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Amen. Deuteronomy 26, the Bible reads in verse number 1, It shall be when thou art come in unto the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possesses it, and dwellest therein, that thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth which thou shalt bring of thy land that the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy God shall choose to place his name there. Now we've been away from Deuteronomy, of course, for the last couple weeks, but as we get back into this, let me just remind you of a few of the themes of Deuteronomy that come up over and over again. First of all, remember that Deuteronomy is Moses speaking unto the children of Israel right on the cusp of entering into the Promised Land. So they've already wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and they're about to go into the Promised Land and experience all the bounty, the land flowing with milk and honey, and so forth. And then the other thing I want to remind you of is that all throughout the book of Deuteronomy, there's been a heavy emphasis on the fact that worship of the Lord needs to take place at a central location, and that specifically giving, tithing, the first fruits, the offerings, the animal sacrifices, all of those things need to go to the central location, not to just be happening wherever, but there to bring them to the house of God, there to bring them to the place that the Lord will choose, which of course we know is ultimately Jerusalem, but at this time when Moses is speaking these things, that place had not yet been revealed yet because Jerusalem is of course the city of David. So it's not until David comes along that that place is mentioned. There's no mention of Jerusalem by name as such in the first five books of the Bible here. So it says here that when you come into the land and you get all this bounty, bring the first fruits unto the Lord. Now keep your finger here and go over to Proverbs chapter number three if you would. And this is a concept all throughout the Bible, this idea of giving God the first fruits or the first slings. Proverbs chapter three is a great example of this in verse number nine, Proverbs chapter three nine, honor the Lord with thy substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. And the idea here is that if you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all these other things will be added unto you. And if you give God the first fruits of your increase, then you're going to end up having more in the long run because you gave the first to God and then he's going to bless the rest of it because at the end of the day, God is in control of your destiny. God can either make your business prosper or he can make it fail. He can cause you to have all kinds of unexpected bills or expenses come up or he could have you getting all kinds of unexpected windfalls and bonuses and an extra money coming at you. And so God can take care of you, but he wants us to always put him first and give him what's first. You know, for example, we could go through the whole Bible and just come up with so many examples, but you think of, for example, Elijah and the barrel of meal, where Elijah goes to the widow woman of Zarephath and she just has a little bit of flour, a little bit of oil, and she says, I just have enough for me and my son. And then we're just going to eat this and die. There's a famine in the land. But Elijah tells her, make me a little cake thereof first. You know, before you and your son eat, make me a little cake first. And then he prophesies that the flower is not going to run out, that the oil is not going to run out. And of course she obeys. She makes the little cake for Elijah first. And then every time she goes back to that meal barrel, there's just more there. So it's a miracle, obviously, sort of the way that Jesus multiplied the five loaves and two fishes. Elijah is able to eat with this widow woman for months out of this one meal. It just keeps multiplying. It just keeps coming. But notice she had to make a little cake thereof first and offer it to the Lord, not giving it directly to the Lord, but giving it to the man of God, giving it to Elijah. And so the same idea is here in Deuteronomy chapter 26 about honoring the Lord with your first fruits, giving the Lord the first so that he will then bless you. So Deuteronomy chapter 26, it says that, of course, at the end of verse 2, it needs to go to the place where the Lord will put his name there. Verse number 3, thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days and say unto him, I profess this day unto the Lord thy God that I am come unto the country which the Lord swear unto our fathers for to give us and the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy God. And so the idea here is that God has done what he said he would do. He said he was going to bring us into the promised land. He did it. We're here. We're enjoying all these bounty and all these blessings. And so now we're going to give back some of that to the work of the Lord. We're going to give it back to the Levites, the workers in the house of God, and also it's going to go to the poor as well. It says in verse number 5, and thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God. And this is a really interesting passage because you don't really find this idea necessarily a lot in other places. But it says here, thou shalt speak and say before the Lord thy God, Assyrian ready to perish was my father and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there with a few and became there a nation great, mighty, and populous. And the reason I say that's interesting is because we don't often hear the people of God, Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, being described as something like a Syrian because obviously ultimately they have their own identity because they're founding a new nation, the nation of Israel. So they're typically going to be called Hebrews or Israelites or something like that. Eventually some of them are going to be called Jews from that southern kingdom of Judah. But here it's calling Jacob because that's who we're referring to here as far as the one who went down into Egypt, the Syrian who's ready to perish. It's Jacob going down into Egypt as a very old man and why is the Bible here calling him a Syrian, right? Why the emphasis on that? Well one very important thing to understand is that the Jews are not ethnically special. They're not genetically special. The Israelites aren't a special family because of their genes or their DNA or they're just a really good pedigree or stock or something like that. God is not a respecter of persons in that way. You know all the nations before him are counted as less than nothing. And so he's not impressed by a certain pedigree or nationality or red, yellow, black, white. These things are meaningless to God. The reason that the children of Israel were special is simply because God made them special. He just said you're special and so now you're special. And he even said I didn't choose you because you're so great, you're so wonderful, because you're more or mightier. He's saying that's not why I chose you. You know he chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because of their character, because of their godliness, not because of anything ethnic. And so by bringing up the fact that our father is a Syrian, he's bringing them down to earth and saying hey guess what, you're related to the neighboring people here that are surrounding you. You're not different than the Syrians physically. The thing that makes you different is the fact that the Lord is your God. That's what makes you the chosen people. That's what makes you special. It's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that matters, not some kind of a special ethnicity because guess what, you're Syrians. I mean where did Abraham come from? Where did Abraham's wife come from? Where did Isaac's wife come from? You know if you think about it, obviously Abraham and Sarah are from Ur of the Chaldees, so they're coming from the land of the Chaldeans. And then when you look at Isaac getting his wife, Rebekah, they get them from Laban, right? They go over to Laban's family, right? Rebekah is the sister of Laban and they go to Padan Aram, okay? So Padan Aram, the Aram part there, okay, is where we get the word Aramaic, the language Aramaic that part of the Old Testament is written in. But when you're reading a King James Bible and you get to that Aramaic part in Daniel chapter 2, it doesn't call it Aramaic. What does it call it in Daniel chapter 2 verse 4? Syriac, right? It says, then they spake to the king in Syriac. Syriac is Aramaic, Padan Aram, Aram, there is the biblical word for Syria, okay? So Rebekah is coming from Syria. Jacob then of course goes back to that same family and he ends up marrying Laban's daughters they are Syrian, okay? But then the Bible here is even calling Jacob himself a Syrian, right? So ethnically they're just like the other people around them in these other nations. The thing that makes them special is the fact that they're worshiping the Lord, that God has chosen them to be his peculiar people. And so this idea of a Syrian ready to perish was my father is basically saying my father was not really an impressive person because that doesn't really sound impressive to say, well my father was a Syrian ready to perish. That's not an impressive thing to say about your progenitor. That's actually a humble thing to say. And you know what? We should all have a humble view of who we are physically and not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. And sometimes you'll have this idea of racial pride or ethnic pride or national pride creep in even amongst God's people and it's just not a biblical concept. It's not something that really should have any place in our lives as Christians. And a lot of times we will sometimes want to maybe overreact to some kind of wokeness that's out there or some kind of an anti-whiteness or something. But let me tell you something, don't go to another extreme. Don't just react, right? Just why don't you just push those things out of your mind and think about it the way God thinks about it. God looks down from heaven upon the children of men and he's looking for those who fear him, for those who trust in him. And in God's economy there are two kinds of people in this world, saved and unsaved. Christian, not a Christian. That is all that matters. And that should be our identity and so here's another word for pride. Here's another word for boasting, glorying. And what does the Bible say? God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, him that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. In God we boast all the day long. So if I'm going to boast about something, it's not that I'm so proud to be an American or proud to be white or proud to be Irish or Swedish or whatever, you know, we think we are as white people. Whatever our parents told us we are, you know, and they're probably just picking European countries out of a hat sometimes because some of these things aren't really true. But the bottom line is that those things don't matter. They're meaningless. The only thing to be proud of is that the Lord Jesus Christ is your savior. And so let him that glory, glory with glory in the Lord. Now today we still have this idea where people think that Israelis or Jews are somehow better than everyone else, that they're somehow special. And you'll get these ideas that they're smarter than everyone else or they're just better at business than everyone else or, you know, they're just better at producing, I don't know, pornography than everyone else and they're better at human trafficking than everyone else or, I don't know, they're better at organized crime than everybody else. They're better terrorists than everyone else. But anyway, you know, you get this idea that they're somehow better than the rest of us or something. And, you know, sometimes Jews will have this attitude, you know, and it's usually only the most radical Jews that would have this kind of an attitude. You know, you don't want to just get the idea that all Jews think this way, okay? But more often it's Christians that have this attitude that somehow they are inferior to Jews, that Jews are somehow a superior race of people or something like that. First of all, Jews are not a race of people at all because it's a religion. It has nothing to do with ethnicity. They've been mixed with all nations of the world. That's why you have different types of Jews. You have the Ashkenazi Jews, which are the ones that are from Europe, and then you have the Sephardic Jews, which come from Spain, and then you have the, you know, what do they call them, Mizrahim or whatever, the Eastern Jews and so forth. They come from all over the world. Jews could be red, yellow, black, and white because they are an ideology that's brought together by their rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah. So they're part of a Christ-rejecting religion called Judaism. That's what makes them Jews. And most of them aren't even that religious at this point. It's just kind of a cultural thing for them to be a part of that Christ-rejecting religion. So why would we turn around and say, oh, you reject Jesus as Messiah? Well, you're one of the chosen people of God then. I mean, it's absurd. It's foolish. But this is what most Christians these days seemingly believe in the United States of America. Evangelical Christianity has decided that the Jews are God's chosen people and that they are descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that's what makes them special. Folks, first of all, number one, they're not any more or less descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob than anyone else in that region. In fact, probably a little less because they're so white as snow, most of them. They probably don't even have a lot of the genes from the patriarchs at this point. But even if that were true, it would be meaningless because Christ preached this repeatedly. John the Baptist preached this. Think not to say within yourselves we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. God doesn't care at all about your pedigree, your genealogy, your ethnicity. That's why there are no genealogies in the New Testament except just the genealogy of Jesus. Because Jesus' genealogy is the only one that matters. After Jesus, no one else's genealogy matters. And so then he twice tells us in the New Testament, avoid genealogies. Because they don't matter, because they are unprofitable, they're vain, they're meaningless. And so even Jacob himself is being called in the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament a Syrian ready to perish. God is already de-emphasizing this sort of ethnic superiority or racial superiority idea, letting them know that they're just like everybody else. And that's why anybody who wanted to in the Old Testament could join the nation of Israel and become a full-fledged member of God's chosen people just by getting circumcised and keeping the Passover. And you say, well, what tribe are they? Well, the Bible even addresses that in the book of Ezekiel. It says that wherever they decide to sojourn geographically, that's the tribe that will be considered their tribe. Wherever they live geographically, they get absorbed into that tribe. And so it's really sad today how Christians have been deceived into this ethnic view of God's chosen people or ethnic view of Israel, thinking that somehow people who reject Jesus are chosen or blessed or special. No, they reject Jesus, they're going straight to hell. And not only that, on the way there, God's wrath is already abiding on them. Because people who don't believe on Jesus Christ, God's wrath is abiding on them. And that was originally said about Jews in John chapter 3. Who do you think John the Baptist and Jesus are talking to in John chapter 3? They're talking to Jews. Okay? And that's who they're telling, hey, he that believeth not the Son has God's wrath abiding on him. Well, unless they're Jews. Oh, just kidding, that's literally everyone we're talking to in this chapter. So it's mind-blowing, but that's what people believe. And I feel like this verse is a good verse as a starting point to say, hey, wait a minute, what is special about this guy? He's Assyrian. He's Assyrian, ready to perish. That's who your father is. That's who the Jews are, Israel, the Hebrews. Who are they? Are they special? No. They were special when God was their God. Now that they've rejected God, now that they've rejected the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, well, guess what? They're not God's chosen people anymore. And the people who are God's chosen people are the people who do believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and worship the God of the Bible. That's why the Bible says in Philippians chapter 3 verse 3, for we are the circumcision, and he's talking to the Philippians who are Gentiles. He says, for we are the circumcision, which rejoice in Christ Jesus, right, and have no confidence in the flesh. So we're the circumcision because we believe in Jesus and because we're not trusting in our flesh. We're not trusting in our pedigree and we're not trusting in our works. We are trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ as our Savior. We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. That is what it means to be the circumcision. That is what it means to be spiritual Israel in the New Testament. It's as plain as the nose on your face in Philippians 3, 3, Romans 2, 28 and 29, Galatians 3 and 4. We could go on and on and on, all the verses that are ignored by Christian Zionists, dispensationalists, et cetera, with their bizarre Israel worshiping doctrine. Even in the Old Testament, God is already bringing the Hebrews down to earth and saying, hey guys, you're not that special, okay? The only thing that makes you special is the fact that you're with me. Okay, let's keep going here. It says in verse number 6, and the Egyptians evil and treated us and afflicted us and laid upon us hard bondage. When we cried unto the Lord God of our fathers, the Lord heard our voice and looked on our affliction and our labor and our oppression and the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terribleness and with signs and with wonders and he had brought us into this place and had given us this land, even a land that flowed with milk and honey. Now obviously we're talking about a literal event that took place in history with the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and entering the promised land. But there's also a spiritual application that is far more important. The spiritual application is always more important than the physical carnal application. And again, this is what's so funny about the Zionists because they're just obsessed with the land. Who does that land belong to? Who cares? This world's not my home. I'm just passing through, you know, so why would I be all upset about some land grant or something? Get over it, man. If you don't have Christ, what good is land? And it's so funny, well, you know, I know the Jews aren't saved. Well, I know they're going to hell, but you know, God's still blessing them. What, what, what the hell kind of blessing is that? Like they imagine this like, oh, I'm so blessed for 50 years, 60 years, 70 years, and then burning in hell for all eternity. But man, that was, you know, God really blessed me there when I was one of the chosen, one of those. Yeah. It's like, like they're just going to be in hell. Like, Hey, did I ever tell you I was one of the chosen people? Yeah. Like 5 million times. Like, do you think that's what they're talking about in hell right now? It doesn't even make sense. In fact, people who prosper are less likely to get saved because it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich man to be saved. So if you're not saved, you know what the best thing that could happen to you if you're not saved is for you to be poor because then you'll be more likely to get saved. So God so-called blessing you and making you rich Jew. He's literally just teeing you up for hell. Think about that. Like, Oh, look at it. Look at the Jews have all this money. See how God's blessing them. I mean, look, if, if you really believe that God is giving them all that money, then you're basically saying that God's teeing them up for hell. That God's basically like making it more likely for them to go to hell by giving them all that money. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Because by giving them a bunch of money, he's putting them in a category that says it's virtually impossible for you to get saved. With God, it's possible, but it's pretty hard. But the cognitive dissonance is strong with, with, uh, the Christian Zionists. I keep getting off on that tangent, but I don't have any regrets. We want to look at the spiritual application. We don't care about physical land or, you know, those types of things. Those are distractions from the thing that really matters, which is Jesus, salvation, the gospel. And so the best way to think about these types of stories is to think about them in light of the gospel because Egypt represents this world that we live in. The bondage represents the bondage that every unsaved person is in before they get saved. The Bible says to deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. So before you're saved, the Bible describes you as being in a state of bondage. You're in bondage to sin. You're in bondage to the fear of death. You are not redeemed yet by Jesus Christ. So you are like the children of Israel were in Egypt before they are set free. And so you could think of Egypt as the world. You could think of bondage as being the state that we're in before we're saved. And then you could think of the Passover experience that happened in Egypt on that final night that the children of Israel are there under Pharaoh's, uh, uh, oppression. And you could think of that as being salvation, right? Because they had to apply the blood of the lamb to the doorpost. And then they are saved that night physically. But it's a picture of spiritual salvation. When you apply the blood of Jesus to the doorpost of your heart, Jesus, who is that lamb of God, which take away the sin of the world. Now you are saved. And so then they leave Egypt and they go to the promised land. And the picture there is, of course, that we're no longer in bondage to the elements of this world. We, we, we still live in this world geographically, of course, but we're no longer in bondage to this world. And we have the opportunity or the ability to live the victorious Christian life. And the victorious Christian life could be represented by the promised land, right? So we, we leave Egypt, we cross the Red Sea. That's a picture of baptism because when they're crossing the Red Sea, they have a wall of water on either side of them. And that going through the water is a picture of baptism. And then they wander in the wilderness because of disobedience, unbelief, et cetera. But as far as getting to the victorious Christian life, that's really the goal. We want to be in the land flowing with milk and honey. So with those types of ideas in mind, and again, I'm kind of oversimplifying. And what I just explained to you is not the only correct interpretation of these events because these events are symbolic of many, many different things. And this is just one way to interpret them that's biblical, but there are other biblical ways to interpret it as well. But with that in mind, the idea here is that the children of Israel, when they get into the promised land, they're supposed to remember where they came from. Like, hey, you know, first of all, our father was a Syrian who was ready to perish when he went down into Egypt. Second of all, in Egypt, we were oppressed. We were afflicted. We were enslaved. How did we get out of that? Was it because we were so smart and we were so organized and we were so mighty? We overthrew the Egyptians. We had a revolution. No, we called out to the Lord and he saved us, right? We just, all we did to get out of that bondage, all we did to get out of Egypt was we just cried out to the Lord and he heard us, right? And of course that's another great picture of salvation because how did we get saved? How did I get saved as a six year old boy? I just called out to the Lord as my savior, right? I believed in my heart that Jesus Christ was, uh, they died on the cross, that he was buried, that he rose again, that he was the only way to heaven. I put all my faith and trust in him and I just opened my mouth and called upon the name of the Lord to be saved and you got saved the same way. You believed in your heart. You confessed with your mouth and you got saved. And so just like they called out to the Lord, you called out and asked the Lord to save you at some point in your life. Uh, assuming that you're saved, obviously there could be people here tonight that are not saved, but when you called out to the Lord and got saved, well, that's a glorious day. You're, you're, you're, you're set free now from that bondage of sin and obviously your ultimate penalty of hell that you were facing. And so now you're in the same situation as the person here who's speaking in Deuteronomy 26, just like they're saying, you know, my father was a Syrian ready to perish and we were evil and treated in Egypt. You could look back at your situation and say, you know what? I used to be an unsaved person. I was on my way to hell. I would have been doomed and damned because of my sins. But thank God I called out to him. He saved me and I've been delivered from that bondage of sin. And so now I'm being blessed by God, by living the victorious Christian life, by following God's commandments, by going to church, reading the Bible, evangelizing, doing all the things that we're supposed to do as Christians. Now I'm being blessed and have all of these wonderful blessings and, and all this joy, unspeakable and full of glory. And so just as the children of Israel are in the promised land enjoying the fruit of the land and the milk and honey, we're enjoying some spiritual fruits of the land and milk and honey if we're living a Christian life. Now let's say somebody gets saved, but they're not serving God, right? Let's say somebody does call upon the name of the Lord for salvation. They do believe in their heart in Jesus and they get saved. But what if they don't actually follow God with their life or maybe they don't join the church or, or read their Bible or do the things that they're supposed to do? What if they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, but yet they just continue to live the way that they lived before they were saved, right? Well then they're not going to be living that victorious Christian life. They're not going to be enjoying all the milk and honey and the fruit of the land. And this could be pictured by the people that are wandering in the wilderness. So there could be some people that are wandering in the wilderness and they're saying, well, where's the joy of the Christian life? I don't even know what you're talking about. Well, you know, you got to go to the promised land and you got to obey God to get to the promised land. Now getting saved is easy. It's just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Whereas living the victorious Christian life, being a real disciple of Christ, well, that's hard work, isn't it? That takes an effort that takes more. And so, you know, it's one thing to just put the blood on the doorposts and be saved, easy. But getting to that victorious Christian life and enjoying all of the bounty and all of the blessings that God has for you, that's going to take more work and more effort and not everybody's going to get there, which is why a lot of the people that are wandering in the wilderness, you know what they even said? They said we were better off in Egypt. You know, so it's possible to be a saved Christian and actually be living a more messed up life than you were before you got saved or to be more miserable or more unhappy or have more problems than before you got saved because they're like, well, yeah, things were bad in Egypt, but at least we had food. At least we had water. We're out here wandering in the wilderness. You know, we don't even have what we need in the way of food and water. We don't even have the leeks and the onions and the garlic and the cucumbers that we had when we were unsaved. Okay, but here's the thing. But God's got something better for you if you push through, okay? And so those of you that are saved, which obviously virtually everyone that's here, those of you that are saved, okay, you want to get to the blessings that God has for you. You want to live that victorious Christian life. And in order to do that, you've got to obey the Lord, okay? And then once you get there, you should never forget where you came from because you want to be very thankful for the blessings that you have and not take them for granted. You see, serving God could sometimes be seen as a drudgery or a drag, right? Oh, man, we got to go to church again. Here we go again. Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and it says, boom, it's Sunday morning again, boom, it's Sunday night. It just seems like we're just always going to church, I'm sick of church or sick of the Bible or whatever. You know, serving God can, to some people, become a weariness or a drag. Or they could be grudging their giving of their time or giving of their tithes and offerings or giving financially or giving whatever, that they could begrudge that and forget about the fact that God has taken them from bondage in Egypt to the promised land. And so bringing a basket of the first fruits is the least that we could do to give back to the work of God, to give back to the people of God when we've been given so much. And that's the idea here in this passage. So let me hurry up and get through this. It says in verse number 8, the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terribleness and with signs and with wonders and have brought us into this place and have given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey. And again, that's spiritually our testimony. You know, God wonderfully saved us. And now, you know, we're being blessed by God in the promised land. Verse 10, and now behold, I brought the first fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, has given me. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God and worship over the Lord thy God. And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee and unto thine house, thou and the Levite and the stranger that is among you. Who is benefiting from the tithes and offerings of God's people? The Levite and the stranger. Okay, let's look at the next verse and we'll get an expanded list on that. It says, when thou hast made an end of tithing, all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and has given it unto the Levite, the stranger. We just saw those two people at the end of verse 11. But then now we also have the fatherless and the widow that they may eat within thy gates and be filled. So the idea is that there be meat in God's house so that not only the Levites, who are the full-time servants of God, would actually be able to eat and have what they need to live, but also they could be a blessing to the poor. The idea with the stranger is that he's a foreigner, so he's probably not doing well financially. The fatherless, the widow, these are people that are helped by the church. So the church pays the staff and also does charitable contributions to the poor. This is biblical. It says in verse 13, then thou shalt say before the Lord thy God, I have brought away the hallowed things out of mine house, and also have given them unto the Levite and unto the stranger, to the fatherless, and to the widow according to all thy commandments which thou hast commanded me. I've not transgressed thy commandments, neither have I forgotten them. I've not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use nor given ought thereof for the dead, but I have hearkened to the voice of the Lord my God and have done according to all that thou hast commanded me. So the things that are to be offered unto the Lord, the first fruits, the tides, these things are not to be used in a common or unclean way. They're supposed to be brought down to the house of God, to the place where the Lord would choose, so that they could be administered there, so that the Levite could eat thereof. Everyone really eats thereof, including the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and so forth. This is why, by the way, when we have a church activity where we serve food, everybody eats thereof and it's paid for by the tides and offerings of God's people. Whereas a lot of churches you go to, you'll put your tides and offerings in the offering plate, but then you show up to a dinner that they put on and they want you to pay again. Okay, they want you to pay five bucks or 10 bucks or 15 bucks or they pressure you to do like a voluntary donation, but there's a lot of pressure. It's unbiblical. And the reason why it's unbiblical is that the point of the tides and the offerings is obviously so that the staff who full time is serving God can have what they need, but it's also so that everyone can enjoy together, including the stranger, the poor, the widow, the fatherless. And so you shouldn't be charging people money because of the fact that then some people might not be able to be included. If they don't have the 10 bucks or they don't have the 20 bucks or whatever, it's supposed to be something where everybody can partake and enjoy. And it's perfectly biblical for the church funds to pay for food and drink that everyone in the church enjoys at a church type event. So that concept partially comes from what we see here in the book of Deuteronomy and elsewhere. And so the Bible says in verse number 14, I've not eaten there of in my morning, neither have I taken away or thereof for any unclean use. Right? He's saying, look, I brought it all down here to the house of God to be administered properly and I did what the Lord commanded me. Look at, look at verse 15, look down from my holy habitation from heaven and bless thy people Israel and the land which thou has given us as thou swerest unto our fathers, a land that flows with milk and honey. And so you see again, the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience because at the end of verse 13 it says, I've not transgressed my commandments, neither have I forgotten them. And then it's saying basically in verse 15, look down and bless me because you see that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. So again, salvation is not by works. Salvation is by faith alone. No works required before, during or after salvation. But once you're saved, if you want the blessings of God, if you want God to look down and bless you and bring you into the promised land spiritually and give you that land flowing with milk and honey in your life, you've got to do what God tells you to do. You got to keep God's commandments. It always cracks me up when people say, well, if you could just do whatever you want and still go to heaven, why even, why even serve God then? That's even the point of serving God. It's a silly question for a lot of reasons, but not the least of which is that God has a lot of other ways of hurting you than sending you to hell because you could go through some pretty horrible things in this lifetime right now. And I don't know about you, but I want God blessing me now. I don't want to just be living some torturous, horrible, miserable life for the next 40, 50, 60 years and then get to go to heaven. No, I want to be blessed now and 10 years from now and 20 years from now. I want the milk and honey right now. Okay. And I want to go to heaven in the end. And I mean, God can really do a number on you in this lifetime if you disobey God's commandments. And that's only one of the four big reasons why you should still serve God, even though you don't have to do it to go to heaven. Okay. Uh, it's really a silly question because there are so many obvious reasons why we would serve God. How about the fact that you love you? How about you just love God? You know, and this is what I, I was literally just witnessing to someone days ago who, who said this to me like, well, why even do anything then? And I said, I said to this woman, I said, well, you know, so do you only do the right thing when you're being forced? Is that the only time you ever do anything righteous is when you're being forced to? And she's like, yeah. And I was like, and I said, maybe you misunderstood the question. Let me back up again. Are you saying that you only do what's right when someone's forcing you? Like, do you ever just do what's right because you want to do what's right. And then she's like, Oh, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I do that. So I never was quite sure, you know, where she stood on that, but usually 99 percent of people are like, well, no, of course not. You know, of course I just do the right thing because it's the right thing. Okay. Well, there's your answer right there. Do it because it's the right thing. Do it because you love God. Do it because you want to get rewards in heaven and do it because you want to live in the land of milk and honey. You don't want to be wandering in the wilderness with your tongue cleaving to the roof of your mouth because you're still thirsty and in so much pain. The Bible says in verse number 16, this day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments, which thou or thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart and with all thy soul. Thou ist avouched the Lord this day to be thy God and to walk in his ways. That's a word we don't use very much avouched, but it basically just means, you know, you're, you've confessed the Lord as God. You've avouched the Lord this day to be thy God and to walk in his ways and to keep his statutes and his commandments and his judgments and to hearken unto his voice. And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he had promised thee and that thou shouldst keep all his commandments. So what are they chosen to do? Because we talk about the Jews as being the chosen people in the Old Testament and let me emphasize in the Old Testament because they're not the chosen people now at all, not even a little bit. But when we talk about them being the chosen people, what do we need? Chosen for what? Chosen to be special, chosen that all the Gentiles might serve them and be their human cattle. No. They are chosen to keep God's commandments, to be his peculiar people, to be a light to the Gentiles, to show unto the rest of this world a more excellent way. That is what they're chosen for. He has avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people as he had promised thee and that thou shouldst keep all his commandments. That's what they're chosen to do and to make thee high above all nations, which he had made in praise and in name and in honor that thou mayest be a holy people unto the Lord thy God as he had spoken. So what is it that makes them higher than other nations? It's the Lord their God. It is the commandments of God that they are following. And so in the New Testament, we are the people of God. We are the ones who hopefully are following and teaching his commandments. The Jews aren't teaching his commandments, they're not following his commandments. They have their own crazy set of commandments that's not even in the Bible that they got from the Talmud. And so we're the chosen people. We are a nation that has been made higher than the rest of the people on this earth. And you say, well, that sounds kind of prideful to say that, you know, we're better. You know, Christians are better. But here's the thing about that is it's not a glorying in ourselves or in our own flesh. It's only the fact that we're in Christ that makes us better. And anybody else can become better whenever they want to by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior. This is not an exclusive club where people are locked out. Anybody can join the higher nation, the superior nation of God's people by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. OK. And so it's not a pride thing. Sometimes when we say that we know for sure that we're going to heaven, people think, oh, well, you must be just so confident in yourself. No, I'm so confident in Jesus because if it was about me, I wouldn't be sure. I'd be I'd be constantly wondering, oh, man, I don't know if I'm good enough. I'd be sweating big time if it was based upon my righteousness. No, it's confidence in Christ. And again, if you want to glory in something, glory in the cross of Christ, glory in the fact that you're a Christian, that should be your number one identity, not something ethnic or racial or anything like that. It's all about being in Christ. And so when we read this passage about bringing an offering to the Lord, bringing the first fruits to the Lord, we should take a spiritual view of this and say, hey, we've been saved. And not only are we spiritually saved and on our way to heaven, but we're also living a better life right now because God's blessing us and because we're following the wisdom of God's commandments, unlike the people in this world who are not following God's commandments and they're making a shipwreck of their lives. We're actually living a superior way of life by following Christ's commandments. And so giving the Lord our first fruits is the least we could do to show him our gratitude. Okay. And by the way, this is part of why we go to church on Sunday morning because of the fact that we're taking the first part of our week, you know, and first thing we do first day of the week, we're down here, worshiping God before we do anything else. Okay. That's why we do that on Sunday. This is why it's a good idea to read your Bible first thing in the morning. You know, this is why tithing comes first. It's the first bill that you pay, okay, because of the fact that we want to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and then all these other things will be added unto us and you could say, Oh, it's a drudgery. It's a pain. You know, when you actually think about the alternative being a slave in Egypt though, then all of a sudden serving God seems like your reasonable service since you've been bought with a price since you've been redeemed from bondage and so forth. And so take this passage and apply it to yourself. And whenever we're reading the old Testament, we should always look for the spiritual application instead of obsessing over the physical Jews and you know, maybe we can find a way to tie this in with, you know, what's going on over there with the Palestinians right now. Yeah, that's how a lot of people are reading their Bible right now. They're going through the old Testament trying to see if they can find, you know, the Hamas in there, you know, and, and, and, but you know what? We really ought to be doing is looking for, Hey, Susan, there, instead of looking for Hamas, we'd be looking for Jesus in there. That's the application that's actually relevant today. Let's probably, it's not word of prayer father. We thank you so much for your word and thank you for salvation. Thank you for delivering us from, uh, our sins and from hell and from all of the things that go along with being unsaved. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to live our lives in a more excellent way and to be a part of a more excellent group of people. Lord, help us to fulfill that calling. Help us to walk worthy of the vocation with which we've been called and in Jesus name we pray. Amen.