever tip of the iceberg good enough.

[26:37] And I'm just going to be like, wow. Breathe, girl. It's okay. Number three. Not only do we see the priority of God and the purity required, number three, we see the past recounted.

[26:54] In this calendar of worship, there is this past that's recounted. God is a God who commands his people to come before him and remember what he has done in the past.

[27:07] He is a God of remembrance, right? He wants his people to come into his presence and recount his faithfulness in past days in order that they may be reassured in the troubles of present time.

[27:21] He wants his people to know what he was able to do in the past as a reminder of what he still can do in the present. And he wants his people to recount those things over and over and over again because past remembrances bring great comfort and boldness for and boldness for present realities.

[27:47] They are the thing that pushes us through the present. Just quick question. I'm not going to ask you to answer it because I know we're videoing and all that other stuff.

[27:59] Maybe sometime we're not videoing and we're just audio and I'll ask you to answer it. Just quick question. Think about this. What gives you the greatest confidence in God today that you know he did in the past either in your life or in the life of someone else?

[28:19] Church history, right? That's what that is. What can you go back and be if God could do that for him or her then wow what can you do for me?

[28:33] I want to help you with that. Brother Jerry who's not here we'll pray for him a little bit has been helping build a library and so Carrie has put we've got this bulletin board when you walk down the hallway between the bathrooms.

[28:45] You can't miss it. Everybody knows where the bathrooms are. That bulletin board there. Now I've kind of become like a mission spotlight bulletin board hopefully and there's going to be this recommendation every month like hey here's a missionary.

[28:56] Brother Jerry's brought these short books. Very short books. Very easy to read. They're just missionaries that have done things in the past and I've got stacks of them in my office. It's been so good to me and I will say hey read them.

[29:08] I haven't read all of them but like the one this month is Jim Elliott and it's a very short book. If you want to read a lot on Jim Elliott I can give you that and as Carrie was she was getting stuff together.

[29:20] She was getting ready to put a quote down. I said I can almost guarantee you the quote you're about to put down. You're about to type there. We were riding down the car. She was typing over there beside me. She's like yeah. I said yeah. I said I bet you're about to put he is no fool who will give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

[29:36] She said how do you know that says probably the most often quoted phrase of Jim Elliott. I said the reality is that Jim Elliott never said that. He wrote it in his private diary. But I remember when I read that as recorded in his diary with the reality that he died for his faith and what God did for him.

[29:58] How God led the man who speared him to death to become the pastor of the area he was trying to reach and God's faithfulness there. How he's giving me assurance today and everything that I face.

[30:10] Because see God calls people you should remember the month of a Bible. Remember that month. Set it aside. Celebrate the Passover. One thing we notice and I don't want you to ever ever lose it.

[30:23] I know I've told you this before. I don't want you to ever lose this. All throughout the Old Testament when God gives his command he says it is the Passover to the Lord. The Passover to the Lord.

[30:35] The Passover to the Lord. You shall celebrate the Passover to the Lord. The word of God is very intentional. The word of God is very practical. To the Lord. When you get to the New Testament it is called the Jewish Passover.

[30:49] So well that's kind of splitting hairs. No that is making a national tradition out of something that was supposed to be a holy remembrance. That's what that is. It became a national festival when it was supposed to be something to the Lord.

[31:05] Set aside to remember what he did. You gave, you sacrificed the lamb at the right time to remember this is when he set us free.

[31:17] You ate unleavened bread to remember. We had to leave in haste because when he set us free it wasn't a progressive thing. I mean we were freed in an instant. By the way that matters because God does not progressively save you.

[31:29] He instantly saves you, right? He saves you with unleavened bread. You ain't got time to let the bread rise. He saves you so quick. Now in your sanctification you can eat all the bread with yeast in it you want to because it takes some time.

[31:42] That's progressive sanctification, instant salvation. That's what that means, right? So the reason it was unleavened bread, God says you ain't got time to let bread rise. Get it together. We got to go now because he saves you in a moment.

[31:54] You eat unleavened bread for seven days. Remember he set us free in an instant. We were slaves for 400 years. He set us free in an instant, right? You're to be in Jerusalem in his presence around him or in shallow in his presence and remembering what he did.

[32:09] Why? So that when you went back home you were living in the reality of a past deliverance. Friend listen to me. I know it's funny. I'm getting a little preaching. This probably should have been a Sunday morning message. That's okay. That's the beauty of this.

[32:20] We ought to live every day of the week in the reality of a past deliverance. And the only way we ever do that is if we come before his presence and we remember. We remember.

[32:31] He said you're not just kind of free. You are free. You are free to come here. You are free to worship me. You're free to celebrate me. And these are the things I do. So there's always the past recounted.

[32:45] Over and over and over again. God says I want you to remember. They didn't keep the Passover. Guess what they forgot?

[32:57] They forgot slavery. They forgot deliverance. They forgot redemption. They forgot God's power. And they were enslaved again. They were enslaved again.

[33:10] The past recounted. The fourth and finally. There is the praise extended. There's the praise extended. There are two other festivals mentioned here.

[33:23] There is the Passover feast. Which is often referred to as the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. Because the Passover is the original day. The seven days that follow that is the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

[33:34] Then there's the Feast of Weeks. When we get to the New Testament that's called Pentecost. Because that's the Greek word for 50. Because you are to count seven weeks from the time you put the sickle into the harvest.

[33:47] Which would have been 49. Seven sevens is 49. Then you count that very day. So that's Pentecost. Pentecost means 50. So there's the Pentecost feast. Or the Feast of Weeks.

[33:57] And you are to come before him. Because the harvest of grain has just come in. But did you notice what it says? You are to come before him and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. You shall rejoice. You should come back into this place and you shall rejoice.

[34:09] Why? Because he's just blessed you with the harvest. And he actually says you shall give just as the Lord your God blesses you. Your standard of giving is based upon his standard of blessing.

[34:22] As he blesses you so you give to him. Seems like a whole New Testament principle as well there, right? And you are there to rejoice. You've already celebrated this remembrance, this solemn assembly of deliverance.

[34:35] And now you're coming before him 50 days later with rejoicing. All right? And this Pentecost is not 50 days later. But you're there and you're rejoicing. And then he goes to the next one, the Feast of Booths or later called the Feast of Tabernacles.

[34:49] Because you were to live in booths and tabernacles to remember your sojourning and your wandering around. But that was to be after the summer harvest. And it says that you shall celebrate the Feast of Booths and you shall rejoice in verse 14.

[35:05] You shall rejoice in your feast. God says you're not supposed to just come in like, oh, well this is good. No, you should come in with rejoicing. Right? Celebrating. Magnifying.

[35:17] This is praise extended. And he's telling you, bring your whole family. The men were required to make the trip. All Jewish men were required to make the trip three times a year.

[35:29] God encourages them, bring their sons and your daughters and your male servants and your female servants and the orphans and the widows. Bring everybody in your town and come rejoice with praise and thanksgiving.

[35:42] Because true worship, this calendar of worship, makes God a priority. Comes before him in purity, remembering the past and extending praise.

[35:58] Has much to rejoice in. And he tells them, as God blesses you, so you shall rejoice and give back to him.

[36:10] And he says, every man shall give as he is able, verse 17, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you. But this one command is, he says, no man will come before him empty.

[36:23] No man will come before him empty. Because God wants us to worship him. God longs for us to come before him. We have much to be in praise about.

[36:35] Much. And he has blessed us with so much praise that we could pour out in rejoicing and celebrating. Brother Kenneth Swan, who came and walked with you through the rocks of the book of Revelation Sunday night.

[36:52] He used to lead singing for years at Normandy. Bless his heart. Didn't know music. Always sang off key. This is his own self, right? He testified to this.

[37:02] He would always tell the pianist, hey, I'm going to start, you just catch up with me. And he'd just take off. But he used to have this song he sang just about every Sunday. We picked on him about it.

[37:13] It's called Smile A While. And we would do a fellowship time after it. Almost kind of just beating your head. You can't hardly. To this day, I could sing it. I'm not going to. I'll never forget that song.

[37:23] But he used to stand up. He said, you know, if you have the joy of the Lord in your heart, some of you need to notify your face. People were like, what? We're sitting in church.

[37:36] I was like, wow. Pretty pointed, too. He said, you know, we're to come before him with rejoicing and joy and celebrate. I was like, there's a lot of truth in that. As a pastor, I was kind of like, all right, easy, Brother Kenneth.

[37:48] Let's calm down. I didn't know some of us walked in. It was a hard time. But I get where he was going with that. We come with praise. We all have had ample provisions poured out upon us to come into his presence and praise.

[38:05] And none come before him empty-handed because of all he's provided. Deuteronomy 15, verses 19 through 16, verse 17. Thank you, Brother. Thank you.

[38:49] Thank you. Thank you.

[39:49] Thank you.

[40:20] Thank you. Thank you.